Partnerships: Help When Help is Needed
Executive summary: Extra labor is key advantage to farm partnerships.
Mike Wilson
Published: Aug 6, 2009
With fewer young people coming back to the farm, many farm operations are at a turning point: they need more labor to expand, but they're not sure how or if they can afford a full-time employee. Flexible labor-sharing agreements with neighbors help ease that burden.
Wayne Johnson, who grows corn and soybeans near Forest City, Iowa, works with four neighboring farmers to share labor outside the limited liability corporation the five set up to buy and rent machinery.
"The labor side of this is a real benefit," he says. "If one of us is getting a little behind, one of the other five farmers in the group might have extra labor and come help."
In addition, three of the farmers share a labor pool of three full-time employees.
"When you're trucking you can shift several guys from hauling grain at one farm to another," he says. "We just pay wages and benefits based on the number of hours they are at our farm. It gives you a good source of labor when you need full-time employment but can't afford to have three full-time employees."
Having help when help is needed really boosts timeliness during crucial spring and fall operations. Indiana farming partners Scott Odle and David Virgin say they can now plant 175 acres a day and that timeliness is worth $10 per acre to their operation.
Added labor also provides an intangible: Peace of mind.
"If something major were to happen to me, David knows my operation," says Scott. "My operation would continue to be a revenue source for my wife and four kids."
Permalink: Click here
Tagged: labor, farm, soybeans, SURE, farming
|