Seeding good business

What's it like to be a young farmer in Minnesota?

For starters, there's an expanding variety of farms and they're being passed down to young people who supplement their agrarian passions with off-farm jobs. It's a challenge as hard as ever before, but it's not insurmountable.

"Many have other jobs, where farming is not their full-time job," said Brainerd-based University of Minnesota extension officer Nathan Hulinsky. "They need help knowing how to borrow money to run their business and how to obtain the land to farm."

To help young farmers get off on the right foot, Hulinsky is bringing his traveling workshop for first-time farmers to Carlton on Jan. 9, 16 and 23. He's already signed up more than a dozen participants for the free workshop, which provides 15 hours of instruction aimed at increasing folks' understanding of the business side of farming.

Hulinsky described it as a "full-circle, farm business management" approach.

"We cannot just not have farmers," Hulinsky said, noting the average age of farmers, 59, is nearing the retirement age. "It's important to teach young farmers what their role is in that career. And we all need food to be made - everyone eats cheese and buys corn flakes and that does come from somewhere. So, keeping that revolving door of new farmers coming in is important."

Working out of the extension's Agricultural Business Management office, Hulinsky sought grant funding to launch his Beginning Farm Institute in 2023. He's conducted four workshops so far in Clearwater, Hutchinson, Lamberton and Owatonna. The Carlton setting is the first time the Beginning Farm Institute will be in northern Minnesota.

The Pine Knot sought out Hulinsky to find out what he'll try to impart on the farmers and to talk generally about the current status of farming in the state.

"Farming is more than a career," he said. "It's a lifestyle. It's an identity. They put in long hours, especially during the spring planting and fall harvest seasons, and they don't get paid time off. They're self-employed and have it different from a W-2 wage earner."

It's Hulinsky's role to explain just how different. He wants farmers moving through his course to come away with an understanding of how to save money during high-yield years to survive the low-income ones. He wants to brace them for the uncertainty of high inflation, drought, and geopolitical factors that influence prices, such as wars across the world.

Corn and soybeans are down 50 percent from prices in the recent past, Hulinsky said as a recent example, forcing farmers to work harder for less.

"There's an ebb and flow to the ag economy that other industries don't face," Hulinsky said.

Farming is also capital intensive with land and equipment prices soaring. To help face the challenges, Hulinsky encourages farmers to develop a business plan. He also talks with farmers about markets and the channels for getting products to market.

"Every corn and soybean farmer has to do some form of grain marketing," he said. "They have to physically deliver it and sell it to an ethanol plant or an elevator. There's different options to get rid of the product."

He's met farmers whose goal was to sell fruit, tomatoes and peppers to local school districts.

The timing of it and understanding the cost of production is key, he said.

"If we sell above cost of production, we're making money," Hulinsky said. "If we don't know the cost of production, it's tough to know if we're making money and I try to make that clear to them."

Of course, there are a wide variety of farmers found locally. There are still dairy farms. But while the state maintains the same numbers of dairy cows it had generations ago, those numbers are found on fewer, larger farms, Hulinsky said, about 1,900 statewide compared to 4,500 as recently as 15 years ago.

"The pounds of milk being produced are pretty stable," he said.

Most of the 100-plus participants in previous Beginning Farm Institutes have been the sons and daughters or nieces and nephews of farmers, Hulinsky said. They're trying to figure out what their role is as they move up in the farm's hierarchy, he said.

Hulinsky, too, grew up on a dairy farm.

"We've had a wide variety of types of farmers - dairy, poultry, probably most of them, roughly half, grain, corn and soybeans focused," he said. "But we've had people focused on canning peas and sweetcorn, too. So, it's a little bit all over the place."

One of his participants grew flowers and sold cut flowers.

The three-day institute is spread across three weeks in January. The first day, Jan. 9, runs from noon to 5 p.m., followed by 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. days on Jan. 16 and 23. All sessions are conducted at the Carlton County Transportation Building, 1630 County Road 61, Carlton.

The syllabus for the sessions looks like this:

Day 1, "Goals and a business plan."

Day 2, "Agricultural taxes and being a business entity."

Day 3, "Finances, land rent and marketing."

To date, the response to Hulinsky's courses has been positive, he said.

"Most of the people grew up on the farm," he said. "They know the industry and they love it. You need to have a passion for farming in order to do it and stay in it. You definitely see that."

To learn more about the course, or to register, contact Hulinsky at [email protected] or 218-828-2680.