In last year’s letter, we talked about war, drought, politics, inflation, rising interest rates, and COVID-19, all of which happened in 2022. The only thing that changed in 2023 was that inflation was not as bad. When I was young, Vietnam and Watergate dominated the news, but I don’t recall the country being as divided as today.

As a farmer, the biggest change from last year to today was the price of corn, which was over $7.00 but today is about $4.50. Fortunately, some expenses such as fertilizer and glyphosate have come down but not enough to offset the price decline. That’s going to make management and controlling expenses more important for the growing season ahead.

Last week we attended AgriSompo’s Crop Insurance spring update. Other than a few housecleaning issues, there aren’t going to be many changes in crop insurance this year. Corn hail rates are a mixed bag with some areas going down for the first time in several years. Other areas that have had more hail in the past couple of years will see increased rates.

They also discussed a weaned calf policy that might be of interest to some of you next year. In contrast to other livestock policies, this policy works similarly to a crop MPCI policy.

While our barn is not fully finished, it will be done enough to hold our annual meeting this year.

One change at this year’s meeting will be Dr. Bob Milligan, senior Consultant for Dairy Strategies, LLC. Dr. Milligan is a professor emeritus at Cornell University where he taught leadership and management principles. Dr. Milligan will discuss family and employee relationships on a farm. We have listened to several of his webinars and found them to be interesting and useful.

As we stated in the last letter, holding the meeting in the barn will allow us to have a drone demo after the insurance meeting is done for those who are interested. One group that I feel will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of drones are cow/calf operations. Below is a thermal image of a calf hiding in a wood pile. They were able to find the calf within 5 minutes with the drone after spending quite a bit of time on foot. The white spot is heat from the calf hiding in the tree pile.

Meeting Agenda