So when a producer wants to get their finances in order, where do they start? What do I need to be thinking about?

The easiest thing they can do.

So I recognize right now we're sitting in the middle of August and our clients are right now focused on actually getting the stuff they love.

They've got the combines out in the field and they're getting ready for harvest and hopefully it's a safe one for everyone.

So we kind of back away from our clients right now, and we get that they're not really wanting to do this.

But once you get that crop off, the easiest thing they can do is take a look at their finance, get their finances up to date, and we would say do a small accrual, like look at how much crop you did produce.

look at where your bills are at.

So at what point should a producer know that there's an opportunity to maybe get some outside help on some of these finances? Is there a certain trigger or is this for everybody?

So how, how do I properly use my financial information to r- you know, manage the risk and the operation?

So what, what we would say you need to do is you need to layer in.

You need to understand what you're, where you're at, as we talked, and when we start looking at projecting forward, you need to understand what your cost, your cost production is.

And I have lots of clients that tell me, "Well, how am I supposed to tell you what my cost production is for next year? Like, I don't know what my yield's gonna be." Right? I don't know this, and I don't know that.

But we've gotta start with a budget.

And once you understand what your cost production is going forward, and you start understanding, you know, where, how that works for your whole financial statement and your whole financial position, you can start making really good business decisions.

It might give you the confidence to say, "Hey, I can step out and buy that piece of dirt that's come up for sale," or, "Hey, I can replace my combine." Like, it's a great time in the fall to understand that and to have those positions because right when you're done combining is probably the time to say, "So how did it go?" Like, my...

I had a audience member ask me recently, "Okay, so, like, it was an easy step for me to hire an agronomist to h- assist with some of our agronomic decisions, but I've been dragging my feet on getting help on the financial side." So at what point should a producer know that they, there's an opportunity to maybe get some outside help on some of these finances? Is, is there a certain trigger, or is this for everybody?

So how, how do I properly use my financial information to r- you know, manage the risk and the operation?

So what, what we would say you need to do is you need to layer in.

You need to understand what you're, where you're at, as we talked.

And when we start looking and projecting forward, you need to understand what your cost, your cost production is.

And I have lots of clients that tell me, "Well, how am I supposed to tell you what my cost production is for next year? Like, I don't know what my yield's gonna be." Right? I don't know this and I don't know that.

But we've gotta start with a budget.

And once you understand what your cost production is going forward and you start understanding, you know, where, how that works for your whole financial statement and your whole financial position, you can start making really good business decisions.

I had a audience member ask me recently, "Okay, so like, it was an easy step for me to hire an agronomist to assist with some of our agronomic decisions, but I've been dragging my feet on getting help on the financial side." So at what point should a producer know that they, there's an opportunity to maybe get some outside help on some of these finances? Is, is there a certain trigger or is this for everybody?

When we think overall on the farm from a full strategy projection, what is cost of production to a farmer?

farmer?Maybe I'll start by talking about, you talked about equipment.

I grew up on a farm, and I like going to farm shows, and I love looking at the big, cool stuff that's coming out, and there's some real innovative technologies coming out.

What we think is important for clients to do, and we're really scratching the surface at MNP, but we think farmers should understand their costs.

We, I go back to that labor, power, machinery number, but they need to understand their costs to operate and own that equipment on a per acre basis.

It has to be a number.

It can't be a percentage.

Can you just talk a little bit about why it's important to understand gross production and gross margin?

Uh, what are you guys gonna be pulling off on the Distillery Trail weekend?

Well, we're gonna do some classes on bourbon, and then we're gonna do some classes on agave.

So we're gonna taste some really good bourbons and, you know, why do they taste that way? What are they doing to the barrels? And what are they doing to the mash bills? And we're gonna talk about that, and we're gonna talk about why we use these glasses to, to taste the bourbons.

Then we're gonna talk about agaves and how they're pulled and how they're roasted or smoked or how they're fermented, and why we do it this way.

And then we're gonna have something to taste.

And hopefully I'll be entertaining as we're, you know, keep them all going.

[laughs]

What do you like about this Chocolate Love, Eric Olson?

But how do you, do your users still worry about that? Or how do you, how do you think about hallucination in sort of, you know, yeah, content citations and things like that?

Well, first off, you're definitely right.

It is a slower adoption curve in our space than it is in, you know, coding with engineers.

There is still a full, you know, normal distribution of willingness to adopt in concern within our space.

I will say it is very much changing.

And, you know, I think it's changed faster in like the biosciences world.

I think they were more willing to adopt in there still is more cautious than you know, an engineer at a tech company adopting cloud code, but they are probably a standard deviation, more willing to adopt these tools than like people purely in the academic world.

But has that been... like a challenge for you? Um, like, you know, working with, yeah, stingy academics.

How does that differ from what utilities have actually planned for? What are some of the headaches that they experience in trying to tackle these new types of projects?

Yeah, sure.

Great question, and I think even beyond, like, hundred megawatt, I mean, you're starting to see, like, gigawatt scale data centers go into place and it's like the utility system and kind of regulators who, you know, operate the grid outside of the utilities make sure the utilities are operating it effectively.

They have worked in a very particular way for a very long time.

So I'll use an example of, like, let's say a manufacturing plant is added in a community.

It's not the first time that large load-- data centers are not the first time large loads have had to be integrated into the grid.

The difference is, though, is that urgency, that speed I think I was mentioning earlier.

What's something you wish policymakers knew about what building in the real world actually requires?

Eric, what's your take on the, on the differences?

Uh, a big piece for us, um, our programs have been around, this margin-based program we call AgriStability, it's been around since the early 2000s.

Like, it actually was established because the hog business had some, had a downturn, and it's a margin-based program.

And because it's a margin-based program and the rules are out there, we can now, like, uh, unlike David, we can do plans around it, and we often do with our clients.

We have a lot of clients that come in and look at their, "What's my risk? What's, what's my downside risk?" Um, the other thing is because it's margin based and it's based on a producer's...

Uh, it's not based on an area average for a bunch of farmers in, uh, in a county or, uh, an RM or a rural municipality.

It's based on your own numbers.

So Eric, go ahead.