Wow! Jared Hofer, a South Dakota farm management instructor at MItchell Tech., captures the mood of many farmers in his column today. Is this where you are at, too? Check it out.

The five stages of farming...in 2016

By Jared Hofer

Production agriculture is a very complex occupation, but for simplicity’s sake, I have gleaned it down to a five-step process: 1. Plan 2. Plant 3. Pray for rain 4. Harvest 5. Pre-tax plan.

Over the past 10 years, you were likely successful even if you only did four out of five.

I am afraid that in 2016 though, we may be becoming familiar with a different five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These are commonly considered the 5 stages of grief and may likely become part of our vocabulary in 2016. 

The first stage is denial or what I prefer to call blissful ignorance: the fortunate unawareness of something unpleasant.  Many of you likely lost money in 2015 but refuse to acknowledge it or just haven’t realized it yet, because how can you lose money with nearly 200 bushel corn?  When you budget for 2016, you have to think you are missing something because even with 150 or higher bushel corn on your $150 or lower cash rented ground, you are still losing money and you think that you must be wrong, but are you?

When you realize that things truly are this tight, the next stage is anger.  You are angry at the markets, agronomists, landlords, neighbors, and bankers.  This is where you grumble, “is it worth all of the stress and hassle to keep farming?”  The next stage is bargaining or the “I can fix this” stage.  “If the price goes to this or our yield is this, we will be ok.”  Once you realize that your bargaining is not likely to work comes the depression stage.  This is the stage that sets in after you have had conversations with the banker, agronomist, and your family and you know that things truly don’t look good and it will be tough this year.  This is where you actually considering getting out, talking to prospective renters or auctioneers.

The final stage is acceptance.  The sooner you can get here the better.  Accepting the fact that the current economic conditions are reality.  Accepting that you likely made some poor decisions in the past that led you to this point.  Accepting that you may need to explore options that you haven’t had to in the past.  Once you get into this stage and get some of the emotion of the prior steps behind you, there is only one direction to look, forward. 

Looking forward will require knowing your numbers better than you have ever known them before.  You will use these numbers to look at all alternatives and be willing to do things differently than you have done in the past.  2016 is going to be rough, there is no sugarcoating that, but this is not the first time things have been tight in agriculture and I can assure you that it will not be the last.  So by accepting that things are tight and then moving on by making well thought out decisions, you can get through this.

You can reach Hofer at 605-995-7196 or [email protected].