Focusing on the host of financial challenges facing farmers, the Iowa Farm Bureau wrapped up its second annual economic summit this week. Bureau president Craig Hill, of Milo, says the state’s farmers and ranchers face a lot of economic pressures and identifying those is the first step in dealing with them and, hopefully, surviving. “There’s so much risk involved, a producer really has to look at their balance sheet and their cash flow and insulate themselves from shocks,” Hill says. “That can come from Mother Nature, it can come from a global event that may occur overnight, situations in the marketplace.”

Hill says his group wants to help producers deal with those market forces. He wants Iowa farmers to have the best possible information available so they can make good decisions. “It’s such a dynamic industry and things are changing so fast that if you don’t keep updated and you don’t understand the potential risks that you have, you can’t address them,” Hill says.

Producers need to be able to put numbers to those risks and identify them so they can protect themselves, he says. Hill adds, they also need to be prepared to deal with the recent upward commodity price cycle and land value boom which eventually will end.

(Radio Iowa)