Tax Tips

Check out our new Tax Tips newsletter! Current tax and records clients received the first issue last week. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for future editions please contact your local office. We anticipate sending this out quarterly. Below is an excerpt from the newsletter, to read the whole thing click here.

Independent Contractor or Employee?
By Lisa Young, Records and Tax Specialist

We have been experiencing an increase in audits with both the Vermont Department of Labor and various workmen’s compensation insurance companies. It seems that these organizations are cracking down on whether or not businesses are properly classifying independent contractors and complying with the filing requirements. The cost of erroneously classifying employees as independent contractors can be substantial. Below is information to help you determine who would be considered an independent contractor vs. an employee.

For further assistance, please feel free to call a Financial Services Representative at your local office.

Microcredit for farmers?

The Carrot Project of Somerville, MA recently published a report on the financing needs of small farmers in New England and New York:

For today’s small, mid-sized, and limited resource farmers, finding sufficient capital to finance their businesses can be a challenge. ... The dominant agricultural lenders in the Northeast -- Farm Credit and the USDA Farm Service Agency -- do offer credit, but neither adequately serves farm operators who are start-ups, have unique business models, or inadequate collateral.

Click here for the full report.

Earlier this month The Carrot Project and the Strolling of the Heifers in Brattleboro, VT announced a "new micro-loan program to help New England farmers" (quote from TCP web site). Folk singer Pete Seeger is performing a fundraising concert at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro on Sept. 13 to benefit this program.

Disclosure: Yankee has contributed to the Strolling of the Heifers for several years. First Pioneer employee Jon Jaffe is on the Advisory Board of The Carrot Project.

Is there a place for microcredit in Northeast agriculture? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

UPDATE 7/30/08: The Pete Seeger concert in Brattleboro on Sept. 13 has sold out, and a second concert has been added in Lebanon on Sept. 12.

New Zealand #1

This fall my wife and I will be traveling to New Zealand to visit our daughter who is studying abroad for a semester at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. In the past year or two I have become interested in New Zealand's agriculture and farm policies, and I hope this trip will be an opportunity to learn more. I will blog about what I learn.

In recent decades New Zealand has become a global dairy powerhouse. (Click here for more info—see the chapter on "World Dairy Production and Trade Trends.") Of course, dairy is big in Vermont, too. How does New Zealand compare to Vermont?

New Zealand is about the size of Colorado, about 11 times the size of Vermont. (New Zealand is 103,738 square miles to 9,620 for Vermont.) The number of dairy cows in New Zealand is 37 times the number of dairy cows in Vermont: 5.2 million vs. 140,000. If Vermont were to have the same density of dairy cows as New Zealand, we could triple the number of cows in Vermont.

But that's not all. New Zealand has nearly as many beef cattle (4.5 million) as dairy cows. Plus 40 million sheep! (Summary NZ statistics.)

New Zealand has 10 sheep for every resident (down from 20 sheep per person in the early 1980s). If Vermont were to have the same number of sheep per resident as New Zealand, that would equate to 6 million sheep. If Vermont were to have the same number of sheep per square mile as New Zealand, that would equate to 3.7 million sheep. At the peak of the sheep era in Vermont in 1840, there were "only" 1.6 million sheep in the state (six per resident). There are now 15,000 sheep in Vermont.

It is useful to think in terms of "animal units," a concept once used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A mature dairy cow is 1.4 animal units, a beef cow is 1.0 animal units, and a sheep is 0.1 animal units. (source p. 5) Vermont has 25 animal units per square mile, while New Zealand has 150. If Vermont were to have the same density of animal units as New Zealand, we could increase the number of dairy cows in Vermont by a factor of seven.

Stay tuned for more posts about New Zealand over the next few months. If any readers of this blog have information to share about New Zealand, please post a comment.

CLF Report

The Conservation Law Foundation recently issued a report critical of the environmental practices of Vermont's largest farms, and critical of the State of Vermont for its enforcement of environmental laws.

CLF news release here (with links to the full report). Burlington Free Press article by Candace Page here.

Is this good science? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

The Diamond Age

The most recent issue of Financial Partner magazine (2MB PDF file) was about nanotechnology—the technology of manufacturing very tiny things, even down to the level of manipulating individual atoms. As noted in the magazine, major advances have been made recently in this field, some involving agriculture. It appears that even more significant advances are just around the corner.

What will the world look like when nanotechnology is commonplace? If you want to contemplate some mind-boggling possibilities, I recommend The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. The title of this science fiction novel comes from the fact that nanotechnology makes it very easy to manufacture stuff in this near future world. It is so easy to make stuff that many things are made out of diamond structures, even windows. In fact, it is so easy to make stuff that basic foodstuffs are free. Think about the implications of that for commodity agriculture.

Getting Involved!

Dena Verdin, accounting assistant in the Williston office, recently travelled to Ohio as a crew leader for a Group Work Camp. The Baltimore Methodist Church sponsored the trip and provided accommodations at a local school. There were youth groups from New Jersey, Maryland, Nebraska, Ontario, Michigan, Tennessee, Vermont and Ohio; over 350 participants in all.

The purpose was to provide assistance to various residents in the area. The residents consisted of single moms, elderly widows, and others struggling with a physical handicap. The community raised funds for the materials, and the groups brought the tools necessary to do the work. Dena's crew was responsible for scraping and painting a large barn for an elderly widow.

Some mornings breakfast was served by the Mayor and they received visits from the Police Chief and Fire Dept Chief. The entire Baltimore Community was involved.

Thanks for being an inspiration to us all Dena!

Customer Survey

The national Farm Credit System is undertaking a customer survey. A random sample of FCS customers across the country will be asked to participate in a 15 minute telephone survey. This survey will help us better meet customer needs and expectations.

Yankee Farm Credit is participating in this survey. We have provided a random sample of customer names and telephone numbers for use by the company conducting the survey, Plexus Marketing Group. See the first comment for the text of a letter that is being sent to customers who were included in the sample.

Classified ads

Please check out our classified ads on our website. If you are a member, employee or former employee and wish to place an ad on our website please contact Ruchel.

We have a new posting for a horse trailer. Click the classified link above for more details.

Cornell Study on rbST Milk

A recent Cornell University study concluded that using rbST to produce milk is better for the environment than either conventional dairy farming without rbST or organic dairy farming. The primary reason given in the study is more efficient utilization of resources, resulting in less nutrient intake and less waste excretion (both manure and greenhouse gas emissions) per pound of milk produced.

You can read the study here.

Is this good science? One of the four authors is an employee of Monsanto, which may make you wonder if there is a conflict of interest. But the other three authors are affiliated with the Department of Animal Science at Cornell. (The Monsanto employee is an alumnus of Cornell.) Click here for Cornell's press release. The study was edited by a professor emeritus in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And the study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal. It appears to me to be good science.

Employment Opportunities!

We're looking for a few employees to join our team! Current openings are a Credit Analyst position in White River Junction and a Tax Preparer/Financial Services Representative in St. Albans. We are also looking for part time, seasonal Tax Preparers. Please check out our web site for details on the positions open.

Please pass the word along to anyone that you think may be interested in working for an organization committed to serving the needs of agriculture in our area.