Farm Futures Summit

I had the privilege on Thursday and Friday to attend the Farm Futures Summit in St. Louis.  The Summit is sponsored by Farm Futures Magazine and the program was outstanding as always.  Arlan Suderman of Waterstreet Solutions is top notch when it comes to explaining outside forces that are affecting the markets in agriculture.  I recommend following Arlan on Twitter.  @ArlanFF101 is is twitter name. 

Howard Buffett was the keynote speaker who spoke on World Hunger.  His presentation was thought provoking, but I think many of us were also looking forward to hearing more about his views on agriculture sustainability and farming.  Buffet did plug his Invest An Acre program to reduce hunger.  I would have also appreciated if Mr. Buffett had taken at least a bit of time to mingle. 

David Kohl of Virginia Tech University is and outstanding speaker.  The Chance hear him say anything is wonderful.  He spoke on future potential competitors and customers.  He also monitored a outstanding panel as follows:  Phil Corzine, Don Orr and William Myers spoke on specific segments of global markets.

The after dinner debate involved only 2 people.  Gary Baise, trial attorney with experience in and out of government and Brett Lorenzen, a project coordinator with Environmental Working Group.   Baise highlighted some examples of EPA and others being out of control at times, while Lorenzen positioned his EWG as much less radical than many of us think.

Friday morning I spent most of my time in the Management for multi-generational farms session.  The highlight of the afternoon was listening to Mike Boehje of Purdue discuss management risk in turbulent times.  One of his take home points is that farmers should be accumulating some cash for a rainy day in these times of high commodity prices.  One of his prime examples was that Warren Buffet's Berkshire-Hathaway has $37 Billion in ready cash assets