Matthew Dirksen

Matthew Dirksen Econ 331 February 25, 2009 Dr. Jolly Business Proposal

Farm Management Service

Throughout Iowa there are various farm management services. Some management services only help the farmer market their grain, where other services will help you manage your farm. In western Iowa no company provides a total farm management service. I am proposing to start WIA Total Farm Management.

The service I would be starting is a farm management service. This farm management service would include everything from managing every aspect of the farm to managing very small parts. I want to be very flexible with the landowner to provide them with as much or as little responsibility as possible. I want to get to a size where I would be able to offer my customers an economy of scale approach to buying inputs or doing other farming tasks. I will provide a full farm management service where the landowner doesn’t have to perform any operations of their farm. I will also provide some services, such as input buying, grain marketing, labor management, applications, equipment management, and several other services. I will have a close relationship with my customers and try to increase the profitability of their farm, while keeping the integrity of the land. Another service I would like to provide is a beginning farmer helping service. With this service I would help young farmers start farming. My service would talk them through loan applications and be there to help them with management decisions on their farms. I would also like to link farms to these beginning farmers and supply they with equipment.

With this service I will be able to serve any farmer or landowner who would like extra help with their land. I will serve existing farmers, retired farmers, or people who just own the land and want to try to increase their profits from the land. I would target producers who are under 2000 acres and any non farming landowner. My beginning farmer service would target young producers who want to farm after college.

The customer gains from my service by not having to do a specific action on their farm that they are unable to do or just do not like doing. My service would also allow producers to be more profitable because I would be able to perform most operations cheaper then they could do themselves. Customers would be willing to pay me because in the end I would be saving them money. I would basically be taking some of the money I would be saving the producer. With my service I would like to teach producers how to be more environmentally friendly and manage their farms in a very sustainable way. This not only will increase the profits of the landowner in the long run, but it will also keep the land in good condition.

The size of this market is not 100% known. There are, however, many farmers and basically all the land is planted to corn or soybeans. I believe I would be able to grow my business to over 50000 acres. This all depends on how much service my customers are looking for.

I believe I would be the right person to start this business because I will be a graduate from Iowa State University with a major in Agricultural Business, and a minor in Agronomy. I have been working on my father’s farm for about 10 years and I have been helping my dad manage the farm for the last 3 years. I will use my agronomy skills to help producers and I will use my business skills to manage the business. Now is the time to start this business because it is very important and increasingly difficult for farmers to make money on their farms. The markets are tight and farmers need every advantage they can get. There is currently no business like this in western Iowa and it is only a matter of time before we see a new business doing this.

I am looking for people who have an interest in farm management and production agriculture. I would like people with business skills, as well as people with agronomy skills.

Experience in production agriculture would be a plus.