Just a week before the two best teams in professional football duke it out for the championship of their sport, there's another meeting of minds that brings together the best and the brightest professional in their field. But, these are farmers, not athletes, and their goal is for everyone to win. The event is the Texas A&M Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP). And, there's no question it's the Super Bowl of ag management meetings. The TEPAP program began in 1991 and already it has attracted farmers from coast to coast in the United States and north into Canada. Its two, week-long sessions challenge farmers to face issues that will decide their success on into the 21st century. Management topics cover issues such as finances, labor, marketing, business organization and information systems. Roughly half the week's time is spent in the classroom and the rest "rubbing shoulders" with some of America's best farmers and swapping ideas and attitudes about different subjects. The discussions sometimes go late into the night. Very late. The TEPAP program provides a rare opportunity for framers to discuss issues that they might not talk about comfortably with their neighbors at home. The program generates a lot of energy among its participants and each one can tell a story of how it changes their attitude toward their business. And things do change when farmers return home from the TEPAP conference. Try this, for example. "I fired my accountant and hired a marketing consultant the week I got home from the TEPAP programs," says Gould, Arkansas farmer John McGraw. Now, that's change. After listening to the discussion about financial management I wanted to switch to accrual accounting. My old accountant said I didn't need it and didn't want to do it, so I fired him," say McGraw, who farms 52,000 acres of cotton, rice, soybeans, sorghum and wheat. "The one I hired still isn't sure why I want to use accrual accounting, but at least he's willing to do it. I think it's one of the biggest mistakes farmers make when they use accounting just for tax purposes. I want to see what I've done, where I should expand and what operations should be eliminated from my farm." McGraw finds he worries less and sleeps better since deciding to use a marketing consultant. "They make fewer mistakes than I do. They're not as emotionally involved in the process and make better informed decisions," he says. "Now, I don't catch the markets at the end of the day and kick myself for not selling a day earlier. It just frees me up from a lot of headaches." Midwest farmer Randy Gangwish found TEPAP's financial management sessions to be some of the most helpful also. "With most standard ag accounting programs you've got revenues at the top and expenses at the bottom, but you really don't know what happened," Gangwish says. The Gangwish family farm operation includes 2,200 acres of seed corn production, 600 acres of field corn and 150 acres of soybeans. "I had been struggling with getting a hand on financial management and looking at different accounting systems before I went to the program. Specifically I want to get a better handle on cost accounting. In the session at TEPAP we discussed the concept of contribution margin. That really helped me start to get a handle on how I should set up my accounting. Now I have a better way to analyze our business and decide what enterprises to expand." New York farmer Dale Hemminger left the TEPAP program with the confidence to make major changes in his operation at Seneca Castle. "We've done a lot of fine tuning with information I learned in the program. It makes you aware that you have to look at farming more and more as a business. I've got a greater appreciation now for the importance of utilizing assets and understanding items such as thruput and cost/unit," he says. "We had been very close to discontinuing our dairy operation. But I came back with the confidence to go ahead and expand and to take the outlook of seeing how well we can compete. We expanded an older parlor and increased our herd from 120 cows to 300 cows. The new facilities were built with plans to possibly expand to 600 cows in the next six to 10 years." In addition to the dairy, Hemminger runs an 1,100-acre process vegetable operation. "The vegetable operation had been static but the market busted wide open about the time we expanded the dairy," Hemminger says. "We went through a major vegetable expansion at the same time. Part of the reason I was able to expand both enterprises at the same time was the confidence I had after two years of the TEPAP program." |
"The TEPAP program, quite simply, made me a new man," says Ailsa Craig, Ontario farmer Peter Twynstra. "Just like in the United States, farming in Canada in the 1980s was a negative situation. After a while it draws you down. TEPAP reversed my negative attitude. It lifted a weight off my shoulders and put an element of positive feeling back into my life." The Twynstra family owns and operates The Great Canadian Bear Co. International in scope, the company grows, processes and markets beans around the world. Still, Twynstra found plenty to learn at TEPAP. "I was taught in the old school and was fascinated with the discussions on all the new mechanisms for management style, finance, taxes and marketing. I was able to network with aggressive, entrepreneurial people who are proactive in agriculture. You find yourself totally submersed with people in different commodities in different areas. The TEPAP program really challengers you to decide if you want to be a winner in agriculture or a loser. Then it helps you decide what direction you need to take to be successful in the next decade. It's really forward thinking." Twynstra's enthusiasm for the program didn't impress his son Steve much. The Canadian youth had received his undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph and then earned his Masters degree at Purdue University. "I've had all of that," the young Twynstra told his father. But with some gently nudging, Steve finally agreed to attend TEPAP as well. "When he came back form the first year's week-long session he had a smile all over his face," say the elder Twynstra. "He thought it was fantastic." The TEPAP faculty, also an elite group, find that they sometimes learn as well as teach. "Based on some of the discussions I had with farmers at the TEPAP program, I took a closer look at custom farming versus trying to do all the work ourselves on our family farm," says TEPAP faculty member and Purdue University ag economist Mike Boehlje. "We found that we were much more timely with custom farming. When it was time to buy a new combine, it was obvious it didn't make any sense." Boehlje doles out plenty of information for farmers to digest as well. "They're challenged to develop a manufacturer's mentality in their approach to agriculture. I think farmers need to look on ag production as a set of inter-related processes rather than just one farm unit. That includes thinking in terms of value added activities. What happens at the farm gate can be enhanced with value added processes or retained ownership," he says. "We also talk about strategic planning and how to think longer term." The value of the TEPAP program isn't just what you talk about, but how you talk about it and who you talk to, believes TEPAP faculty member and Virginia Polytechnic Institute professor Dave Kohl. "The week-long seminars give farmers a chance to step back and look at the big picture. That's good because farmers tend to micro-manage their operation," Kohl says. "Producers keep telling me they're much freer to talk about their business at the seminar because they don't have to worry about their neighbors. They're much less reserved in discussion because they don't have to worry about upsetting someone they live next to. I constantly hear farmers saying that one of the biggest benefits of the program is the ability to network with other producers from around the country. They form alliances that will last for years. You just can't find this kind of program at the state level." Kohl's participation in the TEPAP program has changed his way of thinking as well. "My attitude has changed. I'm beginning to think that a lot of bottom line profit problems relate back to human relations. The good manager steps back, gets away from micro-managing everything. Under-used human assets is actually a bigger problem than capital investment. That's a feeling I have, it's not backed up with data," he says. "But I think the peak performers understand they need to hire good people and then get out of their way." The ultimate benefits of the TEPAP program comes a few years after farmers complete their second session, believes Kohl. "The real benefits begin three to five years later s farmers can really begin to see improvements from the changes they make," he says. "And the friendships they've made with other farmers, of course, last for years and years." By John Russnogle |