‘Tis the season of ag meetings, and I’ve been going to a lot of them lately.
Sometimes, the best stuff at farm meetings comes not from the speakers but the guys in the back of the room and out in the hall.
A good example was the South Dakota Corn Growers Annual meeting.
An economist and a grain market analyst agreed said that the economy was likely to be sluggish, but there would be lots of opportunities in the coming years for farmers and ranchers who had the cash.
During a break, I listened to one farmer who said he agreed. He said he was tiling land as fast as he could.
What about the farm program restrictions? I asked.
“I got out the program – haven’t been in for a while,” he said.
He figured there was more money to be made improving the drainage on his land than on relying on the government to provide a safety net.
Thanks in part to the his drainage work, he got all his corn harvested this year – and custom combined a couple thousand acres of corn for neighbors.
He dried their corn too. He put up a big temporary grain bin facility and a high powered dryer.
“There’s lots of opportunities,” he said.