20 Miles West of Indianapolis Indiana | Someone who is as savvy as Coup and a trim the fat operator isn’t going to be mad and leave them. Because he isn’t doing any business with them already... and it’ll probably be a retiring farmer or large estate being rented by someone like Coup already who isn’t doing business with them that they rent.
There was a family in my area that farmed on a larger scale that bought a grain elevator and started doing custom fertilizer app and then custom chemical app and selling chems also. They did it the opposite way. Started farming and then went into the “coop style” business. Not too many had a problem with it initially. They’d probably still be chugging along if some personal road blocks hadn’t gotten in their way...
It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow... but look at the hog business and the dairy business. Consolation is happening every day. Guys like stamp and rosentrader and boreson may not have made it work, but a cash heavy and labor heavy coop probably could if they wanted to. They already have guys on staff hedging grain and fertilizer and negotiating chemical prices every day... what’s a few thousand acres more worth going to do to em? And it guarantees them volume and work. Guys like Coup are doing there parts to put coops out of business. They will feel the squeeze some day and have to “get big or get out”. Isn’t that what all the stupid magazines tell us? Maybe one of those coop presidents will read that and then get the idea they can sub the farming out to a buddy on the coop board and then they’ll be room for him to bring his son into the operation...
if I remember correctly coup stated on here he got “lean and mean” when he figured out the savings could justify his son working full time on the farm? |