You might expect top-notch farm operators to feel as buoyant about the future as at any other time in their farming careers, what with $6 per bushel corn and $14 per bushel soybeans. Based on the reaction of the four new award winners at the Master Farmer awards luncheon recently, that's just 180 degrees reversed from how they're viewing the future.

This year's awardees, Bob Bishop, Leesburg; Tom Johnson, Redkey; Jim Lankford, Martinsville; and Rory Walker, Waterloo, participated in a roundtable discussion featuring them after the formal program. Bruce Erickson, a Purdue University ag economics professor, hosted the discussion. The Master Farmer program is sponsored annually by Indiana Prairie Farmer magazine and the Purdue College of Agriculture.

"I believe the future is more uncertain now than at any other time since I've been farming," Lankford says. He and his family survived the worst of the flood this spring, but this one year with unusual weather isn't what concerns him most.

"I think I feel that way because there is so much uncertainty right now," he continued. "It's not just that fertilizer prices have doubled or tripled, but it's every input – fuel, seed- equipment- cash rent- they're all going up. If corn is $1 per bushel and you lose 10% of the price, it's only a dime per bushel. But if it's $7 per bushel and you lose 10%, that's 70 cents per bushel, and that's a bigger chunk of your potential profit.

"I'm still optimistic- I'm certainly not leaving agriculture. But I think it's possible the next year or two in farming may separate the men from the boys."

Erickson then turned to Bishop. "How do you manage this increased risk?" he said.

"We sweat a lot," Bishop joked. "Seriously, we've always lived with risk. Yes, I'm probably more apprehensive about the next couple of years in ag than at any time in the last 10 years. Perhaps we would be better off if corn stayed at $5 per bushel, rather than going much higher, as it did. But we just have to manage risk. One way to do it is to try to market ahead."

Erickson then posed a question to Johnson. "You and your son raise all popcorn, a specialty crop, plus seed beans," the Extension leader said. "How do you manage risk in that type of operation?"

"We take them!" Johnson replied. "Marketing is more important than high yields today. The price of everything we buy is going up. When the price comes down, what we buy doesn't. One thing we try to do is limit our amount of debt."

"Rory, with so many details in farming today, how do you keep an eye on what's happening down the road?" Erickson asks.

"Down the road we'll hope to grow," he notes. "We try to think outside the box. We use as many consultants as we think can help us do that- think outside the box. We listen to their ideas, then sort through them."