By SUSAN BLOWER

Indiana Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Agribusiness has to adapt quickly to the changing economic times and practices of its customers, according to leaders in the industry who spoke last week at the Agribusiness Council of Indiana (ACI) Conference and Expo in Indianapolis, Ind.

"It’s all about timing and speed. Farmers can put a crop out quickly, and they’re asking tougher questions. If it’s a new product, they want to know if it’s going to work and have we tried it here," said Barry Day, CEO of Superior Ag Resources Co-op, based in southwest Indiana.

A panel of producers, retailers and grain handlers told more than 400 farmers and ag business leaders how they expected to adjust their businesses to stay ahead of the competition. "Farmers are much more focused and time efficient. There are more of them operating 24/7," Day said.

Scot Ortman, CEO of Kokomo Grain, echoed that opinion.

"Farmers are bigger, faster, and busier than ever. Today’s farmers are speaking a technology and digital language ... The phone is of less prime importance. They’d rather not talk to us. They text, and as needed, they can extract that information," Ortman said. "As a primary service provider, we have to exceed expectations. We have to be open when the farmer needs us to be open. We need to be fast, fast, fast and fast."

Asked how to retain employees, who work weekends and long hours during harvest for little more than overtime pay, Doug Goff, division manager for Helena Chemical Co., answered, "Retail is a hard business. It’s hard to keep morale high."

Day said that the employees who tire of long hours and leave their jobs often come back because they prefer working with farmers and understand the time pressure they are under.

Dave Harper, partner at Harper Brothers Farm, said his expectations of service have changed. "It’s a la carte. I don’t expect something for nothing. If I’ve beaten dealers down to a (lower price) and I call Sunday for service, I expect to pay for that," Harper said.

Customers are demanding more non-GMO corn that is not treated with chemicals, said Greg Beck, vice president of CGB Enterprises’ grain division. Currently, he said, identity preserved grains make up 10-12 percent of CBG’s market.

"I’m listening less to others and more to my wife’s friends. They are keenly interested in food safety and where their food comes from," Beck said. "I never thought this movement would be in the U.S. We are positioned so that if the demand hits, we’ll not be surprised by it."

Ag businesses that rely on water or rail to transport their goods are concerned about the reliability of those systems. "The bulk of U.S. exports are moved by water. The locks and dams system is outdated, small, and inefficient. We fear a major lock failure in the upper Mississippi River," Beck said.

Water resource development laws are poorly funded, and ag business leaders are urging federal legislators from the Midwest to address the problem, Beck said. Ortman said Kokomo Grain relies upon rail, but often the company has to take whatever is available. Goff added that Helena is "at the mercy of the railroad."

The regulatory climate for agribusiness has become difficult, the panel said. In response to increasing inspections and regulations, CGB Enterprises has increased its environmental department from one person to four and its safety department from one to eight, Beck said. "You need to know the rules and make sure you’re following them," Beck said.

Harper said his large-scale family farm is always trying to expand so the family can continue to farm into the future.

"Staying the same is going backwards. We need to expand...We think the future is bright. The next 20 months will tell the tale, whether you come through it," Harper said.

One of Harper’s strategies to grow is to assign each family member a specialty area and to find core people whose judgment he trusts. "As farmers, we are on technical overload. Purdue University taught my sons how to think through problems, and we’ve adapted the way we do things the last 4-5 years they’ve been on the farm," Harper said.

Adam Howell, partner on Howell farms in Central Indiana, said that he would like to see new technology that would help farmers make better decisions based on large amounts of data collected on their farms. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), a business management software, will be necessary for "tomorrow’s ag," said Mike Boehlje, ag economics professor at Purdue University, who moderated the panel.

Howell said the skill set for farmers has changed since his father’s generation. Leadership is his top concern as he develops a structure for his farm, which grows corn, soybeans, pumpkins, and processing tomatoes. "Most of the skills we need to develop are people skills. We need to identify, train and develop people. We need a structure to keep a good (employee) happy," Howell said.

Howell said he goes to outside consultants for agronomy and other professional-level skills.