Farming Podcast | Is Your Farm Structure Costing You Money? New ARC & PLC Payment Rules Explained

00:00:00 Is your farm structure maximizing the government safety net? That's what we're covering. It can make you a lot of money and save you a lot of headache in this episode of XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve. 00:00:12 Welcome to XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve 00:00:19 your farming operation. And now, here's your host, Damian Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of XtremeAg's Cutting the Curve. 00:00:28 We got an important topic for you today. It's not agronomic, it's not how to get bigger bushels, and I know that's the stuff we all geek out about in agriculture. But guess what? 00:00:35 This is going to make you money and save you some headaches down the road. It's about your farm structure, and it's about US Department of Agriculture 00:00:42 programs and making sure you get this right. Jared Creed from JC Ag Financial Services is here. He is essentially a hired consultant for Kelly Garrett of 00:00:52 Garrett Land and Cattle, and helping them navigate their crop insurance, their grain marketing, and their government program compliance. 00:00:59 Making sure that they have all their Ts crossed and their Is dotted, and also making sure the bottom line is right there. 00:01:06 So what we're talking about, Jared, and you said before we hit the record button, "No, no, let's make sure that we're talking about farm structure." We're talking 00:01:11 about things like the ARC and the PLC and all this stuff, because there's recent changes at the Department of Agriculture. My brother even told me about this. 00:01:18 He's a career USDA guy. Explain what's going on, and obviously why it matters, is it affects the payment maximization that you can get on your farm, right? 00:01:29 Yes. Thanks, Damian and Kelly, for having me on. We've talked about this a handful of times in the last 12 months, Damian, whether it be on an XtremeAg podcast or your Business of Agriculture 00:01:39 podcast, and it's probably just time for another refresher and a reminder for the US row crop and wheat producer 00:01:46 primarily, is the focus of this conversation. Mm-hmm. This dates all the way back to the changes from the One Big Beautiful Bill last summer. The game changed in the middle of the 00:01:56 game, and there was nothing that a farm operation could have done or should have done differently for the 2025 00:02:04 crop year. However, as we look at the crop that is in the ground today for the '26 crop year, 00:02:11 farms need to be at least aware of potentially how their farms need to be structured because of the, make no 00:02:19 mistake about it, massive adjustments to the trigger events for the safety nets specific to Title One, ARC County, and PLC programs. 00:02:31 Now, for decades, ARC County and PLC, for the majority of the Corn Belt, ended up just kind of being a little bit of gravy money at the end of 00:02:41 a year that was never really counted on. That's a little bit different for wheat growers in the last decade. It's a little bit different for cotton and rice. 00:02:50 They've been more exposed to those safety nets in the last decade than perhaps the corn and soybean farmer. So on a high level, let's just talk about what 00:03:01 did actually change. The most important pieces is the old payment limitation for, again, Title One programs, be it ARC County and PLC. The old payment limitations used to be 00:03:12 $125,000 per eligible individual. Key piece there, per eligible individual, not a per eligible entity. 00:03:24 This is a dirty subject in the agriculture space because many people want to relate 00:03:30 entities, entities, entities to various government payments. That is not the case, and it's a far cry from it. 00:03:37 It is per Social Security number, in essence. So payment limitation from $125- Well, I want to go down that one because that was one thing that I even thought was 00:03:45 the case. Kelly, wasn't there a case to be made a few years ago that you were supposed to then have 00:03:52 Kelly Farming LLC and then Amber Garrett Operation LLC? Wasn't that the thing? Because there's still a lot of misinformation out there about that, Jared. 00:04:01 Am I right, Kelly? There's a lot of people that think it's entities. It's never been that case. It's always been a misunderstanding, and 00:04:07 then it gets taken as the truth and ran with. That's true. So- 00:04:10 It's always come back to a Social Security number, Damian, not a tax ID number of an LLC. It goes back to a Social Security number, but everybody then, "Well, 00:04:18 a farmer's going to invent or put into action all these entities, and then have more farming entities to get more subsidies." It doesn't work that 00:04:25 way. Social Security numbers. Okay, so it's the number of individuals, any humans that are involved in the- 00:04:32 Yes ... operation. It's not about, "I invented five entities so that I can hit my maximum on all five of these," right? That's that misconception. 00:04:41 The people in the suburbs think that. Yes. And that's specific to these farm programs, and specific to anything when it comes to the government as far as crop insurance and 00:04:51 FSA programs. That can be a little bit different of a case, Damian, that make no mistake about it, there's probably been, for lack of better words, 00:04:59 fraud over decades of individuals firing up a new entity with one entity going bankrupt and transferring of assets and cash, so on and so forth. 00:05:09 But we're talking about something completely different. In no way, shape, or form trying to game the system here. It's more so 00:05:17 the farm needs to understand the rules that have changed for their operation. Sure. 00:05:23 So, as I mentioned, 125,000, old payment limitation. New payment limitation, 155,000. For decimal point dust and inflation factor has been added to it, 00:05:34 so currently, we're actually sitting at $160,000 payment limitation. Now, what does that payment 00:05:41 limitation... What impacts that? It's not ad hoc programs such as SDRP and MFP and the alphabet 00:05:52 soup of various programs that have been around for the last decade. This is, again, specific to 00:05:59 ARC County and PLC. So as a reminder for everybody, what is ARC County and PLC? The high level explanation Price 00:06:07 loss coverage equals PLC. If the national average cash price falls below, on average, below a certain level, 00:06:19 any bushels of PLC eligibility that that individual has is in essence reimbursed, or that safety net has triggered. 00:06:29 As in, if the safety net price is, making up numbers here, $5, and I've got 100,000 bushel that is exposed to that, and the market ends up averaging 00:06:41 $4.50, that 100,000 bushel is eligible to receive that 50 cent a bushel safety net. ARC-County is a little bit like everybody's crop 00:06:52 insurance. It takes a five-year history yield and a five-year history price, multiplies the two together. Whatever that number is, 00:07:03 12% of that is the max payment within ARC-County that the individual can receive. 00:07:12 90% of that yield times price is the trigger. Now, if you think about in ARC-County, a five-year Olympic average yield and five-year Olympic average price, 00:07:23 especially price, we just came off of a stretch of years seeing higher prices. So naturally, present day, June, July 2026, 00:07:34 our prices are materially lower than where we were that five-year stretch leading into this time. Therefore, these safety nets are awfully high, but that's 00:07:44 not the only thing that changed. ARC-County trigger event used to be 86%, 00:07:50 now it's 90%. ARC-County max payment used to be 10%, now it's 12%. So that's the basics of how each program 00:07:59 work, and then it just becomes a very simple algebra equation. If I have a- 00:08:06 I got to ask Kelly what he's doing because I want to bring it to the farm level. So you go in and Creed says, "Here's what you need to be aware of." 00:08:12 Then he can't do it, you've got to go and do it yourself on setting it up with the US Department of Agriculture. Tell me how it works. 00:08:19 Well, we're going to certify different acres. My dad and I had Garrett Holdings and Garrett Landing Cattle. One was an LLC, one was a C Corp, still ties back to corporations. 00:08:32 And for many years, having two Social Security numbers was fine. Well, now my dad passed away, so now I'm have been down to one. My boys are starting to come in, but they still haven't been 00:08:44 50%. We're farming about 8,000 acres of our own. My boys, Connor and Kale, still aren't 50%. 00:08:53 Now we've talked about bringing Amber in, because the boys farm independently from those two farming entities, things like that. 00:09:00 And now, the end result of what Jared's getting up to here is that this will probably trigger some of 00:09:08 the succession planning that Jared and I have been talking about, and Adam Ulrich. It'll trigger it or it'll fast-track that just a little bit because 00:09:16 we'll probably go to 25% partners in all of the farming acres, because otherwise we're going to be over the payment cap, which is what he's explaining. 00:09:24 That's the end result here. And then obviously- Jared explains the details better than anybody. Right. 00:09:33 So Damian, let's assume that you have a $155,000 payment limitation. 00:09:37 Yep. There is a form at the FSA. This is where it gets a little murky. If there is a form that the farmer needs to remember, it is called their 00:09:49 156 EZ. It is going to provide a description of every farm number that they are the operator on, whether they own the ground or cash 00:10:00 renting or a crop share. It's going to give the base acres of each crop on that farm, and in addition, it's going to share PLC 00:10:11 yield, which is a very antiquated yield. It's not equivalent to APH. In Kelly's example, 220, 230 bushel APH, where the 00:10:21 PLC yield at the FSA might only be 150 to 170. Mm-hmm. However, that 156 EZ, not a plug for us, but we have went down this path enough in the last six months that we've 00:10:33 built some tools to be able to easily extrapolate the information out of these forms that we need in order to calculate this. If I'm sitting in Crawford County, Iowa, where Kelly 00:10:43 is at, and I take into consideration what is the max ARC-County payment for the crop year we're going into, we can already calculate 00:10:56 that because again, it's five-year historical information. It comes out to be somewhere around $125 an acre. At that point, that 00:11:06 is to my corn base acres. I'm not including what a potential payment can be on a soybean base at this point. 00:11:16 So if I take 155,000 and I divide that by $125, I'm going to come up with a number off the top of my head here, give or take, 8, 900 acres. 00:11:27 And I need to take that number one more time-- or excuse me, 11 to 1,200 acres. I need to take that 11 to 1,200 acres divided by 0.85. 00:11:39 And why 0.85? Is 85% of my base acres are eligible for the safety nets. 00:11:48 So if it's 1,200 acres divided by 0.85, that's going to tell me if I'm certifying under my name roughly that amount of acres, I am already at risk 00:12:00 of potentially maxing out- Right ... a 155,000 Title One Payment eligibility. So I'm going to do that exercise one more 00:12:12 time with real numbers this time. Okay. If I have a $155,000 payment limitation, in this go around, I'm going to try to do a weighted average saying 00:12:22 that 70% of my acres are corn, 30% of my acres are soybeans, and that's going to vary all across the US. Right. 00:12:30 But let's just say that my average potential max payment could be $95 an acre across the board. Okay. 00:12:38 Weighted average between corn and soybeans. 155,000 divided by 95 is going to be pushing 1,631 acres. And if I 00:12:47 divide that by 0.85, now I'm at 1,900 acres, meaning a lot of the heart of the Corn Belt is in that situation. If they are 00:12:59 certifying somewhere around 1,800 to 2,000 acres as an individual, they are probably already at their payment 00:13:07 limitation. Any additional acres runs the risk of losing what you were eligible for from a safety net because you've already maxed it out. 00:13:19 Okay. And so yeah, in short, if you're farming over 1,800 or 2,000 acres, you're 00:13:26 cutting your income. Yeah, because- No, but you're going to cut your safety net ... well, you're cutting your potential. 00:13:30 Yeah. And so what we need to do then, so if you're listening to this and you're like, "I'm fine. I'm a 1,500-acre operator," yeah, you probably are fine. 00:13:37 Assuming you're corn and soybeans, then using the numbers, and we get it that Jared just used 00:13:42 real damn close approximations, but obviously every entity's going to be a little different. So the point is, if you're over that 1,800 acres, 00:13:49 you need to probably have another Social Security number attached to this, meaning another individual involved in the operation. 00:13:55 Is that what I'm hearing, Jared? Well, there's a lot of different ways to skin this cat, and this is where it gets murky, don't get me wrong. The easiest, if an individual is 00:14:03 married, is a simple thing at the FSA as making it 50% Kelly, 50% Amber. Mm-hmm. 00:14:11 Nothing else changes. It doesn't have any type of an impact on what your banking setup is, what your grain marketing is, what your crop insurance is. I'm not talking about two different 00:14:22 certifications. Okay. I am simply writing down as the owner-operator that it's 50% Kelly, 50% Amber. Now, for years and years and 00:14:31 years, there was many individuals who already were like that, but a far cry from everybody. 00:14:37 But also in all those years, none of this ever came up in conversation. This is, again, the results of the One Big Beautiful Bill. 00:14:44 All the increases to the safety net that they made has now put kind of the target 00:14:51 that much more attainable for today's operators to reach that payment limitation. Now, what else can an individual be considering 00:15:00 outside of just their wife if they happen to be married? Let's say they do have sons in the organization 00:15:07 or other family members and such. If that individual is already certifying acres, that's fine. They have their own payment limitation. 00:15:18 But at the same time, is there a new mix or a new balance between individual A and individual B that needs to be considered? 00:15:28 Or maybe it happens to be husband, wife, and then their son. Mm-hmm. 00:15:33 And maybe it's two sons. Mm-hmm. And like Kelly mentioned, there's already this desire to go down this succession planning. 00:15:41 Mm-hmm. It should be speeding some of that up. Mm-hmm. And on top of that, there are lots of situations out in the countryside where the elder has the 00:15:51 transition plan to the younger individual, but it's being slowed up for XYZ reasons. This should speed it up, 00:15:59 and that younger individual is now very likely to receive additional benefits from the Beginning Farmer Rancher program. 00:16:07 The simplest way to put that is if the elder's paying $20 an acre for their crop insurance, the beginning farmer rancher is probably paying $5 to 00:16:15 $6 an acre. Kelly, didn't we just talk about that before we were recording this? Because I wanted to make sure that your son, Connor, realized that I am paying. 00:16:23 I mean, basically, I subsidize Vern. And you know what I'd like? Yes. 00:16:27 I'd like maybe just some kind of a card at the end of the year saying, "Thank you for working so hard to pay my crop insurance, Damian." You think you can do that? 00:16:36 I'll see what I can do. All right. So by the way, that's already happening, and that's because you are set up that way. So you are already set up. 00:16:43 You've already got your entities in the way it's supposed to be. We do. But I probably am going to let the boys 00:16:49 farm more ground, and I'll farm less because we work together and everybody's just trying to make a living and be successful, and 00:17:00 sometimes the team approach is best, and this is an example of that. And if you're bringing a younger person in or something like that, 00:17:09 I know that some of this isn't as exciting as making 10 more bushel, but this is far more important to your bottom line than making 10 more bushel. And- 00:17:18 Oh, there's years that it's not, but there's years where it absolutely is, and there's more years where it absolutely is critical than not. 00:17:23 I mean- Yes ... we've all been around this game for a long enough time and- But when a year comes that it's important and you're not set up, it's too late. 00:17:31 Right. Right. That's the best- That's going to happen in a lot of cases, Damian, from last year's crop. And as a reminder, the farm program, specific our county and 00:17:40 PLC, it operates on a marketing year that doesn't even begin until August 1 and ends... Excuse me, September 1 and ends the following 00:17:52 August. As in, it's beginning of July here in 2026, we are still in the 2025/26 marketing year, 00:18:03 but we are talking about decisions that will impact the '26, '27 marketing year- Mm-hmm 00:18:10 ... with ... potential safety net funds that wouldn't even be payable to the farmer until October of 2027. 00:18:19 Mm-hmm. Now, there's something important in that timing to consider. If I make, 00:18:26 in hindsight 2020, a mistake of how I'm set up this year and I don't learn about it until October of 00:18:34 2027, that means I've very likely already had the same error happen for the '27 crop. That would be the 00:18:45 '27, '28 marketing year. So it's kind of a waterfall on itself. We're talking about something that would impact the bottom line 14, 15, 16 months from now. Now, 00:18:57 could all of this discussion and work be for nothing? Absolutely. And what's that on the heels of? That's flat out on the heels of higher price, 00:19:05 combination of higher yields, but that's just not where we presently are. Now, I like to say to a lot of farms of 00:19:13 why go halfway back to this beginning farmer rancher benefit? Once you understand 00:19:20 what your situation looks like, 156 EZs, the very next step is to say, "How far can I get the next of kin involved in the operation to 00:19:31 capitalize on the increased subsidies on crop insurance?" And here's this dirty part that is such ludicrous 00:19:39 crap in agriculture. None of this is illegal. The FSA's job is not to explain this to the farmer either. It is unfortunately the farmer's job to learn 00:19:51 this. Yeah. And there's going to be a lot that are probably going to learn it the hard way, and it's going to have a two- or three-year tail to it. 00:19:58 That's right. Rather, the farmer has to adapt to the changes that the government clearly laid out in the One Big Beautiful Bill by understanding what their farm structure is, and that might 00:20:11 be with an organization such as ours that's deeply involved in the insurance and the marketing. It might be with another insurance agent. 00:20:17 It might be with their banker. It might be with their CPA. Somebody has to be able to help provide what that 00:20:25 truly needs to look like. Kelly, what'd you do? So the person that says, "All right, Kelly's the expert on this." Well, first off, you get professional advice like Jarratt at JC 00:20:34 AgFinancial, and then were you ahead of the curve on this? Because the- 00:20:40 No ... changes just got made here just the other couple weeks ago. I mean, a new change to it. 00:20:46 Well, the changes came out in the Big Beautiful Bill, and then some more announcements have come out, yes, things like that. 00:20:52 Some understanding, and now we're getting ready to certify for the '26 crop year. And if I'm ahead of the 00:21:00 curve, it's because of Jarratt. Because, like he said, the FSA office doesn't explain all this. That's not their job. 00:21:07 But it is in the governance, it is in the documentation that comes out in the bill and the law, and this is part of the reason 00:21:14 that I employ Jarratt, or am one of Jarratt's clients, is to understand stuff like this. The decisions we make in the office oftentimes have 00:21:26 a way bigger economic impact on the operation than when we're driving the corn planter, and this is an example of that. And like you said, a minute ago, we said, well, some years the 00:21:41 safety net isn't going to kick in, so it doesn't matter. But my sons can buy their crop insurance $10 or 00:21:47 $15 an acre cheaper than I can, and we're starting to transition the farm anyway. That's happening every year. 00:21:53 Yeah. Right. That's happening every year. So there's the answer to that. Right. 00:21:57 Is there a time limit on this, Jarratt? Is there something that has to be done? We're recording this beginning of July, end of June. 00:22:17 Is there anything that has to happen by a timeframe? Well, ideally. I don't want to say it as disrespectful, but ideally, the prior conversations that 00:22:28 we have had about this were listened to- Yeah ... were heeded. Right. 00:22:33 Because there probably is already many operations that have certified this year's ground- 00:22:38 Yep ... from an insurance standpoint at the FSA, and once that's done, the owner/operator and a farm member is established. 00:22:46 So the time constraint is technically up until certification date in the middle of July. July 15th. 00:22:52 Now- That's- ... what's that? The 15th of July. I'm sorry. Yep. 00:22:57 Yep. I purposely, and I know it gets on the nerves of plenty of my counterparts, we drag our feet on a lot of these decisions, because why not have as much information in front of us as we possibly 00:23:11 can? Mm-hmm. Why not make those decisions just like a marketing decision? Have as much info as you possibly can. 00:23:17 As an example, the end of June quarterly stocks report in acres, it has the ability to set the tone for the next six to nine months 00:23:25 of the market. Why not let that day come and go? And that is more of a prevalent comment if we still had to choose ARC County or PLC at the FSA office. 00:23:37 As of middle of this summer, we still do not know if we're going to have to choose a program delegation. 00:23:44 And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds there, but that is a whole other monster that probably deserves an entirely different conversation, because 00:23:52 it's not as simple as anymore of walking into the FSA and saying, "Well, what is everybody else doing?" "Well, they're putting this crop in that, this crop in 00:23:58 that." It's different this year. Kelly, on his corn base, he's going to have some farm numbers that are going to ideally be enrolled 00:24:07 in PLC and some farm numbers that are enrolled in ARC County. And the reason being is some farms have a much higher PLC yield 00:24:15 than others, and the safety nets are impacted by where those levels are. Now, one other piece, Damon, that is very important 00:24:24 C corporations. C corps have become kind of a nasty word with all this stuff because a C corp, at the end of the day, has one payment eligibility. 00:24:35 Correct. It doesn't matter if there's six, eight brothers all involved in it and they're all equal shares. 00:24:39 Okay. A C corp filing that way, one payment limitation. On the other hand, we have plenty of operators that are larger families, lot of individuals involved- 00:24:49 Mm-hmm ... as a general partnership, that they might have six, seven, eight, 10 different individuals that are involved in the operation. 00:24:56 Each one of those has their own payment eligibility. Sure. That softens that, or it creates a cushion that we're 00:25:04 not going to see such a detrimental yield and/or price that all of a sudden the safety net, we're leaving $1 million on the table just dependent on the size of a farm operation. 00:25:15 We actually do have a client that it was just, again, the rules changed in the middle of the game, too late for them. 00:25:20 They're going to probably leave, between a father, wife, son, and his wife, they're going to leave, give or take, $1 million on the table this year. 00:25:31 There are plenty of wheat producers out there with big, big wheat base acres. 00:25:35 Sure. And PLC payments are so steep on wheat because of the price difference. There's going to be a tremendous amount of money left on the table 00:25:43 as well. So it's just making sure that we know, or we're analyzing it a little bit different than what we did in the past. What's the farm structure look like? 00:25:55 What's the payment limitations? Potentially, how do those potentially negatively impact me? And just, it's just problem-solving. 00:26:05 It's just putting together a pretty simple puzzle. All right, so I want to make sure I got this right, and then Kelly, you can correct me and then also chip in as the farmer, since our listeners are producers. 00:26:14 All right. What is your farm structure? Do you even know? Do you know? Because I'm certain there's probably some producers just like they don't have an 00:26:20 estate plan, and frankly I think they're being irresponsible. But okay, what is your structure? Go to the 00:26:27 FSA office. For God's sakes, it's a government office. They're there, what, 8:00 to 4:30 every day. Go there and what is your structure? 00:26:34 How many Social Security number on there? And then the second thing I heard was the acreage amount. And you used corn and soy, but whatever it is, it becomes down to a dollar amount, 00:26:43 right? $155,000, and you're looking at that on that .85 was the number I heard, or 85%. So if you don't understand that, get somebody like 00:26:50 Jared who can help you out. And then the other one, if you're a C corp, that was the biggest red flag I've heard in the last five minutes. 00:26:56 If you're a C corp, you are limited to the entity, not the number of individuals. So does that mean they should change their legal structure? 00:27:02 Is it time to go and meet the attorney and say, "Dissolve the C corp and now make us into some other form of 00:27:08 business arrangement?" Some of that is easier said than done. Some of that is easier said than done. That is a conversation of talking to their CPA and to their attorney, 00:27:17 ideally all together as a group, to identify what the true risk or lack thereof is. 00:27:23 Did you do that, Kelly? Did you have to change? Did you have to get rid of something? No. 00:27:27 Were you- Kelly, not to interrupt, Tim, but Damian, I would say that Kelly's structure out on the farm is, 00:27:35 not patting Kelly on the back, he doesn't need any help with that. It's just- ... it's a lot different 00:27:42 than 99% of other farms, just because of everything that is going on out there. You have 00:27:49 just a tremendous amount of different businesses- Yeah ... that might roll up into one entity. Yep. 00:27:55 Not trying to get in the weeds there, but let's just talk about the average, two to 5,000 acre farm across the Midwest. 00:28:04 Mm. They might just be operating as an individual, and potentially their wife. They might have a partnership, they might have an LLC, what have you. 00:28:12 Mm. But making sure that inside those organizations it is understood where do we sit with the changes of 00:28:20 the big beautiful bill. I want to throw another one out there, not only about the guy that doesn't need any help patting himself on the back. 00:28:27 There could be another Social Security number involved. When Gene was still alive and Gene bought me beer, Gene liked talking to me, and I said, "Gene, I like hanging out with you. We could do this more often. 00:28:35 If you'd give me 80 acres over here, I could build a little barndominium on top of one of these hills, and I could be seeing you and drinking 00:28:41 Coors with you all the time." And there was almost a chance, and I said, "Kelly, I could be the older brother you always needed." I mean, he's obviously- 00:28:48 Oh, my ... he's only got sisters. So there was that chance, and I feel like maybe we just lost an opportunity. But it's still pop. 00:28:54 I spend enough time in Western Iowa that I'm glad Gene didn't give you that chance. All right. So I think we got a lot of those things handled. 00:29:03 Kelly, from a farmer's perspective, is there anything that we didn't cover? Because this is important stuff. As you said, I know that farmers don't like to 00:29:09 be in the office. They'd rather be in a piece of equipment. This matters. 00:29:14 Right. Farmers don't want to be in the office. They want to be in a piece of equipment. They want to be outside. But you need to educate yourself on these things. 00:29:22 This has such an economic impact on your farm. Working with Jared, one of the biggest changes was when we certified. Before Jared, Dad and I would get done planting, and we'd certify as soon as 00:29:31 possible just to get it taken care of so we didn't procrastinate it. Now with Jared, we wait as long as possible, but what he says is incredibly 00:29:39 reasonable. Tomorrow you're going to have a major crop report, and it might change 00:29:44 your elections on some things. Yeah. Why would you go make a certification decision before that? And so that's just a small example of the benefit of working with Jared 00:29:53 or a consultant like that, that says, "Hey, wait. Don't make that decision yet. Let's see what happens here. Let's kick this can down the road as far as we can." 00:30:01 The business side of farming is so important. When my dad was my son's age, if he just worked hard and kept his nose clean, he could be successful. 00:30:10 Now, it benefits us greatly- Yeah ... and it might be the difference between failure and success if you can understand these things. I wouldn't understand without Jared. 00:30:22 I very much encourage someone to hire successful people and put them around you. And I'm not good at the things Jared's good at. 00:30:29 I'm not good at the things Ben is good at. And they make me better. Yeah. I want to get- 00:30:33 That's what a farmer needs to do. I agree with all that, and I want to get the wrap from- I think there's one- 00:30:37 Oh, hang on. I want to get the wrap from Jared. There's one more important piece to throw into the mix. Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're going to hear the last important piece from you, 00:30:44 but we also have to Pay the light bill. If you're a farmer, because you probably are, you're listening to this show, you should just think about our friends over at Earth Optics. 00:30:53 Imagine knowing your soil as well as you know your fields. With Earth Optics, you get the most precise soil insights in the industry, clear, 00:30:58 accurate data on fertility, biology, and compaction. No more guessing, just the information you need to make smarter decisions, optimize your input costs, and boost your yields. 00:31:06 Earth Optics puts the full picture of your soil right in your hands so you can farm confidently and profitably, unlock healthier soils, stronger harvests, and a 00:31:14 better bottom line. We're talking about the money here. Get the tools that can help you. Just like Jared's a professional that can help you make money and help you run your business, Earth Optics can give you information to 00:31:23 help you farm better. Go to earthoptics.com. That's earth like the planet where we all live, optics like your eyeballs. Earthoptics.com. One last big, majorly important thing from my 00:31:33 friend Jared Creed with JC Ag Financial that you need to know about this topic. 00:31:38 That we're all aware that markets go up and down. But keeping in mind for the farmer, as we have tried to broadcast in the last year, year and a half, 00:31:48 that their grain, as in the physical grain, is impacted by up and down price, their insurance is also impacted, 00:31:57 and their farm program is also impacted. However, none of those three care about the others. They're all individual. And because of the changes from the One Big Beautiful Bill, it has 00:32:09 actually, I shouldn't say actually, but it should be adjusting the mindset of how some marketing decisions are made. 00:32:19 As in, I would go out on a limb and say that the majority of US agriculture does not realize that they could probably make more money at $4 corn than 00:32:31 they do at $5 corn. Gross revenue goes up as the market goes down, even if no grain is actually sold because 00:32:40 insurance has kicked in, a farm program has kicked in, and the revenue that those two are generating is greater than that of the exposure on the physical grain. 00:32:52 That can hurt the farmer the other way from potential panic selling or letting go of something when there is 00:32:59 legitimately no financial risk to it. If there's money on a mark-to-market view in front of you, you obviously want to generate as much revenue as possible. 00:33:11 Who cares where it comes from? Yeah. So any more, a market going down can actually be our friend, but you just have to be structured the correct way. 00:33:20 And the last piece, I'm not going to say the important thing again here or something important, Damian. What I just mentioned, that's a whole another 00:33:27 conversation for a different recording, what have you. We can review that again. But 00:33:36 this is still, I'm going to say this again, it has this negative perception out in the countryside of government programs, government programs. 00:33:45 Yes, the farmer doesn't want the ad hoc money if we have open and fair markets. 00:33:51 This doesn't have anything to do with ad hoc money, and it's funded completely separately. 00:33:57 It's not a dirty word. Talking about Social Security numbers rather than entities. Individuals involved in an operation that is taking financial risk is not a dirty word. 00:34:09 And I don't mean to put shame on the listener, but shame on the farmer that doesn't take a step forward to understand what we're talking about 00:34:16 here. Because those who don't are probably going to be the victim down the road that the government hurt them when somebody else that is generating 00:34:26 that money is going to be right there to scoop up the breadcrumbs. Yeah. And obviously, that's the same thing we always talk about. 00:34:33 Do you like that you got to play this game? Well, it's the only table to sit at, right, Kelly? 00:34:41 There's certain things of this that you maybe don't necessarily enjoy it, but it's the only card table that you can sit at, so you got to play the 00:34:49 game. You're not going to go sit at the other table and put yourself at a competitive disadvantage. 00:34:53 Yeah. You're- It'd be foolish to do so ... not welcome. Yeah, you'd be foolish to do so. I agree. Got it. All right, if you want to learn more about this or you just realize you 00:35:02 need professional help, and we all do. If you're not using the attorney, the accountant, and somebody like JC Ag Financial, then you probably are, again, leaving money on the 00:35:13 table. If they want to find you, where do they find you, Mr. Jared? Email address would be the easiest. 00:35:20 Jared, J-A-R-O-D, @elite, it's E-L-I-T-E, ag, A-G, I-N-S.com. I-N-S short for insurance. jared@eliteagins.com. 00:35:34 And if you really don't want to have to write that email down, you can probably get a hold of one of us, and we'll make sure we connect you to our friend, Jared Creed. 00:35:40 Jared Creed has been on my show, "The Business of Agriculture," several times. He's been on here a lot of times, and he does his business is keeping farmers' 00:35:48 financial picture in the black, and that's very important. He was joined by our friend Kelly. Yes, Kelly? 00:35:56 The one takeaway I think a listener should have today is that I heard Damian Mason say he needs professional help, and admitting that is the first step in 00:36:03 the process. Yeah, and also, remember, if I had that 80 acres up on a hill up from you, I would be able to come around and give you my opinion more often, and I think 00:36:11 that that's one thing you're missing. Amber says unsolicited advice is unwanted advice. That's something that I should share with you as well. 00:36:23 Anyway, his name's Kelly Garrett. You can find all kinds of information from videos that are shot from the guys out in the field. We've got a whole library of free content. 00:36:31 It's at xtremeag.farm. Also, go to our YouTube channel, hit subscribe. It doesn't cost anything. If you want to take your learning with XtremeAg to the 00:36:38 next level, become a member. Very easy, you just give us $750 a year. You get direct access to guys like Kelly if you want to dig in a little deeper on a 00:36:45 topic. You'll usually get a free package to go. Like for instance, the last several years, members have not paid to go to Commodity Classic because of our relationship with Nature. 00:36:52 You also get the data and the year-end information of all the stuff that happens at our trials, and you're invited to our data conference, which this end of year will 00:36:59 be on January 10th, 11th, and 12th in the Quad Cities, and we would love to see you there. I'll be there. Even though last year it was so cold, I almost thought I was 00:37:07 going to have hypothermia stage three. Anyway, till next time, thanks for being here, Jared and Kelly. I'm Damian Mason. This is XtremeAg's "Cutting the Curve." 00:37:14 That's a wrap for this episode of "Cutting the Curve." Make sure to check out xtremeag.farm for more great content to help you squeeze more 742 00:37:22.080 --> 00:37:24.130