Grundy County

Welcome to the Grundy County Farm Management page.  The Farm Management Specialist, has designed this page to assist you in your farming operation.  Feel free to contact the extension office with any questions, comments or suggestions.

Farming Links

     Kevin Hansen, Farm Management Specialist, is headquartered in Livingston County but serves Grundy County.   In this area of work he is required to assist farmers with record keeping, marketing, farm financial analysis, farm leases/cash rentals, risk management and estate planning.  Although the UOE systems uses specialist titles to help focus their work, Kevin still does his best to assist with any agricultural related questions.

    The most common requests of a Farm Management Specialist are:

• Record Keeping
• Leases & Rental Arrangements
• Marketing

     When it comes to record keeping there are several methods.  For starters, individuals need to determine what their goals are for keeping records.  Is it primarily for tax purposes and to have something legible to hand their accountant, or are they used for more detailed farm planning and analysis purposes?  Many people still rely on the 'blue books' produced by the University of Missouri Extension.  These books help categorize income and expenses and help with tax preparations.  Many others who have computerized programs, such as MIR or Quicken® and QuickBooks® to do this for them.  MIR can even help farm operators analyze individual enterprise operations.  Your local Farm Management Specialist can help you to make a decision on what program will work the best for you.

     In today's farm environment there are many absentee landlords.  This fact leads to many farm leases and rental arrangements.  Unfortunately, many are still only verbal arrangements.  This is never a problem until one party becomes unhappy and then life can be become miserable for both if a dispute arises.  The best insurance policy is to have a written arrangement.  The Extension office has example arrangements that farmers and landlords can use as a guide when developing their own.  There are ones specifically for cattle share arrangements, pasture leases and cash rental arrangements.   Legal advice is advisable in any situation.

     With a poor market all farmers are asking how they can do things differently.  Marketing varies from the traditional (delivery to elevators or livestock yards) to new generation cooperatives and smaller scaled direct marketing.  The educational aspect that the University of Missouri Extension professionals are enforcing is to know the different mind set it takes to move from traditional to any of the other markets.  Farmers have historically been price takers and to suddenly become a price maker is a whole new ball game.  We hope to make that transition a little easier.

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		University of Missouri Extension Grundy County grundyco@missouri.edu  Updated 11/01/2006 Vickie Pash