With the average age of ranchers increasing, there are young farmers and ranchers looking to get their foot in the door yet facing many challenges. For those looking to get a start in the business, there are a variety of programs available to assist with financing, financial planning and connecting retiring farmers and ranchers with others looking to get involved in today’s agriculture industry.
While programs can provide the tools and resources to get started, hearing firsthand experiences can provide some guidance and inspiration. The following accounts vary in scope and provide insight on obstacles ranchers overcame and some out-of-the box ideas.
Trey and Dayna Wasserburger
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Trey and Dayna Wasserburger own TD Angus located 10 miles south of North Platte, NE, on the southern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills. The Wasserburger family has been ranching in Wyoming for 100 years, yet Trey knew from childhood there was no room for him on the family ranch, and he was going to have to do it on his own. Trey knew the family had to make a difficult decision, as he was one of the youngest of a set of boys.
“We all want our kids to come home and work,” Trey said. “But is it financially feasible? Most of the time not. And so, I’ve known my whole life and I took a different path.”
To gain experience, Trey worked several ranches and sale barns in different states during the summer while going to high school and college.
Trey and Dayna met at the University of Wyoming and were married in 2011. The two have a love for horses and Trey proposed to Dayna at the sale arena at the Lazy U Quarter Horse Sale.
Dayna is from Hershey, NE, and while living on Dayna’s parents’ ranch, Trey was able to learn more about the feedyard business through her father, Kirk Olson.
All the while, he networked with people. Through networking, he was able to connect with Bill Rishel, who expressed he would like someone younger to take over the farm by working with Greg Wilke, president of First National Bank, North Platte office. Together, they were able to work out a deal for financing.
“[Greg is] really my mentor today and put us together,” Trey said. “Bill expressed he’d like to find a young man who wanted to be on the registered business side. Before that, I never even owned a registered cow. Wow, I knew nothing.”
Rishel developed Rishel Angus, a registered herd of Angus cattle, whose genetics have played a role in the breeding companies American Breeders Service, Accelerated Genetics, and Select Sires. Trey and Bill worked together through an “interview” process, with Trey learning and proving himself to Bill until Trey was given the go-ahead to purchase the ranch. Both had to make sacrifices to make the deal come to fruition, with Trey selling some commercial cows he had sweat equity in, and Bill “setting it up on terms.”
In January 2017, the Wasserburgers purchased the ranch from Bill and Barb Rishel with the terms that Trey would purchase a section of grass being leased from Rishel every year after their bull sale. There are currently two years remaining on a five-year lease term. He rents the remaining sections from Bill until he can purchase the entire lot.
The two have formed a friendship rather than a partnership, where Bill comes out to the ranch from his house in Lincoln, NE, and lends his advice on the herd. The Wasserburgers have grown the herd through embryo transfer and sell about 300 bulls a year. Part of the core values of TD Angus is to make fertility and reproduction their most important trait, selecting for milk, structural correctness, easy-fleshing, longevity and growth.
In addition to TD Angus bulls and females for sale every year, the Wasserburgers sell ranch-ready Quarter Horses. Not only does it speak to how Trey and Dayna met, but having the two together has turned bull buyers into horse customers and vice versa.
“Agriculture is full of mentors. They’re full of experience and will give it to you for free.”
Speaking at multiple colleges such as University of Wyoming and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the No. 1 question he gets asked is, “How do I get started?” Trey’s advice for young ranchers looking to get started is to network as there are a lot of “older, knowledgeable ranchers looking to carry on their legacy.”
“Agriculture is full of mentors,” Trey said. “They’re full of experience and will give it to you for free. If you want to get the deal done, you’re both going to have to sacrifice financially, emotionally, physically and mentally.”
Curtis and Tammi Fladager
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Curtis and Tammi Fladager ranch outside Peerless, MT, on approximately 2,700 acres in the northeastern part of the state. The two have been together for eight years and married for five.
They currently have 120 head of mostly black baldies with Black Angus and Hereford making up the rest of the herd. Both Curtis and Tammi grew up raising registered Hereford cattle, but they like to cross breed for the heterosis and hybrid vigor.
Curtis grew up in the area and left after graduating high school in 1987. After attending a two-year college in Sheridan, WY, Curtis worked at the coal mines in the area and had the opportunity to purchase 40 acres. The owner of the property was able to carry the financing of the down payment through an arrangement and the Cowboy State Bank carried the rest of the $125,000 purchase price.
The Fladagers fenced the property, bought used haying equipment, and custom hayed for small producers in the area. He started with older machinery but was able to fix the equipment and upgrade a little at a time. Eventually, he owned 60 cows, had drilled a well, and had a house on the property. Balancing the fulltime mining job and taking care of the 40 acres became a juggling act of getting up at 3 a.m. and working late.
“Something finally had to give,” Curtis said. “I couldn’t work fulltime at the mine because I wasn’t doing justice to everything. I was going to downsize and sell some stuff, but then this opportunity came up and I was tired of the coal mine and I put some money together and it’s what got me to where I’m at now.”
The opportunity to purchase some land from his retiring cousin arose and he used the equity built in the Wyoming property to initially purchase 600 acres. Curtis currently markets his cows with his cousin to bring the total high enough for a truckload. With his cousin retiring next year, he is looking to either market his cattle with his neighbor, who also has a small number of cattle, or taking them 230 miles away to the Miles City Livestock Commission.
Currently, Tammi works fulltime in town to help with the bills and put food on the table.
Curtis’ advice for those starting out is to “Keep your nose to the grindstone.” In addition, “You better love what you do, and you’ve got to watch your costs,” including watching your nutrition and mineral program.
Matt and Pyper Duckett
[inline_image file=”b3a705514cd426bfd7916493524ce82e.jpg” caption=”The Duckett family.”]
Matt Duckett grew up on a family ranch through high school, when the family got out of the ranching business. Agriculture was in his blood and he went to college initially to study animal science and agribusiness. Two years into his studies, he met a mentor, Roger Ball, who founded King B Meat Snacks and Oil of Melaleuca, Inc., and who would change his career path. Ball told him, “you have to understand business and how businesses and the numbers work if you are going to be successful, or you better hire someone who does understand it.”
“You have to understand business and how businesses work if you are going to be successful, or you better hire someone who does understand it.”
It was at this point Matt changed gears and got his degree in accounting from Boise State University. He spent the next eight years working for real estate and manufacturing companies and learning about the metrics of what it takes to run a business. About five years into his career, and when his oldest son was six, he purchased a piece of land with his wife, Pyper’s, cousin as something “for our kids.” They had found a person who was retiring and willing to “carry it back”—the seller acts as the bank for the buyer. They built a house on the property, but things changed for the Ducketts in 2008.
The U.S. was amid the Great Recession and the company he worked for went bankrupt. Matt and his brother “got their break”; they obtained several five-year leases and got started in the business despite Matt describing having nothing but “a pickup, a shovel, and a dog—that was it.” With a little money they saved, they bought some cows, farmed the ground with corn and hay and made a little money.
The next year was a disaster as a lot of the hay was rained on and ruined. The duo purchased some cows and started on a seedstock program. At the time, Matt stated they didn’t have a name, didn’t have a program built and, “Honestly, we didn’t totally know what we were doing.”
From there, they started doing custom farm work, haying, and buying straw from farmers and baling it to sell to dairies to create cash flow. In 2014, they started a feedlot and when the cattle market was at its high point, they started custom feeding. In 2017, he and his brother split the business, with Matt keeping the seedstock aspect of the business.
He sold the original land he purchased with his cousin and purchased land in the Caldwell, ID, area with “a fixer-upper property that was a complete mess.” The new property had three building permits with water, so Matt was able to sell some of the land that was not as suitable for farming.
A key to his success has been diversification. “We weren’t relying solely on one market,” said Matt. “There have been times when the cattle market was good, and we were making most of our income on cattle. There have been times when the cattle market was terrible, and we were doing better on crops or custom work.”
Matt’s advice for young ranchers is to get a degree in the business side of agriculture and to know the numbers. His brother also received a degree in agricultural economics and worked as a lender.
“If you are going to get started on your own, you’re going to have to get some capital somewhere and that’s a good way to get started.”
“I would say the thing that has been big for us since we started the way we did, is you really have to watch your numbers and you have to be profitable, because you don’t have the luxury of subsidizing your operation with equity from a multi-generational ranch that doesn’t demand a rent payment.”
Learning to run a business was what Matt emphasized as the most important thing for success, as well as getting some experience off the ranch.
“If you are going to get started on your own, you’re going to have to get some capital somewhere and that’s a good way to get started. So be patient. With the price of land, it is very difficult to make a land payment and make it pay from farming and ranching operations.”
Resources for aspiring ranchers
The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) is instituted by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which is a competitive grant program that provides funding for education and training for beginning farmers and ranchers.
BFRDP supports financial and entrepreneurial training, mentoring, and apprenticeship programs—as well as mentor services and apprenticeships—to aspiring young farmers. Additionally, it provides “land-link” programs, connecting retiring farmers and landowners with new farmers, and outreach education programs.
The Center for Rural Affairs (CFRA) suggests strategies for connecting new ranchers with those retiring, for transfer of ownership and keeping the farm’s legacy. CFRA provides guidance for owner transfership, including a listing of matching programs.
Most programs focus on specific states or regions, which enables new farmers to find matches in the area where they want to farm. Some matching programs work with farmers nationwide. More information about the program can be found on the National Council of State Agricultural Finance Programs website, stateagfinance.org.
Farm Credit Services of America offers a Young, Beginning, and Small Producers program designed for people younger than 35 years old or with 10 years of experience or less, matching “loan products with modified credit approval standards.” In addition, they offer a Development Fund program which is designed to enhance working capital and grow livestock facilities.
Loans offered through Farm Credit are typically for cash liquidity for startups or operations looking to expand, to cover operating expenses, assist with the purchase of breeding livestock or help with down payments for contract facilities.
The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) also provides loans to young ranchers who are unable to obtain financing from a commercial lender. FSA’s Down Payment Program assists beginning farmers and ranchers purchasing a farm. The loan amount is limited to 45 percent of the purchase price, the appraised value of the farm, or $667,000 ($300,150 maximum), and requires a 5 percent down payment.
A second program offered by the FSA is the Land Contract Guarantees program, which provides financial guarantees for land sale contracts to a beginning farmer. For more information on these programs, you can go to the USDA Farm Service Agency website, fsa.usda.gov.
