Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND - They say the seven words that lead to the death of a church are "We have always done it that way." The message to WESTI Ag Days attendees Tuesday was similar in relation to family-run farms and ranches.

Motivational speaker and agriculture strategist Andy Junkin of Agriculture Strategy in Iowa spoke to a large crowd at the opening session of the two-day agriculture event at the Worland Community Center Complex.

Junkin opened his keynote address describing a scenario of a distraught farmer who felt there was no way out except to take his own life.

"There's always another way to solve a problem," he said.

Junkin's main focus during the keynote address, and as an agriculture strategist is getting families to change the way they make decisions. He said he learned in dealing with his own family the right approach and the wrong approach.

So often, he said family members are so focused on being right instead of focusing on doing things right.

When he went off to college, his mother showed him the farm financials and said if he couldn't help then she was leaving his father.

He said the first plan he gave to his father he took several months in writing and it was 200 pages. His father looked at the cover and then burned it. He presented many more plans that filled several

Tupperware bins. Plans his father never looked at.

Finally, his uncle suggested to Andy's father to give him a small part of the farm to try his plan on and Andy's plan flourished. His dad plowed up Andy's field.

"I became obsessed with finding out why he was so abrasive to change," Junkin said.

What he came to realize, he said is that when "young lads" come home from ag college, they come with a lot of great ideas and for some of those ideas, the parents try to sponsor a few of the ideas but ultimately the ideas are "perceived as criticism for what mom and dad have done."

He said parents have a lot of pride in wanting to give their children the family farm and if the children want to change everything, it feels like criticism.

Another issue, he said, is that farmers are living longer and thus working longer and farms instead of one-generation farming there are now two or three-generations operating a farm, but everyone wants to be the person making a decision.

"Everyone is fighting to be right and things ain't right and it causes dysfunctional situations on family farms."

The solution, Junkin said, is getting the entire family to not look at things just one way (usually their way) and look at things several ways.

People need to consider what the other family members or their business partners are saying.

At the end of the process of learning to respect one another's ideas, farms can become more profitable and the farmers are less frustrated.

"The real villain of our times is not the bank, it is not cattle prices, it is not family, it is the dysfunctional way we make decisions together," Junkin said.

He said in addition to families respecting each other, when children come back from college, they need to let their parents know why they want to change.

For his own family farm, he said their cost production was $1.20 and they were getting paid 83 cents, with a 25 percent higher cost production. He wanted to get cost production down to 82 cents.

"I told dad what to change. I should have focused on why because until my dad had the same goals as me it was never going to work," Junkin said.

In looking toward the future of agriculture with concerns of Chinese tariffs and over production with some crops like GMO corn, Junkin said, "The simple solution is to have a real conversation with your family where you want to be in three years time, and get everyone motivated toward that and then get really good at brainstorming. Through that process your family will learn to respect each other's opinions, skyrocket profitability and all the BS you guys have working together will fall by the way side and farming will become fun again."

He added, "I believe in the power of prayer, but this is time for action."

He concluded the address with the serenity prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

"We can't change these Chinese tariffs. We can't change the weather. We can't change a lot, but we can change how we make decisions together as a family, or at least we should be in control of our decisions, and we're not," Junkin said.

"We've got to stop being tough on one another. We've got to start making tough decisions together in order to bullet-proof your farm from everything. Tough farms never last, tough farm families do."

Junkin also presented a workshop Wednesday afternoon based on his book, "How to Bullet-Proof Your Farm or Ranch so it Can Survive Anything."

More WESTI Ag Days coverage will be in the Feb. 21 edition of the Northern Wyoming News.