Hope you are enjoying celebrating the holiday season and this letter finds you well.

2023 was an unusual year for the weather in Nebraska. Wet in the west and dry in the east. That led to highly variable dryland yields and good irrigated yields. With the decline in prices that started with the huge 2023 Brazilian corn crop, we have turned in several claims.

Although production reports are not due until April, we would appreciate getting them turned in soon. That would allow us to update APHs before the signing date in March. You will need to indicate how yields were determined on the report.

We had a lot of questions last spring about ARC/PLC. Last spring PLC was still the obvious choice. This year the PLC target price will still be $3.70 while the ARC target price will be 86% of the 5-year olympic price average. We will have to do some research to see which option is best. The following web address has information on the choice. https://tinyurl.com/fsaarcplc 

Although there is still considerable work to be done, we have made enough progress on the meeting room in our barn to hopefully hold our annual meeting there at noon on February 12th. In addition to our usual topics, Dr. Robert Milligan with Dairy Strategies LLC will discuss family and employee relationships on a farm. This is an important topic for anyone who works with family or has employees. We have listened to several of Dr. Milligan’s discussions and have found them to be interesting and useful. 

We are proud to announce that we are now a DJI ag drone dealer for Central and Western Nebraska. Austin VanHorn, who was the tall red headed guy at last year’s meeting, will be running our drone sales and services division. Austin has a degree in precision ag from Northeast Tech. Weather permitting, we will hold a drone demo at the end of our meeting.

We will send another letter after we attend our spring insurance update meeting in early January. In that letter we will cover any changes in insurance and include a full agenda for our meeting.

If you have any questions, be sure to give us a call. Hope to see you in February.

Sincerely,