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South Dakota | I worked the ag corporate life through the run up in ag. I seen a lot of expansion, buddies getting hired &/or promoted, and bringing in high level managers from other industries. Most of those making the decisions now at many of these ag corporations have never done business in ag when farmers weren't making great gobs of money, now they don't understand why they aren't making sales. I'm not one who feels you have to have an ag background to work at these companies; however, I do feel it greatly helps, especially in times like these. Keeping in touch with the corporate folk, they are part way through the typical "blame the salesman, not the industry" and working their way through the upper level ranks while downsizing lower level employees. Hard to feel sorry for them when you warn them of what the future looks like in respect to sales declines so they can prepare (I wasn't a salesman, didn't receive growth bonuses, so I had no skin in that game) and management still predicted and preached phenomenal growth was attainable. As you can imagine, they didn't and haven't seen growth since that time... I believe a lot of these companies are going to re-learn the industry from pre run-up times, just as many farmers will. | |
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Making money on $3 corn. Yes, there is hope
