By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent FORT WAYNE, Ind. — For Sheila Peters, a series of workshops designed for farm women to better understand and participate in farm management decisions couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
Peters, who lives in Allen County, Ind., and her five siblings were recently left their mother’s farm in Iowa. None of the siblings lives there.
“All of us grew up on the farm, but that’s been years ago and several careers ago,” she said. “So we’re starting from square one. So far, (the workshops) have covered everything we’re looking for.”
Annie’s Project is a six-week course sponsored in Indiana by Purdue University extension. Courses began in February and will end the last week in March. The program is named for the mother of the founder, Ruth Hambleton, a former extension educator in the southern area for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“One thing we’ve learned so far is that running a farm definitely needs to be a partnership,” said Vickie Hadley, Allen County extension educator for consumer and family sciences. “It’s a heavy load, trying to keep up with everything.”
While their mother’s farm has a good renter, Peters said she and her siblings want to know as much as possible about today’s agriculture.
“We have been left a wonderful gift,” she said. “This is also a great opportunity to network and form friendships. In talking to the other women, I’m in awe of all the sacrifices they’ve made to keep their farms. I’m proud they want to be so informed and active in their farm operations.”
Cynthia Berning, also of Allen County, was born and raised on a dairy farm and married a dairy producer. She has done all the bookkeeping for the farm, but said she still thought she needed more information if she ever had to take over the farm’s operation.
“I wanted to be sure I knew what to do in case something happened to my husband,” she said. “Some of our children are counting on the farm for their futures. When the opportunity came up, I thought it was important enough to do it.”
In addition to the dairy, the family raises a lot of grain, she said. “The corn we put back into the feed, and the wheat we sell. We use some of the beans for feed and sell the rest. With this class, maybe I can start giving them some advice.”
Over the course of the six weeks, the women are learning about farm finances, including estate and retirement planning, computer software and record keeping and writing a business plan. Last week, the topic was marketing crops.
“When it comes to marketing, studies have shown that women make decisions better and quicker,” said Jodi Heath, commodity manager for POET Biorefining at the company’s ethanol plant in North Manchester, Ind. “Women take the emotion out of it. And that’s what you need to do. You just need a good marketing plan.”
Teaching women the art of marketing has been something Heath said she always wanted to do.
“There aren’t a lot of female grain merchandisers in the industry,” she said. “So if I can teach women something, I want to do that.”
Farmers need to understand the different types of grain contracts and should diversify when forming a marketing plan, Heath said, adding they should also know their cost of production.
“The question of what’s the best price for grain depends so much on your cost of production, and there are a lot of farmers who can’t say what that is,” she said. “You have to buy the seed, you have to buy the fertilizer and you have to take into account the costs of running the planter. There’s fuel, labor, insurance, taxes. You’ve got to know what it takes to sell your product to be profitable.”
The more people know about marketing, the better off they are, said Corinne Alexander, Purdue extension specialist.
“People who tend to have more marketing knowledge and marketing skills are those who achieve higher prices for their products,” she said. “That’s more important than the size of the operation, the age of the farmer or the amount of on-farm storage they have.”
The Annie’s Project workshops are hosted by extension offices across the state. Each session generally includes an interactive video conference and a local speaker. In Allen County, 13 women registered, with participants from Allen, Steuben, DeKalb and Huntington counties in Indiana and one from Hicksville, Ohio, Hadley said.
“I hope the women raise their awareness of the resources that are available, and use the group for networking. It’s easy for them to get overwhelmed by the amount of information,” she added.
The group is diverse, with some actively involved in the farm operation, and others not, Hadley said.
“We tell them to think, ‘What if?’” she said. “We make sure they put together an action plan. They knew they’d end up understanding more about the operation and become more involved.” |
