America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Turning Weather into Wealth: Rainfall Insurance and the Future of Agriculture
Ever wondered how to turn unpredictable weather into a financial advantage? Join me, Jim Sabe, as I sit down with Sheridan Visser, a seasoned crop insurance agent from Farm Credit Services, who brings her expertise from Texas to the challenging terrain of Bowman, North Dakota. Sheridan shares her personal journey of relocating, her impactful career start in 2017, and how she balances life on a cattle ranch with her husband, Austin. This episode promises to unfold the intricate tapestry of rural life, blending elements of community, agriculture, and family.
Discover the powerful role of rainfall insurance as a safety net for ranchers facing the harsh realities of droughts. Sheridan vividly illustrates how historical data transforms skeptical ranchers into believers, showcasing the tangible benefits these policies provide. With insights drawn from her own experiences as a rancher and mother, Sheridan offers a compelling look at how these financial tools can safeguard livelihoods and ensure sustainability in a volatile climate. Learn about the nuances of Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage insurance, and how these evolving policies are tailored to meet the diverse needs of farmers and ranchers across North Dakota.
As we gear up for a bustling year of land auctions and machinery sales, we reflect on Pifer's remarkable 25-year journey. Celebrating with our community, we highlight the importance of quality land and well-maintained equipment in fetching top market prices. This episode isn't just about insurance and auctions; it's a tribute to the resilience and innovation within the agricultural sector. With a heartfelt toast to the festive season, we extend our warmest wishes for a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, looking forward to what 2025 holds for our vibrant community.
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Contact the team at Pifer's
Welcome to America's Land Auction here. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for today's episode on this beautiful Saturday morning in southwest North Dakota. Folks, we've got a lot of things happening on the show this morning and we want to talk about some things upcoming with Pifers and what we've had this last week. And I do have a guest here this morning, sheridan Visser, from well, now Bowman, north Dakota. Her and her husband, austin, just moved there but she's been working for Farm Credit and after I we'll get to her in here in just a few minutes. But I want to visit about what happened this last week with Pifers.
Speaker 2:We've had some great sales land sales and machinery sales this week, this past week but we just had a really great sale up here in Fergus Falls, minnesota. The machinery sold very well. Get on our Facebook pages and take a look. The tractors sold well, the semis we had the semi over $100,000. Some tractors over $400,000. I will say this Machinery Pete said that we sold the highest planter in the history over 35 years that's ever been sold by auction in America with the planter, and that was at $397,500.
Speaker 2:Tremendous sale for the Gillespie Farm Retirement Folks. If you're looking to do a retirement sale or you're looking for equipment, just get a hold of us, we'd be glad to help you out. And same on the land, we'd like to help you out with selling. Or if you're looking for land, I know I just had a guy call me the other day. He's looking for land in Billings County, north Dakota. So just keep that in mind if you're ever wondering what you want to do with your money and we say, put it in the land. Land's a great investment. So again back to my.
Speaker 2:I tell you what a great guest here this morning, sheridan Visser. She works for Farm Credit Services in the Insurance Division and we're going to talk first of all about how she got to North Dakota from Texas. She is a, you'll hear by. She still got some of that accent that we all kind of love and laugh about once in a while, y'all and stuff like that. But she got to North Dakota and, sheridan, welcome here this morning. It's a beautiful day, kind of. Give us an update on how you got to Bowman Scranton Reeder, north Dakota.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So yeah, I was born and raised in Amarillo, texas, and went to school there, for college in Canyon, Texas, at West Texas A&M, and during that time I happened to run into Austin, my now husband. He was wintering down there and working at different feedlots down there and rodeoing down there, so just through the winter, because you can't really rodeo a whole lot in North Dakota in the wintertime. So by happenstance ran into him down at a dance hall in Amarillo and well, I like to joke around that. I went to the bar one night and woke up three years later in North Dakota and my dad said I don't think I'd go there anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get rid of that bar so yeah.
Speaker 3:Austin brought me up here and to this area. We were over by Reeder for the last eight years and just last week we moved to Bowman. So this is kind of where we're at now and just last week we moved to Bowman. So this is kind of where we're at now, but we've got land all between Bowman County and Adams County, between leased land and owned land and running cattle around here.
Speaker 2:That's kind of your family. Occupation is running cattle and you both have side jobs to help, you know, subsidize a lot of that. But you know as we know it. You know you've got a couple of kids now. The family is growing and at least they are original North Dakota residents. But you know your folks come up a lot and it's very nice to get to see them. And Austin's parents now live in. Where were they at down in South Dakota? Yeah, hot Springs.
Speaker 2:Hot Springs, there springs there, yeah, right outside hot springs and and they, they come up quite a bit. So it's kind of nice, um, you know, and then you, you guys are very friends with my daughter and husband and the grandkids, so we're all kind of involved in one big family episode when everybody gets together. You know, we got kids and dogs and horses and and cattle and and, uh, so it's just kind of fun to see how you've adapted to us and, like I said, you kind of fit in like another daughter for me. So we're just having a great time living life in southwest North Dakota. And then you got this job at Farm Credit Service as an insurance agent for them. Kind of tell us about how you got, excuse me, how you got into that and then, and then then we're going to move into a subject that is very different for me yeah, sure thing.
Speaker 3:so I started working for farm credit back in 2017 and people say, well, how do you know? You wanted to be a crop insurance agent and I'll honestly. I was fresh out of college and I needed a job and they're hiring and the job was crop insurance. So I learned real quick and they taught me and they've got a great training program to mentorship program to help you get into the job and really learn your best and learn from agents that have been doing it for 30 plus years. So it's been such a great company to work for. They make sure you have all the training that you need and, and, yeah, make sure that you're you're the best in the industry, and it's been great to be brought up under some mentors that have just the best knowledge.
Speaker 2:So and farm credit is a big part of of agriculture and we are our company, is ag based land and is our main feature, but machinery also. So they kind of go hand-in-hand, you know, with the insurance process. You know, and we do a lot of land sales. I mean we have guys that are taking out loans for it and you know a lot of it's farm credit or local banks. But you know, the company you're working for has got a broad base in agriculture and they step up to the plate quite a bit and then have you as an insurance agent now.
Speaker 2:And one way of protecting everybody's assets is having good crop insurance. And crop insurance has been very good over the last couple years, a lot better than it was in the 80s, when I was farming in the early 90s. I mean it wasn't good but you had to have it and it seems like all you did is pay your premium and didn't get much else out of it. Things are changed now. The crop insurance has been changed for the better and now they've got a thing called rainfall insurance. And you know, let's just touch very lightly on that right now Because we got about, you know, five minutes left in this to keep rolling.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's just one of those things where we could have used that years ago and we have enough shortage of rain in our country that it's just kind of tough to make it work and get going again. But to me it's like a crapshoot when people talk about how they pick their months or their timing. So just kind of give us a quick synopsis you know we still got about four minutes here and go over a few things and then we'll get into the meat and bones of this thing and in uh in our second session yeah.
Speaker 3:So basically what it is is insurance to cover lack of rainfall and this is kind of the product that's for farmer, for ranchers. You know, cattlemen, hay growers, that portion. So crop insurance, you know you see that on all the crops. Well, now this is a product where I really get to get out on the ranches and talk to cattle. You know growers, hay growers, people in my line of work at home. So I'm passionate about this product because I am a rancher, you know, and it's personally helped our operation and these, you know we call them drought years, but really you don't even have to have a whole year of drought, you just have intervals, and I'll get into that. But if you have two months of drought then you may get paid for those two months. So that's kind of neat to see. You can break it apart, you can customize it and I usually use historical data to choose what do we want to cover.
Speaker 2:So and you know you look at that and when you talk about the intervals. But you know, again last year we didn't have much moisture in the wintertime Snow was very lack thereof, and this year is kind of the same thing. We're getting a little bit here and there, but it just doesn't amount to anything in moisture, and so we're still pretty bare out in western North Dakota. So to me there's a time and place for this thing right now, especially when everything is so expensive, doesn't matter what you're doing. You know you got the groceries, you got the feed bills, you got mineral, you got vaccines, everything, and then all of a sudden, boom, you get a drought thrown in on you and you don't have any assurance of getting something through that.
Speaker 2:This is what makes it kind of fun, and you know, to me is you could put a dartboard up and just throw a dart and kind of say, okay, here's my. But there is some science to where you guys think about you know these months and this month, and you know you always think well, july and August are growth months. You know, yeah, they are, but there's other months that will be just as dry or drier than those months, and I don't understand the game yet, and that's why I'm glad we have you on here today and we've got about two minutes left. Just explain to us how you make that presentation to the rancher, and you know ranchers are most conservative. They're going to say, nah, this don't work. You know kind of like what I would do. You know, tell me how that works.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I like to say I'm not selling it. The numbers are. Look at these numbers. I have 10 years' worth of data to show you what it is doing, so it's not a crap shoot. Sit down with me, let's analyze these, or let me analyze them for you. I do appreciate being the expert in this because I am an analytical person.
Speaker 1:So I'd say you know, this is exactly if you'd had it on your policy.
Speaker 3:This is what you would have been paid if you had it this year. And that's when the light bulbs start going off, because I can use their acres, their location, the historical data, and they say, oh, like this isn't, you know, hypothetical. Like this is what I would have been paid had I signed up for it. So I think that's the light bulb moment is when I can show them the data.
Speaker 2:And you know, it's really an eye-opener for a lot of people, because you just don't understand. We all know when we're in a drought I mean you don't have to tell us, but we're always so fixated on that, we worry about everything. Worry about that, but not a lot of other things now here, if you had this insurance, this here would help soothe your pain and the worries and be able to kind of keep moving on without having that dread look on your face all the time. I'm wondering how am I going to be able to pay for things? Now? You know, and you know we all know water is very important in our country. I mean, we got to have wells or pipelines or something.
Speaker 3:And if the stock?
Speaker 2:dams aren't full and the creeks aren't full, we are in big trouble. That's right. So we're getting down to the end here this first segment and when we come back to the second segment, we're going to get into the meat and bones of this thing and find out how it really works, and bones of this thing and find out how it really works. But again, I'm Jim Sabby, with American Land Auctioneer, your host for this Saturday morning on your great radio stations. You can get on Apple and Spotify and we've got blogs going out all over. So just make sure you check us out at Piferscom and we'll be glad to help you out anyway, and we'll be right back into our next segment making about two thousand dollar.
Speaker 1:Fifty thousand dollar. Where's seventeen fifty dollar here? Now do so.
Speaker 2:Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host. We're on the second segment here this morning. First I'd like to thank all our Piper staff. You know our auctioneers, our real estate agents, our land management. I'd like to thank them for sponsoring this show for us every Saturday morning on these local radio stations. If you were looking for something to sell or buy, get on Piferscom and get a hold of any of us representation guys, whether we're auctioneers, real estate agents, land managers, or if you just want to talk to somebody about you're looking for stuff, get a hold of everybody at Piferscom and we'll be glad to help you out. All right, in our second segment here we are talking to Sheridan Visser, insurance agent for Farm Credit, and we're talking rainfall insurance, and you know she's been at this eight years, I believe. Is that right, sheridan?
Speaker 3:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Eight years. She's got this thing figured out and, folks, she's a rancher herself. Her and her husband ranch, they have cattle and they put up hay, and so she works the off-farm at Farm Credit in Austin and is working at the sale barn. I don't know if they've got anything going on today, not a Saturday morning probably. Maybe they do have a sale or might have had one yesterday, but, um, yesterday, yeah. So when you, when you think about it, uh, they work all day long and then get back out of the ranch. Now austin doesn't have to be at sale barn every day, um, but seems like this time of year he has been. But, uh, you get. Uh, you know, you're lucky enough. Now, you guys moved right outside of bowman, so you, you're probably what, three miles from your work. That's about right, isn't?
Speaker 3:it yeah, three to five miles, yeah, yeah and so it makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 2:You've got two kids. Let's talk about those kids for a minute, and then we'll get into your rain insurance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to so. My kiddos, of course, are the cutest in the world. Every mom thinks so, but Stetson, he is three years old and he's just a wild little cowboy. You know that he loves playing with your grandsons and they all think they're out of a Western. And you know, Gunsmoke, specifically, is one of their favorite activities.
Speaker 3:But yeah, stetson's three and he is a proud big brother to his six-month-old baby sister. Her name's Laramie and yeah, they've just taken to each other and he loves being big brother. He thinks it's his job to protect her. For sure, anytime she cries he'll go run into her and say big brother to the rescue, which? I think, that's a little more Paw Patrol coming out in them.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see how the dynamic grows, as Laramamie is the, the little sister being protected not only by stetson, but little max and haze too, pretty well taken to her.
Speaker 2:So yeah they're a fun group well, we're glad you moved closer um into our area. Our office is just not very far from uh, your guys little ranch you bought there. But now let's get back into farm and the rainfall insurance so kind of explain things how it work to everybody. And again, it is part of agriculture and you know we call this America's land auctioneer but you know we've got to have protection out there in the country for these ranchers and the farmers and this revenue or I shouldn't say revenue the rain insurance has kind of been the next step. That's really helped out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, casually you hear the word rainfall insurance thrown out and if that's good enough, we'll call it that. But if we want to be technical and you know, you see what the policy is called when you're looking into it. It's called pasture, rangeland and forage insurance. So if you hear about PRF, it's the same thing as rainfall or what people are calling rainfall insurance. Yeah, so nuts and bolts of that is it's ensuring the lack of rainfall whenever we're looking at historical average. So we're going to look at, you have to pick your coverage level, you have to pick your productivity factor and there's a lot of things that are customizable. So it can be a lot to take in. But make sure you find a good agent that knows what they're doing, that will sit down and analyze it and they'll walk you through all these numbers. So the basics is you pick a coverage level. I recommend 90%. You might as well do the highest, but you can go lower if you want to. But what you do is we see the historical rainfall average and anytime it falls below 90% you are going to trigger a payment if you're at a 90% coverage level. When they talk about the productivity factor, that's just talking about how much of the county value you're going to get paid once a claim is triggered. You can go all the way up to 150% of the county value. You know, just for an example, county value in Bowman County is $20.66 for grazing. So if you have 150% of that, you know you're going to get paid a little bit higher. 150% of $20 is what it would pay. So you play with your premium if you need to for your budget and you can back that down a little bit. But since grazing is so affordable, people tend just to do that 90% 150% productivity factor and get as much paid as you can.
Speaker 3:Now, where we try to look at what's going to be covered, you break the whole year down into intervals and those are two-month like mini insurance periods, so like January, february, march, april, then May June, all the way through the year until you get into November. December is the last one. So the policy does run from January 1st to December 31st, so you got to stay within there. You can't do like a December, january and then your coverage is a split up of those and you can choose how many intervals you want to cover. You have to cover at least two intervals or you can cover the whole year if you want to spread your risk out. So if you want to cover every month, you can.
Speaker 2:I've talked to people that you know they're just picking a couple intervals and that's it. I've talked to a guy in one area where I think he's picked up and I think he leaves out the May June, but everything else he picks up, or something like that. I mean, it's just unbelievable how you can set this how you want it, and I think that's what makes it really nice. You know, it's just not something here. Either you take it or leave it. But no, you can set it how you want it. You set it up the way you want it on your place, and that really is kind of nice to see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, first thing I do when I talk about this policy is I get to know the person. I'm like hey, what's your risk comfort? You know, do you want to spread your risk out across the whole year, or do the whole year? Or do you go to deadwood every weekend and, you know, throw everything on red? You know that's kind of like there there's ways to look at this there really is.
Speaker 3:You can try to put it all into just two intervals and, and yeah, use historical data to back up your reasonings. But if you get a bunch of moisture, you may be out, you know so right and we're in a while.
Speaker 2:We're probably close to a seven-year cycle. Yeah, we've had some good years in between. Um, you know, and I remember back in the teens and I can't remember which years, it was 14, 15 or something like that where, you know, we had 35 inches of rain out west. Um, of course, that's unheard of. Now, this last year we've had places where we've only had two and a half to four and a half inches of rain all year, or moisture all year, you know, and so it's really been a struggle. We go up and down so much in our country versus, you know, out here in eastern North Dakota, so it's really one of those things that we need to learn how to protect ourself, and this is one thing that you're taking on and taking it out to the rancher type person you're taking on and taking it out to the rancher type person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, one thing I really appreciate about this policy is it's not a large area that they're trying to find a rainfall average, for. They break everything down into grids, and so the grids are 12 by 12 miles and each grid can pay out different from the grid, that's, to the north, the south, the east, the west of it. Each grid has their specific historical rainfall average, and so you know, you can kind of customize it that way too, and you can also change your intervals and your coverage per grid. So that's, there's so much customization.
Speaker 2:You wonder who sits in the back room and figures out all this. You know, you, I was just gonna say you're the one that would sit in that back room and figure this all out and and try to get it customized and and and perfect. Um, because I know how you are. You're very personable, um, but you also want to make sure everybody is. Is it's done right for everybody? Yeah, that's right yeah and you know, you know people wonder how do they?
Speaker 3:get this fall. They use the NOAA weather stations and so you look at that 12 by 12 mile grid and you drop a pin right in the center of it and it's going to take a weighted average of the five closest NOAA weather stations and that's how they get that. So it can go both ways your farm may get a ton of rain and you still get paid because those weather stations didn't get rain and then, there is the vice versa.
Speaker 3:So we do look at where those are at and how it may affect you. Of course, historical data is going to back that up and you'll kind of know.
Speaker 2:So we'll continue this into our third segment and again, I'm visiting with uh shared investor out of the farm credit Credit Service Insurance Agency out of Bowman, north Dakota, and we've been talking to her this morning. But I'm Jim Sabby, your host for the America's Land Auctioneer. I'd like to thank everybody in Pifers for helping for this. We'd like you to just get on our website and take a look and see what you need. If you're looking for land or machinery, we tend to have it. So again, we'll be right back and get ready for our third segment. Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer.
Speaker 2:I'm Jim Sabby out of the Bowman office in Bowman, north Dakota, out in the southwest corner, and it's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm sitting here visiting with Sharon Risser from Farm Credit Services of Mandan. She's based out of the Bowman office and we are talking insurance policies that she deals with and mainly a lot for the ranchers of the forage people. And Sharon, let's get back into you know, start talking some more about what else goes into all this. And how do you talking some more about what else goes into all this and how do you? There's got to be. You just can't just sign up and say these are the times I want.
Speaker 3:There's got to be some other things that go on with that? Yeah, definitely, so I'd say my hardest customer I've ever sold to is my own husband.
Speaker 2:So I know him very well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I've learned a lot from that to see quite a bit from producer side and agent side. You know it's pretty easy to blaze over this policy as the expert, but when I, you know, I got to sit down and explain it and then go home and keep explaining it because I'm married to the guy, it's taught me a lot about perspective from the other side of the desk. So what you need if you're going in and unfortunately the deadline was December 1st- so, it's too late for next year.
Speaker 3:But you know, think about me, think about your local crop insurance agent come 2025, make sure you get your maps into them before the December 1st deadline and they can key your acres off of that. So they're going to talk to you about intervals, like we talked about. Those are our mini insurance periods and you could get you know up to six payments per year if you covered every single interval and you're going to want your insurance agent to pull you some quotes and on that quote you're going to see something called loss ratios. That's the key to look at when we're thinking about what intervals do I want to cover and how well is this policy performed over the last 10 years? In my area and I'll just say this southwest corner it's kind of it's the honeypot, you know, for this policy.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, that means we haven't got much rain, but you know, on the flip side, that means rainfall policy has paid out and I'm looking at loss ratios and when I'm talking about loss ratio, we're talking about your premium is 100%. Anytime your loss ratio goes above 100%, that means money in your pocket. So I'm looking at loss ratios of 300, 400, 500% in some of these grids over here and that means they're making their premium back didn't cost them anything, plus 400% back. So that's kind of what I like to look at, and we can even look at that historical data per interval and see, you know, what does November, december pay, what does January, february pay, you know, and all those months in between, and we're seeing you know hundreds, 200s, 300s and even those grids and that's or those intervals, and that's kind of what helps people make their decision. As I see, with this 10 year historical data, what's it been.
Speaker 2:Just just listening to that that'd make me depressed when I know that you know we get so dry that we're getting paid up to 400%. You know, I mean, you think about it. Farmers and ranchers got a lot of things to worry about. You know financial is number one and staying alive in this business, you know. So when someone would come in and say you know we've got a proven record right here of people getting paid out because we're such a droughty area, kind of makes you wonder if you should move.
Speaker 3:I mean at times when you think about it, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a great area to be in and we love it and none of us would ever move anyway. But when you think about that, it's just unbelievable. What can be done to help the producer with survivability and sustainability? And now we have cattle. Prices are good, there's no doubt about it. But we also can get back to that turn. We were about three, four or five years ago and things weren't as healthy as what we'd like to see. So you've got to see some joy on your customer faces let's put it um, when they start getting some of these checks and it really it helps the bottom line.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. I even asked Austin this morning, my husband. I said, okay, I need some talking points. What's your favorite thing about PRF? And he said it helps me mitigate some risk. You know, if there is a drought I can go. You know your grass is not going to be as high protein Now we have to supplement protein. Well, I've got a PRF payment. I can depend on you know, to supplement protein to bring in more hay if I need more hay in the wintertime. You know so many things of those costs that come out of drought that now you've got a little cash in your pocket to try to help you through those.
Speaker 2:And now you said you're pretty depressed about those numbers.
Speaker 3:Now, let's remember, there's those months in between where it does rain and loss ratios on those are not 400%. So that's why I said you kind of see a trend towards those higher loss ratios.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just a lot of things that go into it and you know you don't want to ever be as negative as some people, but when you start hearing about the loss that is projected or after you get to settlement, you think, wow, but we never thought of it that way. You know, before we just didn't have any insurance to help us out. We moved cattle around. We either sold some cattle or had some hay brought in to help out and never worried about it. But here's one way to help everybody survive and you know and I know you cover a big area there, but you know what is some of the least amount of rainfall that you've seen in the past couple of years in certain areas.
Speaker 3:Least amount of rainfall. You know it's been pretty big in that Slope County. That's been a popular area for sure, and across the board it's really been paying. I'll say they'll look back and sometimes I hear people say well, I had it one time and I'll never take it out again. And I said you had it in 2019, didn't you? They're like how'd you know? I'm like that's the only year it hasn't paid out. You know 13 and 14 are pretty wet too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been. It's been paying pretty good. I say this is the policy that I have so much fun with and I can easily sell my friends with, because I love bringing them checks.
Speaker 2:you know Well you can see the passion, the passion you have for the I mean the families, but also the livestock, and you know grass and the hay and the forage, but I mean your passion is agriculture, there's no doubt about it, and that's what makes a difference in a person's life, Um and uh.
Speaker 3:That's what makes a difference in a in a person's life, definitely, definitely, yeah, and but the being subsidized by the government that helps to. You know premiums pretty affordable. You know we're looking under $3 an acre for grazing and and that hang can get up. You know 10 to $13 in this area. Um, but it's, it's pretty affordable and at the end of the day, when you do get paid out the amount that it's paying you back, it's something worth budgeting in, I would say.
Speaker 2:You know, and I'm going to say how many counties do you cover where you're at?
Speaker 3:Oh, I see Bowman Slope, hedinger, adams, perkins, harding a little bit over in Montana. Yeah, just kind of the whole.
Speaker 2:You got a pretty big radius to cover in all reality. Now we know we're in that Ekalaka Montana country. I mean it's, that's a dry country, I mean it. You just it just can look very ugly but it's beautiful country. You know you get down there by the medicine rocks and that area and you can see they don't have much for crops but you know you get that beautiful big pastures and the pine trees and it is beautiful. So you get to see a lot of nice, different country going out and so that's got to be very enjoyable for you. And when you're looking at that, I'm sure you look at everything differently now when you're driving, since before you got the job you didn't look at the pasture or the dross. I mean you probably thought about it, but now all of a sudden you're looking at everything as you're driving by.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's always on looking at everything as you're driving by. Yeah, yeah, it's always on your mind and you're always thinking anytime you meet somebody like oh, I bet they could use this. I bet you know a disclaimer. I'm not even commission based, so I'm not like hey I can sell. I'm like no, I could use this. This could help them. You know, I could help them in a way, and I love helping people, so that's fun.
Speaker 2:You know the insurance business is a different business. You know. But at the end of the day you're trying to help people's bottom line. You know, and let's go on that. When you kind of get to deliver checks or send checks out, what are the reactions of the people that sit in?
Speaker 3:when you come in and visit with them very surprised, often surprised like wow I did not expect that you know, and the man it's sure good to see you, things like that and the friends that I've made through it, and also the connections I've been able to make with my existing friends through it yeah that's been fun to see people really get helped out whenever they need it.
Speaker 2:I talked to another agent that that sells this and he said that the biggest thing for him is when he walked into a elderly couple's place and they're always in a drought and you know didn't have a lot of money but he walked in and had on this check. He said the. The wife kind of sat down and had tears in her eyes. She said you don't know how much this helps us, you know, and it made their payments for the year and help do things. But you know they were so worried about. You know there's nothing they can do when you have a drought. There's nothing you can really do besides either get some more hay coming in or sell down some cattle. You got two choices there and so that was a big thing for him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's been big growth on it this year. You know, just looking from last year to this year there's been over 500 plus new policies across North Dakota sold. I was just looking at how many policies. Last year there was about 3,700. How many policies this year? Now we're up to 4,200.
Speaker 3:And each year it's growing and it's growing. I should have looked further back than just last year, but it's been astronomical growth in the last several years and some of the people I've talked to that I've been trying to talk to for the last three years and they finally pull the trigger and show them well, this is what you would have been paid last year. I should have done it last year. You know like, okay, well, don't go another year with the shut up.
Speaker 2:All right, we're winding down our third segment here and we'll get into a little bit more in the fourth. I'm visiting with Sheridan Visser from Farm Credit Service out of Bowman, north Dakota. She's an insurance rep for them and I call it rainfall insurance. She's got a big fancy name for it, but it's basically what it is. But I'd like to thank her for being on here today. We'll carry on in the next segment. But I'm Jim Sabby, your host for America's Land Auctioneer, and we'd like to thank our agents, our land management and the auctioneer people in Piper's for paying for this. And I tell you what we're going to be right back into this fourth segment of America's Land Auctioneer and we'll be ready for the last segment with Sheridan.
Speaker 2:Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host, jim Sabby, sitting on this beautiful Saturday morning. You know what? We're just a couple of days, four days away from Christmas probably and I know I've got grandsons and you've got some young kids. These kids are getting excited. You know they seem to be a little bit nicer every day and you know cause? Santa Claus told them they had to be nice. But you know we've got a lot of things going on and and but. I want to finish up this part of this segment with Sheridan. You've you do the real estate, real estate. You do the insurance agency with Farm Credit Service out of Bowman. Let's visit a little bit more about that and maybe some information and your contact info for anybody who'd like to visit with you. And again, this is America's Land Auctioneer and Sheridan Brisser from the Bowman area is our guest. And, sheridan, what else you got to say for us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so to recap, pasture rangeland forage, it's the rainfall policy, deadline's December 1st, so we're past it for this year, but for next year, you know, try to think of us. And so what it's covering is haying and grazing acres. We can't do any cropland, unfortunately, and yeah, it just covers for a lack of rainfall. I'd love to help anybody out that has any questions. You can reach me at the Bowman office at 701-523-5275, or get onto our website at farmcreditservicesofmandancom and you can find an agent in your area. We're all pretty pretty well versed in it, so feel free to ask any questions. The other point I wanted to touch on that we haven't yet is you can pick and choose your acres. So if you have way too many acres to cover and you just can't fit it into your budget, you know, just pick a few sections. You know, pick part of it, pick a portion, and it's very customizable for that too.
Speaker 2:So that is. That's one thing I see is very unique with this policy is you can tailor it the way you want it, and that is it's nice, instead of having one standard policy. This is it, take it or leave it. This year is you can make it how you want it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Customizable.
Speaker 2:When you say you're the hardest person to convince was your husband, which we all can see. Why, at times, you know, I mean we all get stuck in our ways, don't get me wrong, but you know, when he's seen this now I've even had him, I've heard him talk to other people about, hey, this is a great thing. It's not just because my wife's the agent, but I mean this has helped me out doing this and that you think about it. It's got to be a win-win for everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yep. So even in those years, if you do have to pay a little bit of premium, it's not much. You can buy it off and if you look at it, stay in it in the long run. Don't just get in and out every year, you know, trying to guess when it's going to rain. It's definitely a long run policy because in the years it pays you, it pays you big and way. Mix up for the drought, you know the wet years that you may have to pay some premium in. So and premiums.
Speaker 3:Don't do until September 1st. So, you know, a lot of that premium is going to pay down your or sorry, a lot of that indemnity is going to pay down your premium before you even have to write a check.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a big thing is you know, if you get something you're not going to have, you're going to get your premium paid for, you're going to get some money back. And you know, it seemed like the old crop insurance years ago can't compare to what we have now, but you barely got your premium paid and you still didn't get anything. So things have really changed in this segment of the insurance industry. Thank God it has. But I'm glad somebody's finally looking out for the farmers and ranchers and we appreciate what you do, because it's a tough business to be in. We know, come calving time, we've had some bad, bad winters and you know so there's so much more risk into this thing when those baby calves are on the ground and then all of a sudden you get risk of we're so dry, they're getting dust, pneumonia in the summer and the fall. You know so a lot of things happen there and you're here to help take some of the pain away Not all the pain, but some of the pain away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's been something that Austin's made a big point when he's talking to other people too. He said you know, maybe it won't buy you another section of land like you hope, but it's going to buy your hay, it's going to buy your mineral, it's going to buy your protein supplement, it's going to help you get through those times. And, yeah, it's just been so great for us and that's why I'm so passionate about it too is I see how it's personally helping us, helping our friends, helping neighbors and, yeah, all the customers who are becoming friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2:Well, my guest today is Sheridan Visser, farm Credit Service Insurance Representative out of Bowman, north Dakota. She's been with us here today and, sheridan, I want to say thank you and Merry Christmas to you and your family, and I want you to hang on here for a little bit because we're going to be I'm going to be talking about some stuff going on with Pifers through the end of the year and into next year, so I appreciate you being on and I'm sure I'll see you guys before Christmas.
Speaker 3:Anyway, yeah, yeah. On behalf of me and Farm Credit Services, amanda and my family. Merry Christmas to everybody.
Speaker 2:You bet Merry Christmas. All right, sheridan Visser, you want to get a hold of her? Just call Farm Credit Service or go to their website and get a hold of any one of their agents. It was really good that she could be on here this morning. I understand this a lot better now than I guess I ever have in my last couple years of learning about it. Now I get what they're talking about. But again with Pifers, I want to say we had a great sale this last week in Fergus Falls. We've got some land sales coming up and then we have our Christmas break.
Speaker 2:Folks, on behalf of Pifers and our whole staff and all the agents, we would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We'll be back in full swing at the first of the year, probably the third, fourth or maybe the whatever. The first Monday good Monday is in December and January, but we'll be back and we've got a lot of sales lined up. I think we got over 40 land auctions coming up already in the next year. Just working on my probably my 14th or 15th machinery sale coming up for the spring. It's going to be a great year. If you've got anything you need sold land or machinery. Get a hold of us and we'd be glad to send an agent out to your area and visit with you. We're here to help and we'd love to be able to help you all the way through the process, just like we did with the Gillespie one. Here Again, what a tremendous sale we had this last week. And the other thing we want to mention is next year is Piper's 25th anniversary, so we're going to have that mark on all of our advertising and we're real proud to be working with everybody.
Speaker 2:This is my 18th year going into my 19th. So I guess when you work for a company this long, we're all family in it and it feels kind of nice. But where in the world did those 18 years go for me? And where did 25 years go with Pfeiffer? You look at what we've gone through, from struggling from Kevin and his brother just starting this company and then all of a sudden now we're a full-fledged auction realty company and we've got agents in, I think, five different states, the way it looks to me Wisconsin and Minnesota and North Dakota and Montana. And so we in South Dakota we've got a lot of great agents. So don't be afraid to give us a call at any time, any one of us. If it goes to voicemail, leave a a message we will get back to you.
Speaker 2:Um, our phones have been ringing off the hook, um, this last couple of days and and uh, everybody's wondering what to do for next year. Wondering about, you know, commodity prices and and uh and everything going on in the market. But what we can tell you the market is as strong as ever for good, clean equipment and very good equipment. And same in the, the land Land, if it's good land, is still going to bring a premium or it's going to be a top of the market. Now the stuff that we're seeing a little bit of drop in is probably that marginal farm ground, you know, with sloughs and water in it. That's not going to bring the money because people want to return. Same with the farm equipment. If your equipment's kind of parked out in the trees and we pull it up, it's just not going to be like guys that have everything put inside and I know you can't afford to have buildings for everything but if it's been well-maintained and shedded on some of the bigger equipment the air seaters, the sprayers and the trucks and tractors that really shows what's going on. So we want to make sure that everybody has a successful 2025, like we did in 2024.
Speaker 2:So again, I want to say thank you to everybody. We look forward to working with everybody. I look forward to working with more people like Sheridan and her family throughout this next year, and we do this. This is what we do for a living folks. We're not part-timers, and I guess that's what kind of sets us apart of a lot of people. But again, this is Jim Sabby, your host for America's Land Auctioneer. We want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Look forward to working with you next year. And again, I want to thank our agents, our real estate agents, our auctioneer agents and then, of course, our land management and all our staff for everything they've done for this past year. Plus, they put us on this show and everything turns out well. So, again, have a happy New Year and Christmas and we'll see you next year 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.