02.06.09 - Input Costs Have Little To Do With Farm Profitability…
AgVenture’s Terry Dulaney (left) and Shane Bray (center) discuss input costs and profitability with Bill Payne of Winterville, MS during the recent Delta Ag Expo held in Cleveland.
If that headline doesn’t get your attention, nothing will. In a year when both input costs and market prices have many farmers scrambling for ways to make a profit, the idea of input costs being largely unrelated to profitability would seem ludicrous, but only until you investigate the idea even further.
How is it possible to separate input costs from profitability when raising corn? Let’s start with a quote by the late Albert Einstein. He said, “You can’t fight a war and prevent a war at the same time. You either try with all your might to win, regardless of the cost or you will lose.” The same idea applies when raising a crop.
One of the greatest challenges farmers face today is being able to stay totally focused on winning without getting distracted by thoughts of not losing. Growers need someone who can help them stay totally focused on winning their war against both market prices and input costs and not become distracted trying to save money. Farmers know that they cannot save themselves into prosperity. There is only one way to prosper in farming today, regardless of market prices or input costs, and that is to raise the highest yields possible. Making higher profits is not a difficult strategy, but it does require total commitment and plenty of knowledge on how to achieve the optimum yield of a hybrid. It also requires someone to help farmers focus forward, not backward, once the war has begun. Going for the win doesn’t mean reckless abandon of expense controls. It does mean a methodical approach to monitoring and giving the crop everything required to achieve the highest the yields possible even when it requires spending extra dollars to do it. Increased yield can more than make up for any additional expense.
To begin this fight, farmers need to partner with someone who not only wants to help them win, but also has the knowledge of how to raise top yields and stay focused on high yields only.
“Today’s farmers are very smart people,” says Terry Dulaney, CEO of AgVenture Mid-South. “But they don’t have the level of information we have when it comes to winning the war on profitability. We need to remember that 75% of all hybrids never yield to their potential because they were planted in the wrong field. All corn hybrids are bred to perform on specific soil types. Understanding that and how to place each one is key. Unless the farmer has been given the information he needs to make the right placement decisions, he will plant them “blindly” into the wrong fields. That’s where we come in,” says Terry. “We give him “sight” and help him make key decisions that dramatically affect yield. Our Maximum Profit Specialists collectively saw 25 unique hybrids perform on 200 different soil types last year alone. The information they bring is invaluable.”
The key to a corn grower’s success today is for him to work with someone who offers “more than” just corn seed for sale or corn seed at a low price. Those practices are not only insults to a 21st century farmer’s intelligence, but they are also devastating to his ability to maximize profit at a time when he needs it the most. In fact, the minute a corn seed salesman starts talking about how much better their varieties are than someone else’s, shows the farmer plot data, or tells him how much cheaper his product is than the competitors, the grower should ask himself what value that seller is actually bringing. Every corn sales rep should be showing every customer just one thing: how he is going to help the farmer raise a better crop and make more money on his farm. After all, what farmers really need the most right now, in order to stay focused on high profits and not have to worry so much about input costs, is the seller’s time and information on how to manage the varieties he is planting.
“Every corn grower in the south should be shooting for 300 bushels per acre, says Terry, “and that takes a high yield focus.” We’ve done it and we plan to continue to use that strategy on more customers’ farms. After all, that is the kind of strategy that takes the worry and importance out of input costs.
For more information on taking your profits to a whole new level contact AgVenture Mid-South. They will help you develop your 2009 Cropping Plan the right way so you too can make 2009 the best year ever. You will be glad you did. 877-974 SEED or 662627-7060 www.agventuremidsouth.com