8 Game-Changers to Drive Your Business Plan

When when thinking about yearly planning, it's tempting and easy to focus on the short-term.  However, long-term planning is also essential.  How do producers and agri-businesses plan as the industry finds a new normal?  This article from AgWeb.com gives some insights into eight key drivers to consider as you develop your long-term plan.

 

Big-picture issues have the ability to throw a major wrench in your five-year planning. How do you put together a credible five-year business plan given the monumental changes — record droughts, sky-high land values and huge export growth — of the last two years?

 

Terry Barr, senior director of industry research at CoBank, provided some guidance at the USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Conference in Arlington, Va., last month. The problem with any projection, as Barr pointed out, is separating short-term variations from long-term trends to produce a "new normal." Here are 8 key drivers that Barr thinks should drive a 5-year plan.

• Assume declining federal ag support
• Demand from ethanol producers may fall
• Global demand will shift
• Planted corn acres may still increase
• Land values may well tumble
• Rising meat exports create risk and uncertainty
• Dairy has tough financial row to hoe
• It will be tough to sustain current net farm incomes

To view the full article from Ag Web, click here.

To obtain a copy of Barr's presentation, please complete the Contact Us page of on the Acuity website to request a copy to be emailed to you.
Please contact a member of the Acuity Advisors' Ag & Agri-Business Services Team at 717.239.5180 if you have questions or need more information.

 

 

As required by the United States Treasury Regulations, you should be aware that this communication (including any attachments unless expressly stated otherwise) is not intended by the sender to be used, and it cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the United States federal tax laws.