Episode 1 - What Is a FARM Champion? Building a Network for Farm Success

Farmers and ranchers are facing tight margins, rising costs, and increasingly complex business decisions. In this first episode, host Ahlishia Shipley sits down with Ron Rainey to introduce the FARM Champion Network, a nationwide effort connecting producers with trusted experts in finance, risk management, and business planning. They discuss today’s economic pressures, why access to reliable guidance matters, and provide an overview of how the FARM Champion Network is designed to support producers in navigating these challenges. 

Transcript

00;00;00;12 - 00;00;53;19
Ahlishia Shipley
You're listening to the FARM Champion podcast, where we champion farmer and rancher success. In each episode, we sit down with a FARM Champion, a trusted professional committed to helping producers navigate the business side of agriculture. If you're a farmer, rancher or agricultural professional working to build stronger, more resilient operations, this show is for you.

00;00;53;22 - 00;01;20;28
Ahlishia Shipley
I'm Dr. Ahlishia Shipley, your host. In this first episode, we're starting with the foundation of the entire initiative: the farm champion network itself. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Ron Rainey, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Arkansas and Director of the Southern Risk Management Education Center. He is a national leader with over 30 years’ experience developing and delivering extension programing to serve American agriculture.

00;01;21;01 - 00;01;28;29
Ahlishia Shipley
He established the Farm Champion Network as a part of the Ag-FTAP National Collaboration. Dr. Rainey, thank you for joining me today.

00;01;29;05 - 00;01;33;24
Ron Rainey
Dr. Shipley, I appreciate this opportunity and I'm excited to launch this effort.

00;01;33;25 - 00;01;45;09
Ahlishia Shipley
To start us off. It would be very helpful to understand the financial pressures affecting farm profitability right now. Could you help paint a picture of the environment many farmers and ranchers find themselves in today?

00;01;45;15 - 00;02;08;15
Ron Rainey
Yeah, and I’d actually use the word crisis. There's many challenges facing our farmers and ranchers. A little bit different on the livestock side versus row crops. But in general, we're experiencing going into the fourth straight year of high input prices and relatively low commodity prices. Livestock prices are actually elevated, which is great if you're trying to sell your inventory.

00;02;08;15 - 00;02;29;20
Ron Rainey
But if you're trying to replenish your inventories, you're going to have to pay that higher price to restock your livestock, your herd. So across the board in agriculture, we're dealing with extremely thin profit margins, which makes financing an issue or debt refinancing very, very critical because many of our farmers are not able to show profitability during this current environment.

00;02;29;20 - 00;02;51;23
Ron Rainey
They're struggling to show on paper that they can make profits and that they can indeed repay their loans. So there's a lot of struggles there. Arkansas actually leads the country in Chapter 12, which is farm bankruptcies. There's been some conversations that we're looking at. 10 to 15% of our farmers may actually go out of business during this current crisis.

00;02;51;23 - 00;03;17;04
Ron Rainey
Just tight profit margins and some restrictions on credit access from the farm lending agencies. So we're trying to help farmers understand the environment that they're currently operating in and trying to figure out avenues to hopefully increase their profitability, but also to help them think strategically about how to reposition, how to think some of the business practices and activities that they do to hopefully enhance their ability to be resilient throughout these difficult times.

00;03;17;11 - 00;03;36;29
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you for providing that landscape for us. Given that environment, many producers are navigating increasingly complex business decisions, from tax planning to financial management and long term asset protection. Why do you think it's so important that producers have access to trusted expertise in these areas?

00;03;37;05 - 00;03;56;28
Ron Rainey
Yeah. In your intro, you mentioned that I've been doing this for about 30 years, and one of the things that I've seen is a lot of missed opportunities by our farmers and ranchers as they navigate this risky landscape, because it's not a matter of if they're going to engage risky environments or circumstances in which they have to make some tough choices, some tough decisions,

00;03;56;29 - 00;04;19;26
Ron Rainey
it's a matter of when. As I talked about the low profitability or thin profit margins that we're currently operating in. As you look over a long term horizon for farmers, there's hills and valleys. It's a cycle. Sometimes there's good years and then followed by bad years. As I said, we're going into our fourth bad year. So it's really important from an asset or business planning perspective, that farmers look at that longer term horizon as they engage

00;04;19;26 - 00;04;37;01
Ron Rainey
and think through their plans and their business plans. As they look and see where they are in the business cycle, in terms of where, are we at a peak or are we at a valley in terms of farm profitability? And many of our small and beginning farmers, farm profitability is a constant because they rely on our farm income to survive economically.

00;04;37;02 - 00;05;05;04
Ron Rainey
So trying to help our farmers and ranchers position themselves to understand the longer term horizon, to understand what programs are available from USDA and strategically, what are some strategies that are proven to be successful, whether that's looking at different types of marketing strategies or looking at how they actually from a price risk management perspective, how do they market their crops and so there's a host of choices that producers have to make beyond the production decisions of producing their crop or their herd.

00;05;05;04 - 00;05;15;11
Ron Rainey
And we're trying to help them on that business side to enhance the level of understanding of their environment, but also understanding what's available to them to make adjustments or strategically adjust.

00;05;15;15 - 00;05;39;25
Ahlishia Shipley
So on what you've shared, Dr. Rainey, it sounds like developing and implementing a really solid risk strategy is a valuable activity for farmers and ranchers to engage in. So when producers don't have access to the type of guidance or technical support that supports them in developing a risk strategy, what kinds of challenges or risk in that create for their operation?

00;05;39;26 - 00;06;01;04
Ron Rainey
Yeah. So and again, to me the best way to describe it is missed opportunities. So when prices are good have they done things either through contracts or futures markets to lock in those good prices for multiple years? Are they doing things to minimize their production costs to be more efficient? And so it's just an opportunity to understand the total landscape.

00;06;01;07 - 00;06;27;24
Ron Rainey
It's a lot to take in from both being a production expert and being a marketing expert and a finance expert, because farmers wear all those hats to try to identify the additional resources, the additional tools that are there. Many of our farm champions have developed some decision aids and have developed some outreach and some workshops that help transparently communicate some of the issues or how farmers can think through the different avenues or the different options that are available to them.

00;06;27;26 - 00;06;50;04
Ahlishia Shipley
That really highlights how important it is for farmers and ranchers to have access to trusted, reliable expertise when navigating these kinds of business decisions. One of the ways this challenge is being addressed, as you just mentioned, is through your National Farm Champion Network, which connects producers with professionals who can help them understand their options and strengthen their operations.

00;06;50;05 - 00;07;01;09
Ahlishia Shipley
For listeners who may be hearing about this for the first time, Dr. Rainey, would you share with us what is a Farm Champion and what role do Farm Champions play in supporting farmers and ranchers?

00;07;01;11 - 00;07;23;10
Ron Rainey
Yes, and as we developed the Ag-FTAP network, it was a technical assistance network. And as we started off with the program, we called the experts that are the technical assistance representatives or expertise, we called them state contacts. But I wanted to give value to have meaning for what those state contacts did. I also wanted to give context for farmers, the importance of what it is that they were seeking.

00;07;23;10 - 00;07;42;26
Ron Rainey
And so that's when we came up with this term, Farm Champion. We wanted people that were champions for our farmers, but we also wanted the farmer to really come up with this picture that I have an advocate or I have a resilient assistance, someone that can help me look at things from an unbiased perspective. And so these Farm Champions are both public and private experts.

00;07;42;26 - 00;08;05;22
Ron Rainey
So many of them are from our land grant universities, are some from other colleges and universities as well. But they are trained in agricultural economics, ag finance or business planning. Some are from some community based organizations that they may have somewhat similar training in terms of financing or business planning, and some of them actually work just to help our farmers better understand the available USDA programs that are available.

00;08;05;22 - 00;08;28;13
Ron Rainey
So it's a it's a myriad of professionals, but they all have the same goal of serving and helping to either influence or educate our farmers and ranchers in some manner. And we're just trying to galvanize that to put it all in one place, to allow our farmers and our ranchers to easily access it, to allow some of the organizations that are serving them that may lack some of this expertise, that they could easily go in,

00;08;28;13 - 00;08;51;24
Ron Rainey
and at the state level, they can identify whether it's a community based organization or a university contact, some of this expertise that's available in their respective states. So at the end of the day, ultimately, my goal is to make it very easy for farmers and ranchers to identify who the Farm Champions are and to build momentum behind the Farm Champions, to give them a platform to help go out and create successes.

00;08;51;25 - 00;09;17;07
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you very much. So what I really heard you saying is that the inspiration for developing the Farm Champion Network is one, mainly to provide a network of advocates for farmers and ranchers so that they don't feel alone, that they have this ecosystem of support that they can tap into easily at the state level. And also, you talked about whom Farm Champions are in their public private professionals.

00;09;17;07 - 00;09;49;08
Ahlishia Shipley
You can find them representing community based organizations, representing land grant universities and extension and you've built a network of extension professionals and farm champions across the country. And so you've made it very easy, as you stated, for farmers and ranchers to actually access these advocates, if you will, that can be found across the Farm Champions. So, Dr. Rainey, now that we have a better sense of what a Farm Champion is and why the network exists, I would love to talk a little more about how that shows up in practice.

00;09;49;09 - 00;09;57;08
Ahlishia Shipley
So what does the work of a Farm Champion actually look like when working with farmers and ranchers on the ground and in the ground, so to speak.

00;09;57;08 - 00;10;22;14
Ron Rainey
As we describe the Farm Champion Network, the word that you use is a trusted expert and so it begins with individuals that have expertise and they have trust. And so at the core of that expertise and that trust is relationship. So we're trying to leverage these relationships that that our farm champions have by their position as an educator, as a leader of a farmer cooperative, or as a leader of an outreach educational organization.

00;10;22;14 - 00;10;44;29
Ron Rainey
And we're trying to leverage that to help build out what that relationship looks like, so to enhance the credibility of what those individual Farm Champions can do, that we want them to fall in and feel like they're not alone, because as we talk about risk management is a very, very broad concept. So there's many avenues of many different topics that farmers need some support and assistance with.

00;10;44;29 - 00;11;08;14
Ron Rainey
So my specialty is more in marketing than it is in finance or taxes. But I have some colleagues that are more grounded and have built out a bigger expertise or experience in ag finances and financial statements, or in understanding what are the different strategic tax options that you have. So one, we wanted to build out a network that represented multiple expertise or topic areas.

00;11;08;14 - 00;11;31;09
Ron Rainey
So we have tax. We have both estate planning and transition planning. We have issues where we can assist with heirs property issues or fractional ownership. But then we also have some of the more fundamental in that financial statement place, record keeping business planning. And we're toying around with the idea of actually adding marketing in. But the thing that I want a Farm Champion to do, the farmer champion is basically there to serve our farmers and ranchers.

00;11;31;09 - 00;11;53;08
Ron Rainey
And as they plug in to start that dialog, one, they help the farmers and ranchers realize that they're not alone. Two, they help our farmers and ranchers plug into a broader network of technical assistance, even if it's beyond their immediate area. So they may be a part of a marketing cooperative and this cooperative focuses on marketing side. But we say, hey, here's some tax options, some strategies that you can avail yourselves to.

00;11;53;08 - 00;12;12;14
Ron Rainey
We have experts that can come in to help you better understand some different opportunities that are there, for your clientele to take advantage of. So the day to day work is just engagement. And it’s engagement from a place of service and trying to come in to help serve our farmers and ranchers with whatever their business need is. And now I don't want to oversell what a Farm Champion is.

00;12;12;14 - 00;12;32;24
Ron Rainey
They're not a wizard who can address all deals, and they're not going to guarantee profitability. But what I would say, and I will assure you this, of engaging with Farm Champions and engaging with our network will help enhance the profitability that you will have long term profitability and longer term resilience, because we'll be able to plug into your team of risk management experts that you're relying on.

00;12;32;24 - 00;12;47;29
Ron Rainey
And that's what I'd advise all our farmers and ranchers of, is to have a risk management team with the collection of expertise that they can tap into to help advise and guide the business decisions that they make. As they try to traverse this risky landscape that they're facing.

00;12;48;00 - 00;13;15;26
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you, Dr. Rainey. So it sounds like that they can find a team or begin to build a team within the Farm Champion Network. You mentioned that across the Farm Champion Network, that you can find trusted experts with the expertise in taxes, risk management, navigating heirs property issues, recordkeeping, eventually marketing, which are all things that, you know, affect the business side of your operation and the success of your operation.

00;13;16;00 - 00;13;40;24
Ahlishia Shipley
And eventually, when these farmers and ranchers connect to Farm Champions, if they don't have the expertise that they are part of this network and can connect the farmer rancher to trusted experts that can. All with the same goal of building resilience out within their farm operations. But one important thing that you said is that all of this work is rooted, if you will, in relationships that are built on service and trust.

00;13;40;24 - 00;13;50;28
Ahlishia Shipley
And that is kind of the, the foundation of the Farm Champion Network, and it’s so vitally important when working with farmers and ranchers in local communities.

00;13;50;28 - 00;14;11;12
Ron Rainey
And then another important word to use is community. It’s that, that we want our farmers and ranchers to recognize that Farm Champions are part of their community. And so we're not inclusive of the entire universe of technical assistance providers. But for the most part, the Farm Champions are, are members of organizations that have received federal funding in some capacity.

00;14;11;12 - 00;14;39;23
Ron Rainey
And so they receive some federal funding, typically from USDA to do outreach and education. And so I wanted to start there to have those representatives that have already been vetted, if you will, through a competitive grant process to start there, to build out what this network looks like and then my goal or my hope is, is that we can grow this Farm Champion influence exponentially, because I've been doing this for 30 years, and the number one place that a farmer will learn from is another farmer.

00;14;39;28 - 00;14;59;27
Ron Rainey
So the best way that we can grow this farm program is to build out farmer and rancher successes. And then have those farmer and rancher successes go and reach or influence multiple farmers. Because I know one thing that a farmer will do, is they're successful in an area. They'll say, hey, you need to try this Farm Champions program. They were able to help me in this area, and this is what they helped me with.

00;14;59;27 - 00;15;27;17
Ron Rainey
That's what we're focusing on, on the expertise and the success story. We want to highlight the myriad of ways that we can help farmers and ranchers, so that folks, that our farmers and ranchers just don't, you know, don't put borders or boundaries on what they see us or what they understand. And they come with a deeper understanding. And I've got the back room or the back house support that I think that we can transparently communicate across the board, both internally to the network and externally to our communities of producers across the country.

00;15;27;17 - 00;15;31;01
Ron Rainey
We're trying to be able to serve them and meet them where they are.

00;15;31;04 - 00;16;00;29
Ahlishia Shipley
You have given us a really great, comprehensive work of who the farm champions are, and how their work shows up with farmers and ranchers, and really explain how the Farm Champion Network is one of many efforts across the country working to really democratize information and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers nationally. One of the goals of this podcast is to elevate farmer success stories that emerged through the work of Farm Champions.

00;16;00;29 - 00;16;08;29
Ahlishia Shipley
So from your view, could you tell us why elevating these stories is so important to the network and the broader mission of the effort?

00;16;09;01 - 00;16;36;10
Ron Rainey
Yeah, absolutely. And I'll say it is to strengthen the community, as I've done this for multiple decades, the thing that I hate to hear most is the horror story of someone had got bad technical assistance, bad advice, or they just were misled and they missed an opportunity, or it cost them their business. It might have cost them a multigenerational family business because they got some information that maybe wasn't fully vetted, or it may have been incorrect.

00;16;36;10 - 00;17;12;01
Ron Rainey
So to me, the broader importance of what this work is is supporting our farmers and ranchers, thereby supporting the community. As I look around, I can see the faces of multiple farmers, different backgrounds, large, small, that will come to me and say, yeah, Ron, I don't know if I can work with this program or that program because I had to file bankruptcy or I lost my farm, or I couldn’t start the farm the way I wanted, or someone tried to convince me that I had a bad idea because they were trying to convince me of their vision versus convince me and helping me understand what my vision or add clarity to my

00;17;12;01 - 00;17;34;10
Ron Rainey
vision. And I think by getting the appropriate trust in relationships that we can hear our farmers and ranchers better and we can serve them where they are and get a clearer understanding of where it is that they hope their business will go. And that's just my goal. So to me, the importance of this network in a broader mission is that we support our communities in a better way, in a more, you used the word democratic,

00;17;34;10 - 00;17;50;27
Ron Rainey
I want to use the word transparent. I think that transparency is very important so that people don't feel like that they're on the outside looking in of information, or that they are on the outside looking in on access to resources. I want them to have a clear understanding of what resources are available, but this is the bar. This is what's needed.

00;17;50;27 - 00;18;24;19
Ron Rainey
If you want access, if you want farmland, a farm loan, this is a standard for being approved for a farm loan. These are records that's needed. If you want to be successful in marketing in a specific space. This is a standard in terms of what you would have to produce. And so I think by giving producers some of those specifics, painting a clearer picture, painting the various options that are available to them, I think that we could help lead them and let them more confidently operate in the spaces that they want to go versus, you know, having someone come in and say, well, I see you're very passionate about that, but I don't know

00;18;24;19 - 00;18;47;18
Ron Rainey
if it's going to work for you without giving them a business perspective of why it would not work, why it would not be profitable. Because agriculture comes in many shapes and sizes. Within our network, I hope that we have the expertise that can reflect the advances in technology. If you want to be a large scale row crop producer, that's fine, but you don't have to be a large scale row crop producer to be profitable.

00;18;47;18 - 00;19;11;09
Ron Rainey
If you want to be a small, diversified farmer operating on small acreage and only selling directly to consumers, there's a viable business plan for that. It's just different than what a traditional commodity farm looks like. Or a large scale livestock enterprise. Bringing in the appropriate expertise to help evaluate those different business models, to help evaluate different marketing models, and to help people understand that they're not alone.

00;19;11;10 - 00;19;20;04
Ron Rainey
I think that's the mission of this effort. And at the end of the day, we're creating successes. So thereby enabling our farmers and ranchers to be successful.

00;19;20;06 - 00;19;36;19
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you so much, Dr. Rainey. Hearing why the success stories matter really underscores the value and mission of the Farm Champion effort. So what really excites you most about the potential of the Farm Champion Network as it continues to grow?

00;19;36;23 - 00;19;57;05
Ron Rainey
Wow. And I don't want to undermine the role that our community based organization and nonprofits play. But I've been working within extension for 30 years, and the thing that I hear and I hear it from across different states is that extension, cooperative extension service, is the best kept secret within our land grant universities, and many people don't even know what a land grant university is.

00;19;57;08 - 00;20;25;19
Ron Rainey
It's our universities and colleges that have that three legged mission of teaching, research and extension. I think that the model of the Farm Champion is really going to highlight technical assistance and what it looks like. But it’s going to highlight that extension technical assistance, even if it's coming through our community based organizations. I think we're going to have an opportunity to highlight that outreach and extension work occurs in many forms and fashion, even through many of our USDA agencies, when they have outreach coordinators.

00;20;25;19 - 00;20;48;13
Ron Rainey
That's just a different level of extension, because the extension is just disseminating the findings from our campuses out to our communities. So to me, that's my ultimate goal is to leverage and really highlight not just extension and outreach, but to highlight risk management, because often times we have conversations about engagement. And it's not risk management. It's not about tools.

00;20;48;13 - 00;21;10;23
Ron Rainey
It's not about strategies. It's some good conversations and maybe needed conversations. But does it get down to the balance sheet? Does it get down to how does this impact profitability? Does it get down to an enterprise budget? And those are the connections that I'm hoping to make that we have strategic tools and strategic direction that transparently helps invigorate and inspire our farmers and ranchers to let them operate more comfortably.

00;21;10;23 - 00;21;38;11
Ahlishia Shipley
You know, Dr. Rainey, you really hit a nail on the head when you said that extension is the best kept secret. I know those of us working in the extension ecosystem are still continually trying to, to crack that nut. And, you know, kind of reverse that thinking around extension. So you really talked about a lot there in terms of the Farm Champion Network being a part of the whole technical assistance ecosystem space in.

00;21;38;11 - 00;22;08;08
Ahlishia Shipley
You have talked throughout our time together about connection and about relationships, and I think that it sounds like the Farm Champion Network is a partner within the space and is made up of partners, you know, both going bi-directionally. So before we close, we really like to end each episode with what we call a resilience reflection, which is a brief moment to step back from the details and reflect on the bigger picture of building a strong farm business.

00;22;08;08 - 00;22;24;09
Ahlishia Shipley
So the question I'd like to ask you is when producers have this access to trusted expertise and technical support that you've talked with us about today, how does that change their ability to build a resilient and profitable operation?

00;22;24;09 - 00;22;47;02
Ron Rainey
I would hope that the technical assistance is going to give them a better understanding of what, quote unquote, went wrong, what changed, and what are some of the strategic positioning, if you will, that they could make to survive? What are their options if they're looking? So unfortunately, some of our farmers are in are in bankruptcy right now. What are their options when they're in bankruptcy, if there are any options?

00;22;47;02 - 00;23;09;19
Ron Rainey
And I think even a net financial space, there's some things that that our farmers can look at. But my goal is that hopefully we're going to give our farmers and ranchers more options. We're going to give them the confidence that it's okay to ask for help before it gets to a dire consequence. Because of the nature of agriculture, many and much of the work is done in independence, or with few trusted partners.

00;23;09;19 - 00;23;34;14
Ron Rainey
We want to grow that network, grow the community of trust that they have and just operate in a way, as I said earlier, of learning, having farmers learn from other farmers. So we've created this community that we're connecting and making everyone not only feel like they belong, but they're valued in that there's a value for their business, and we're committed to trying to help them be successful, whatever their business may be, or wherever their business may be.

00;23;34;15 - 00;24;11;20
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you for reflecting for a moment. I really, really appreciate you sitting down with us to share the mission and the work of the trusted experts that make up the Farm Champion Network. As you shared at the beginning of our time together, farmers and ranchers across the country are facing really tough decisions, and the Farm Champion Network and the expertise there is a resource to help them build resilience that is again rooted in that connection, those trusted relationships and also the idea of building community, which is so vitally important in the agricultural space.

00;24;11;23 - 00;24;20;05
Ahlishia Shipley
So thank you again for joining us today, and we would love to talk with you again at some point in the future.

00;24;20;05 - 00;24;35;27
Ron Rainey
I welcome the opportunity and I'm hopeful that this will grow exponentially and that we will just start experiencing a collection of success stories, hearing of the good, the good work that this network is doing so that we can impact even larger numbers of our farmers and ranchers.

00;24;36;00 - 00;24;59;08
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you. And thank you to our listeners for sitting down and taking the time to be with us today. To explore tools and resources that support farm business success, please visit agftap.org and learn how to connect with a Farm Champion in your area. Again, that's AgFTAP, A-G-F-T-A-P dot org and don't forget to follow and subscribe to the Farm Champion Podcast.

00;24;59;11 - 00;24;59;29
Ahlishia Shipley
Thank you.