The Governor’s Agriculture Summit is designed to bring ag people together. This includes conservationists and other experts to help sort out new Farm Bill laws for those investing in the future of agriculture.
John Blanchfield is the Senior Vice President and Director of the American Bankers Association’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Banking in Washington D.C. and has some advice for beginning South Dakota farmers.
“Use caution, and I encourage young farmers in particular to look at strategically what their skill sets are, and what things they have to help make money, and some of them have a lot of knowledge about technology and computers and precision agriculture and all these other things – I try to encourage them – think about other ways than just buying another acre of land to get your financial footing underneath you. There are services and things you can sell to maybe your neighbors that will help you kind of build a business that has some support under it that if interest rates were to go up or if land values were to correct you wouldn’t be wiped out,” says Blanchfield.
Blanchfield also says beginning farmers are much more dependent on borrowed money than established farmers, and any increase in loan rates would affect them the most.
