Check out our latest tidbits and news for the officers, committee chairs, members of the board of directors, and the general membership of the Farm Financial Standards Council. (Download in PDF form.)

New Membership Directory

A new FFSC Membership Directory has now been produced and distributed to all active FFSC Members. If you did not get one in your e-mail box, let me know and I’ll happily send you a replacement. Total membership has climbed to 182.

We’d Like to See Your Face

Past FFSC President Paul Neiffer and past FFSC Director Curt Covington discuss their presen- tatoins before addressing the crowd of 150 at the event. This is the 5th Boot Camp the Council has co-sponsored with Farm Futures magazine. Other Council board members attending this year included David Olson, co-chair of the Marketing Committee, and Mark Compton, co-chair of the Finance Committee. If we missed noting other Council members please accept our apology.

It’s always great to know who you are communicating with and an easy way to make that happen with your Council Colleagues is to send us a head-and-shoulders photo of yourself and we’ll add it to the directory. Color jpgs work best, of course. Just send along something you have — does not have to be formal or in a business suit or dress.

Kent Meister is doing well

A past FFSC President and our current CFO, Kent suffered a stroke in mid-January andafter many weeks in a hospital in hometown Bloomington, IL is now recovering and receiving therapy at home. Fortunately, his wife, Karen, retired recently so she is available to assist him in getting around the house. He has regained dexterity in both hands and is now doing ‘some tax work’ to stay busy. He is up and functioning completely in his CFO capacity. As soon as he is able to get in and out of their personal vehicle he will go to continued therapy sessions. The two are looking forward to seeing all their friends at the July meeting in nearby Champaign.

Of the get-well gift sent by the Council, Karen writes: Thank you for the rubber tree plant. It is a very nice plant and looks great in our home now that we have been able to come home.

Upcoming Trade Shows

The Council will be present with a display at the annual NFRBMEA Conference which will be held June 10 – 14 in Harrisburg, PA; the AICPA Conference which will be in Las Vegas in July, and the ABA’s National Agricultural Bankers Association conference in Omaha November 11-14. If you are going to be attending any of these events and can spend some time assisting in managing the FFSC display, please let me know.

Annual Conference Coming July 25 – 27

Past FFSC President Ron Swanson and current Director Kathy Reinhardt were part of a panel discussion at the Farm Futures Financial Boot Camp held January 17 in Coralville, IA.

This year’s FFSC Annual Conference will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Cham- paign, IL July 25 – 27 and ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND. The final agenda along with registration information will be coming out right around April 1 (no joke!!). The agenda will follow that from previous years….

• Wednesday afternoon (July 25) Committee Meetings — These are open to anyone wishing to participate with NO OBLIGATIONS. What we really want are your ideas. That evening we will have a welcoming reception and barbecue. This is open to all who attend including spouses, significant others and family members who just happen to be traveling with you.

• Thursday (July 26) — Speakers throughout the day with enough programming to qualify for 6 hours of professional CE. (The Council is a registered CPA education provider and certificates of attendance will provided to all who request them. An evening activity is in the works.

• Friday (July 27) — Committee reports and the annual business meeting and election of officers and directors. We will be electing two directors for three-year terms and a secretary/treasurer who will then serve in the chairs to advance to vice president and president of the Council. IF YOU WANT TO BE NOMINATED let us know. The Nominating Committee will be meeting soon to develop the slate for election. Optional afternoon activities are being developed but will likely include a visit to a local grain farm and elevator.

Tidbits and news for the officers, committee chairs, members of the board of directors, and the general membership of the Farm Financial Standards Council.

New Membership Directory

A new FFSC Membership Directory has now been produced and distributed to all ac-
tive FFSC Members. If you did not get one in your e-mail box, let me know and I’ll
happily send you a replacement.

Wanna See Your Face?

It’s always great to know who you are communicating with
and an easy way to make that happen with your Council Colleagues is to send us a
head-and-shoulders photo of yourself and we’ll add it to the directory. Color jpgs work
best, of course. Just send along something you have — does not have to be formal or
in a business suit or dress, any ol’ pic will do — and we’ll add it to the next issue of the
directory. If you sent us one and it’s not in this issue, my apologies….send it again and
we’ll get it added.

Been in the News Lately?

Share it with us. If you’ve been in your local news lately,
share the information with us so we can spread the word to your fellow Council mem-
bers. Did you make presentation to a local service club? Even a grand opening at your
business or being named a C of C Amabassador. Or did you serve on a panel talking
ag finance?…..We want to put a very human face on the Council and the best way to do
that is to show our industry that we are just normal folks who are business people who
just happen to have a penchant for working with ag financial programs. It would really
be great if we could get some pix of our folks and post them on our web site…..at which
we do NOT share contact information on members (nor do we share our membership
roster with anyone!!)

A Torch has been Passed.

Owen Thompson served as president of the Council some years ago and was the real
driver behind getting a membership program going with the Council. After he was
finished serving his ‘terms’ in the leadership chairs he was ‘convinced’ (read coerced)
into being the Chair of the Membership Committee, a role he eventually shared with
Keith Raynor. When Keith left his spot on the committee to become Council Secetary/
Treasurer we were fortunate enough to have two ‘new’ members come forward and
volunteer to take on the shared roles of Membership Committee Co-Chairs,….Grace
Richardson and Tom Groppel….. finally giving Owen a break as well. So after his many
years of leadership, Owen has relinquished his duties as the head of the committee….he
did stick around for a couple of conference calls the help get Grace and Tom launched
with their new duties….

This is just a long way of saying “Thank You, Owen” for the vision you had of devel-
oping a membership program and for being a constant driver in making it successful.
And good luck with the deer hunting!!

2018 Committee Co-Chairs

(Contact information is in the directory)

Technical Committee
Jeff Bushey, Nietzke & Faupel, PC
Alan Miller, Purdue University (retired)
Marketing Committee
Brenda Duckworth, AgriVision Farm Management
David Olsen, Agrifamily Consulting, Inc.
Finance Committee
Scotty Elston, AgTexas Farm Credit Services
D. Mark Compton, Compton Accounting
Membership Committee
Grace Richardson, Freed Maxick CPAs
Thomas Groppel, Cedar Ridge Farm

Gonna Be Near Milwaukee or Cedar Rapids?

Stop by the ABA National Ag Bankers Conference in Milwaukee November 12 – 15 or
at the Farm Futures Boot Camp in Cedar Rapids, IA on January 17. The Council will
be well represented at both in the trade show areas and at the podiums where members
will be making presentaitons. So if you are in the area….stop by and say “Hi.”

No New Guidelines for 2018

There will be NO updates to the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture at the end of this
year so the current document will remain in use for 2018.

2018 Dates and Location

Hilton Garden Inn, Champaign, IL, July 25 – 27, 2018.
Todd Doehring is in charge and has been working on the program for some time.

Contact
Carroll Merry
Administrator, FFSC
cmerry@countryside-marketing.com 262-253-6902

A new year means new revisions to the FFSC Financial Guidelines for Agriculture. Stay up to date by ordering the 2017 edition of our guidelines document.

Summary of Changes

In this edition of the Farm Financial Standards Council’s Financial Guidelines, there are several important changes to be noted. These changes reflect the latest evolution of the guidelines to be more user-friendly and guided by the continual goal of being as consistent as possible between GAAP and the distinct challenges inherent in agricultural production businesses. The goal of obtaining a more stream-lined, visually appealing, and more concise set of guidelines was largely achieved by reducing verbosity and minor format changes.

Beyond these, the most impactful change affects the Income Statement and subsequent financial analysis ratio calculations and other computations that are derived in part or whole;from the income statement. While the terminology related to some of these calculations has changed, the interpretation of the results has not been affected.

The following summarizes how the Income Statement format has changed in the current edition:

• Interest expense has been moved out of operating expenses resulting in the subtotal, Income from Operations, which is prior to consideration of interest expense.
• The prior Income Statement format contained the subtotal Net Farm Income from Operations and was a subtotal that included all operating expenses and only differed from Net Farm Income by the exclusion of gains/losses on capital assets. The term Net Farm Income from Operations has been removed from the guidelines.
• In the current Income Statement format, Net Farm Income differs from Income from Operations by the exclusion of consideration of interest expense and gains/losses associated with the sale of capital assets.

The following list summarizes the specified effects of the Income Statement format changes:

• Income Statement format: Interest expense is removed from operating expenses and is listed below Income from Operations subtotal (Formerly Net Farm Income from Operations) as a line item prior to gain/losses on sale of capital assets.
• Rate of Return on Farm Assets and Operating Profit Margin Ratio computations: In the calculation of these ratios the numerators, Netfarm income from operations + Interest expense, are replaced with the single expression Income from Operations. The interpretation of these ratios remain unchanged.
• Rate of Return on Farm Equity computation: In the calculation of this ratio the numerator, Net farm income from operations, is replaced with income from Operations -Interest expense. The interpretation of this ratio remains unchanged.
• EBITDA computation: Net farm income from operations + interest expense replaced with the single expression Income from operations. Intermediate subtotal EBIT removed from the calculation to arrive at EBITDA computation.
• Capital Debt Repayment Capacity computation: Netfarm income from operations is replaced by Income from Operations. In this calculation, the addition of interest expense on term debt has been replaced with the subtraction of interest expense on current debt to arrive at Capital debt repayment capacity.
• Income from Operations Ratio computation: In this calculation since Net farm income from operations has been removed from the guidelines; Income from operations less Farm inter.est expense is now used as the numerator. The interpretation of this measure remains unchanged.

Order the 2017 Financial Guidelines for Agriculture

Order the Management Accounting Guidelines

A sharp uptick in debt, owed by farmers who loaded up on easy credit when commodity prices were high and kept borrowing after grain prices crashed, is raising fears of broader turmoil in U.S. agriculture.

A Reuters analysis of federal data on agricultural lending in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa shows that delinquency rates on farmland and production loans are rising sharply. According to Reuters, the proportion of extremely leveraged grain farmers in the U.S. – those with debts totally more than 71 percent of assets – doubled between 2012 and 2015.

(via Illinois Farm Bureau)

Stephen Severe, center, has been elected president of the Farm Financial Standards Council. He is flanked by Janice Bitter, new vice president, and Todd Doehring, the organization’s new secretary/treasurer. Severe is chief financial officer at Padlock Ranch near Ranchester, WY, where the group’s annual meeting was held in early July. He is holding a branding iron bearing the Padlock Ranch emblem.

(Ranchester, WY, July 25, 2016) – Stephen Severe, chief financial officer at Padlock Ranch, located near here, was elected president of the Farm Financial Standards Council during the organization’s annual conference held at the ranch July 14 and 15.

Severe, who had previously served as the Council’s secretary/treasurer and vice president, was chosen to lead the group during a business meeting that capped off a week of activities on the sprawling 475,000-acre property which straddles the Montana and Wyoming state line.

Named vice president of the organization was Janice Bitter, a vice president with Farm Credit East, Homer, NY. Bitter had previously served as secretary/treasurer of the Council. Joining the leadership team is Todd Doehring, a director at Centrec Consulting Group, a management and financial consulting firm located in Savoy, IL.

Earlier in the week the senior leadership of the organization spent two days doing strategic and long-range planning for the Council. They were later joined by agricultural financial advisors, academics, accountants and farmers/ranchers from across the country for discussions on issues involving current and future financial planning needs of agricultural producers and lenders.

While meeting at Padlock headquarters the Council approved the adoption of new versions of the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture and the Management Accounting Guidelines for Agriculture. Both documents have undergone revisions to style and format and the new versions will become available in January 2017. The original Financial Guidelines were introduced in 1993 as a guide for bringing industry-wide uniformity in assisting farm and ranch owners / managers and their accounting teams to develop standardized financial recordkeeping formats and programs.

The group also discussed some possible changes to its organizational structure and fees being charged for the Guidelines documents.

In 2017 the Council will meet July 27 and 28 in Syracuse, NY.

This year, we’re making our annual membership renewal available online. You can fill out the form below to renew your membership through next June, and you’ll receive an invoice in your email enabling you to pay online. (If you’d rather send us a check, you can do that, too.)

Take a look at our corporate partnership program, as well. Our corporate partners make possible many of the services the FFSC provides to members, and we’d love to have you on board. You can add your corporate partnership to your membership renewal form and make one easy payment. We’d love to have you on board for a great 2016-17!