Have you ever heard any of these thoughts expressed, or maybe they crossed your own mind?

• “If Dad would just give up some power ….”
• “If Mom would just say what’s on her mind ….”
• “If the kids just had a work ethic ….”
• “If he hadn’t married her, we’d be fine.”

With the turn of the new year, most dairy and beef producers are feeding last fall’s harvest of high-moisture corn, corn silage and other cereal grains. But let’s think back to when these high-starch forages and grains were planted and harvested to understand if you really captured every bushel of corn in your corn silage or high-moisture corn.

When the topic of understanding and using agricultural financial reports surfaces in any discussion among production agriculture business managers or owners, you can be assured the discussion will be rather lengthy and that what financial reports they prefer depends on the current objective of the manager or owner.

Farmland has been susceptible to boom-bust cycles where a large run-up in land prices is followed by a rapid decrease in prices. Two such cycles occurred in the last century, one beginning in the 1920s and ending in the 1930s, and the other from 1973 to 1986. The end of these cycles is marked by farm financial distress due to accumulated debt and the inability of earned cash flow to make the interest and principal payments.

You’re in your easy chair with your boots off, settling in for the night after a good supper, just starting to doze off when the neighbor calls, “Hey, your cows are out.”