3rd Quarter Financial Results

It's November, and as we face holidays and year-end in the not too distant future I can't help but continue to ask, "where has the year gone"?

November is also when the third quarterly financial results for Yankee are published. We can announce that we have had another good quarter with $2.6 million in net income. A healthy net income is important for us to be able to provide credit and keep a strong patronage program. This is slightly higher than the same three month period in 2016, due to higher net interest income and higher patronage from CoBank, ACB. These increases, however, were partially offset by continued higher expenses due to the investments we are making in our new information technology platform and enhanced risk management practices.

Quarter end loans held at September 30th were $479.9 million, down slightly from year-end. These are the loans Yankee holds onto after selling other loans as a risk mitigation tool. The portfolio continues to be concentrated in the dairy industry with 52.3 percent of loans invested in dairy businesses. Our second largest concentration is timber with 11.8 percent of loan volume. Maple comes in at number three, with 11.1 percent of the portfolio at quarter-end.

Credit quality across the portfolio is seeing some pressures from the continue downturn in the dairy economy, but remained strong during the quarter and well within the risk bearing capacity of the Association. At quarter-end 1.0 percent of the Association loans were classified as nonperforming, a 0.2 percent improved from the end of 2016.

Click here for the full quarterly Report to Shareholders.

FarmStart-Nate Everts and Regina Rinaldo, Longview Farm

Longview Farm, LLC: Nate Everts and Regina Rinaldo FarmStart Investment

If you've been following Longview Farm, LLC on Facebook or Instagram, you've had the pleasure of watching of the seasons progress through their ever changing harvests. From late Spring lettuce to the most recent, Winter squash in all the colors that signify the beginning of Fall in the northeast.

In January 2017, Yankee’s FarmStart program approved Nate Everts and Regina Rinaldo of Longview Farm, LLC for a capital investment.  Nate and Regina are renting the vegetable operation in Plymouth, NH from John and Carol Perkins and will be growing for their first year in 2017.  They worked for the Perkins’ farm for a year before taking this step, which allowed them time to gain the experience needed with the markets, products, location, and operation.  Nate grew up in the area on his mother’s maple and PYO berry farm.  He had a hydroponic winter tomato business that he operated for three years.  Regina has worked on vegetable farms since 2008.

They have been producing vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers which are sold in their retail stand along with some items purchased for resale.  Produce will also be sold through local farmers’ markets and to local restaurants.  Nate and Regina are using their FarmStart investment to help with yearly operating expenses that need to be paid before their income stream starts.  They are both excited about the opportunities that FarmStart will offer them. 

The goal of FarmStart is to provide working capital to help start-up farmers establish a positive business and credit history during the early phases of their business careers. Within five years recipients should be positioned to graduate to a conventional line of credit from Yankee or another lender.

To learn more about FarmStart please visit our website or contact your local office.

FarmStart-Beyond the Bridge Organics, Abe Barnard and Jade Salvas

With Harvest season underway for many farm operation in the area, we found recent FarmStart investment recipient,  Beyond the Bridge Organics has been busy getting their hands dirty harvesting this years garlic as well.

Abe Barnard, and Jade Salvas starting Beyond the Bridge Organics to produce organic garlic as well as other seasonal vegetables for area sale . Their mission:

"Beyond The Bridge Organics seeks to provide our local community, as well as communities throughout New England and beyond the very best in organically grown garlic and passing on the health benefits garlic brings to everyone."                                Beyond the Bridge Organics, www.organicmarketvt.com 

With their main focus on their garlic crop, they are able to cultivate and refine their product for a more unique market. With an investment from the FarmStart program assisting with seed and tool purchases, and their strong dedication to their business, it looks like this season's harvest is a success.



Photos credits facebook.com/beyondthebridgeorganics

The goal of FarmStart is to provide working capital to help start-up farmers establish a positive business and credit history during the early phases of their careers. Within five years recipients should be able to graduate to a conventional line of credit from Yankee or another lender.

For more information contact your local branch or e-mail FarmStart@Yankeeaca.com.

2nd Quarter Financial Results

It's August - fair season in Vermont.  But it also means there are only four months left to 2017 - where has the year gone?

August is also when the second quarterly financial results for Yankee are published. We can announce that we have had another good quarter with $2.9 million in net income. This is sightly higher than 2016, due to higher net interest income and income from financially related services. These increases, however, were partially offset by continued higher expenses due to the investments we are making in our new information technology platform and enhanced risk management practices.

Quarter end loans held at June 30th were $479.4 million, down slightly from year-end. The portfolio continues to be concentrated in the dairy industry with 51.2 percent of loans invested in dairy businesses. Our second largest concentration is timber with 13.3 percent of loan volume. Maple comes in at number three, with 11.1 percent of the portfolio at quarter-end.

Credit quality across the portfolio remained strong during the quarter and well within the risk bearing capacity of the Association. At quarter-end 1.1 percent of the Association loans were classified as nonperforming - 0.1 percent improved from the end of 2016.

 Click here for the full quarterly Report to Shareholders.

Safety, On the Farm and in the Field

With the recent tragedies in the Vermont agricultural community, we are reminded that safety on the farm must be a priority for all individuals. Whether you are running machinery, working with animals in the barn or finishing products for retail, agricultural safety is a lesson you cannot afford to skip. We value our members and their teams and want to ensure that you are receiving and providing the best safety training our area has to offer. To help, we here at Yankee Farm Credit would like to reimburse the $90.00 registration cost of the Vermont Farm Safety Program for any member who attends.  To take advantage of this offer or if you are a New York or New Hampshire member and would like to participate in a more local training event and need information on fee reimbursement for approved programs, please contact us at info@yankeeaca.com or    1-800-639-3053.

We have put together just a few of the many online resources available to any individual looking for training, events and material on farm and agriculture safety.

New Hampshire Farm Bureau-For links to PTO Shields and ROPS Rebate Program

The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety

New York Department of Labor-Safety Reference Material

Bassett Healthcare Network-New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health

New York State Department of Health- Farm Safety, Children ages birth to 19 years.

VT Agency of AG Food and Markets-Farm Safety Program

UVM Extension-Farm Health and Safety

2017 National Farm Safety and Health Week is September 17th - 23rd.

Meet our 2017 Summer Intern: Sam Hartman

We are excited to have four interns join us this year. They will be an important part of several special projects this summer. We'll feature each one here, so you can get to know them. Please welcome them to the team!

Name: Sam Hartman

Hometown: Jericho, VT                

College or University and area of study: I attend UVM, with a BS in Business Administration and BA in French.

How did you hear about Yankee Farm Credit? I heard about Yankee through a board member who was one of my professors.

What Branch Location and department are you working in? I am currently working in St. Albans, but last year I worked in Williston.

What do you hope to get out of your internship that you may not get from a traditional classroom? I hope to get hands on experience learning about ag finance, as well as business system organization in general.

Plans for after graduation? I would like to continue work within the Farm Credit network and eventually to graduate school.

Meet our 2017 Summer Intern: William Dunkley

We are excited to have four interns join us this year. They will be an important part of several special projects this summer. We'll feature each one here, so you can get to know them. Please welcome them to the team!

Name: William Dunkley

Hometown: Westford, VT

College or University and area of study: I attend the University of Vermont and am studying Forestry.

How did you hear about Yankee Farm Credit? I heard about Yankee’s internship through a faculty coordinator at UVM. I also know people in the community who worked with Yankee and my father has had loans with Yankee to finance his sugaring operation.

What Branch Location and department are you working in? I’m working in St. Albans in the appraisal department. Specifically I’m helping the department develop their forest appraisal program.

What do you hope to get out of your internship that you may not get from a traditional classroom? Understanding how the skills we are taught in the classroom are applied in the real world is invaluable. I hope this internship can help me direct my next two years of study so that I can learn the skills that employers are really looking for. I also hope to learn a lot about appraisal and expand my general understanding of agricultural economy in our region.

Plans for after graduation? I plan to continue sugaring with my dad and eventually start my own business.

Meet our 2017 Summer Intern: Kisa Nop

We are excited to have four interns join us this year. They will be an important part of several special projects this summer. We'll feature each one here, so you can get to know them. Please welcome them to the team!
Name: Kisa Nop

Hometown: Salisbury, Vermont

College or University and area of study: I attend Dordt College in Iowa where I am studying Human Resources and Spanish.

How did you hear about Yankee Farm Credit? I have grown up hearing the name Yankee Farm Credit for as long as I can remember because our farm is a member and my dad use to work in the Farm Credit system!

What Branch Location and department are you working in? I work in Williston in the HR department.

What do you hope to get out of your internship that you may not get from a traditional classroom? I hope to get hands on experience! And hopefully a feel for what areas of HR I am more interested in.

Plans for after graduation? I am not sure yet I still have a few years to go, but right now I am interested in a position in employee relations or training and development.

Meet our 2017 Summer Intern: Dan Truso

We are excited to have four interns join us this year. They will be an important part of several special projects this summer. We'll feature each one here, so you can get to know them. Please welcome them to the team!

Name: Dan Truso

Hometown: Granville, NY

College or University and area of study: I attend Grossman School of Business, University of Vermont, and I am studying Business Administration.

How did you hear about Yankee Farm Credit? My father works for a Farm Credit association.

What Branch Location and department are you working in? I work in the Middlebury Branch with the Credit Department.

What do you hope to get out of your internship that you may not get from a traditional classroom? I look forward to meeting customers and learning about their businesses.

Plans for after graduation? After graduation I plan to hike the 272 miles of the Long Trail, then start a career at a Farm Credit institution.

FarmStart - Sam & Karlee Dimock, Hidden Bridge Farm

Karlee and Sam Dimock, Hidden Bridge Farm

Sam and Karlee Dimock formed Hidden Bridge, LLC, operating a beef farm.  The farm consists of 9 brood cows and a mix of heifers and steers.  The steers are raised to slaughter weight and are processed locally and sold to customers in the community. 

Their operation is on a farm rented from Sam’s parents.  This consists of their house, barn, feed lot, and pasture.  Sam and Karlee came to FarmStart for a source of capital to make improvements to the feed lot, purchase a tractor and loader, and to purchase additional breeding stock.

They also work full-time on Sam’s parent’s and grandparent’s 325 cow dairy farm.  In September of 2016 they welcomed their first child, a daughter, Emma into their world.

Sam & Karlee have a good business plan in place.  With a strong Ag background, they are eager to learn more about financial management and view FarmStart as a good source if information as well as capital to help them succeed.

For more about Hidden Bridge Farm, check out their Face Book page, @hiddenbridgefarmLLC

Check out more about the FarmStart program here.

Or give us a call at 1-800-639-3053

Data Backups are Critical

-Danielle Tierney, Financial Services Assistant

 Have you ever experienced a computer failure or lost your data somehow? If you have, you know how frustrating it can be and how important backing up your data is. If you haven’t experienced a data loss, backing up is a great way to avoid it happening.

Having both onsite and offsite backup is the best way to ensure data safety. Backups can be used to restore you to a point in the past. So when or if something goes wrong with your computer, whether it be data corruption or a catastrophic failure you have a restore point to go back to so you won’t have to re-enter all of your data. Think of it as insurance. Restoring to the last known backup saves time and ensures business continuity.

We can safely provide offsite backup for your accounting software. Simply send us a backup monthly or quarterly and we will provide you with assurance that you can restore your data in the event of data loss or computer failure.

Furthermore, we can restore your database in our office and review your records to assist you with making any corrections or adjustments needed, providing your operation with accurate financial reporting to use in the management of your business. Our team is here to assist you with whatever financial record services you need. For more information visit us at Yankeeaca.com.

Q1 2017 Financial Results

A sign of spring (at least for me) is when the first quarter financial results are published. Yankee can announce that we have had another good quarter with $2.4 million in net income. This is slightly lower than 2016, primarily due to the investment we are making in our new information technology platform and enhanced risk management practices.

Quarter end loans held at March 31st were $473.1 million, down slightly from year-end. This is a trend that we see each year, with a dip in the first quarter loan volume numbers. The portfolio continues to be concentrated in the dairy industry with 51.4 percent of loans invested in dairy businesses. The second largest concentration is timber with 13.8 percent of the volume at quarter-end.

Credit quality across the portfolio remained strong during the quarter and well within the risk-bearing capacity of the Association. At quarter end 1.2 percent of the Association loans were classified as nonperforming - unchanged from the end of 2016. The 2016 patronage refund to members in the amount of $5.1 million was paid 100% in cash on March 23, 2017 and the Association's capital position remains strong.

Click here for the full quarterly Report to Shareholders.

Spring is Here!

Now is a great time to do a little spring cleaning of your financial records. You are likely either going through the data for your 2016 tax return, or have recently completed it, so all of the information should be fresh in your mind. What a perfect time to review those things that took a little longer to figure out and fine-tune your system to make it easier for next year. For example:

• Maybe it’s a change to your chart of accounts where you have similar accounts and you now realize they could be combined into one account.

o   Did you know there is a function in most accounting software that will combine one or more accounts and all of the history?

• Maybe it’s providing more detail to your accountant, loan officer or other third party by breaking out certain accounts such as:

o   Raised vs. purchased livestock

o   Family living and personal allocations

o   Allocate principal and interest

• Maybe it’s a matter of the way you enter your data.

o   Enter quantities such as lbs., number of head

o   Detail in capital assets changes

o   Coop patronage retained

In any event, we at Yankee Farm Credit are here to help with the knowledge and experience to make those records squeaky clean!

We'd love to help with your Spring Cleaning, click here so we can get started.

Annual Meeting Results

It has been a busy week here at Yankee as we held annual meetings Monday in Middlebury, VT; Tuesday in both Hanover, NH and Newport, VT; and wrapping up last night in St. Albans, VT. At each meeting members had the opportunity to listen to director candidates, vote for directors in their region, hear from Brenda Frank, CEO and Paul Franklin, Board Chair about the state of the Association, and observe a presentation on survey results about transferring farm ownership conducted by Business Consultant Joanna Lidback.

Last night members completed voting for directors, ballots were counted, and the results were announced before the meeting was adjourned.
Elected to three year terms on the board of directors were:
Region 1 – Celeste Kane-Stebbins
Region 2 – Kyle Thygesen
Region 3 – Paul Franklin
Congratulations to Celeste, Kyle and Paul, and thanks to Anne Lincoln and Joseph O'Gorman for participating in the elections as candidates.

Thank you to the members that participated, and a special thanks to employees for organizing and running successful meetings. We welcome any feedback about annual meetings. If you have questions or comments please let us know! You can email your thoughts or give our Corporate Secretary, Jim Mills, a call at 800-639-3053.

FINANCIAL RECORDS PAINT THE PICTURE

We recently shared the #1 reason for having an 
accounting software program –

“For viewing information that allows you to make informed management decisions.”

In addition, there are times it may be necessary to provide financial information about your farm to third parties such as loan officers, consultants and others. Accounting software gives you the ability to track information about your farm, making it easy to provide third parties the detailed information they require. Whether it is for your management team, loan officer, tax preparer or workman's comp auditor, with a good agriculturally oriented accounting software system in place, financial management should be the easiest part of running your business.

If you are interested in discovering how your accounting software can help you manage your business, need help setting up your accounting system or are thinking maybe now is a good time to hire an outside professional to process the financial accounting data for you, we want to hear from you. Comment below or send your questions to our team at Yankee Farm Credit.

FarmStart - Alyssa Sherburn, Pinestead Farm

Alyssa Sherburn from Franconia, New Hampshire is the owner/operator of Pinestead Farm, one of Yankee's most recent FarmStart investments. Alyssa is the fifth generation at Pinestead Farm where she grows vegetables and raises beef, pigs, and chickens that are sold at local co-ops, farmers’ markets, and restaurants.  She is in her second year of ownership of the farm, although she has been involved in management for the past 10 years with her father.  Alyssa was looking to expand her markets and growing season, but was limited by her 10 acre land base and the winter weather.
   

Alyssa used her FarmStart investment to purchase a Leafy Green Machine from Freight Farms, Inc.  Freight Farms takes old shipping containers with all of the insulation and converts them to hydroponic farming units that can grow up to 2 acres of vegetables.  These units are intuitively climate controlled and can be remotely overseen with a mobile app, Farmhand.  This app monitors everything happening inside the unit, tracks two weeks of historical data, and prompts the farmer when it is time to harvest and plant.  The unit takes 20 hours per week of labor and it is 6 weeks from planting to harvest.  The initial purchase of the Leafy Green Machine comes with two months’ supply of nutrients and seeds.

The Leafy Green Machine will allow Alyssa to grow vegetables 365 days a year no matter the weather, increasing her summer production and permitting for winter production.  Alyssa has contracts with the Littleton Co-op, North Country Farmer’s Coop, and a couple restaurants for her first winter of growing.  These buyers will be working with her on what to grow.  As she gets comfortable with the process, she will begin to add more customers and grow her markets.  She is very excited about this new venture and to be working with FarmStart. 

What Alyssa wants you to know about Pinestead:

Our farm in Franconia, NH has been family owned and operated since 1793. It has remained a working farm throughout the centuries. There have always been large vegetable gardens, from which the family sold and consumed fresh produce all spring, summer and fall, while drying, canning, pickling, and storing the bounty for the long winters. We have always kept a variety of livestock including beef cattle, chickens, pigs and horses. There is a working maple sugar house, sawmill and shingle mill on the property. We recently added a hydroponic system from Freight Farms in Boston, MA.  We are now able to grow lettuce year round in a re-purposed shipping container! The closed system uses 90% less water than traditional agriculture. We sell all of our products in our farm stand on the property and at weekly Farmer’s Markets, Spring through Fall.  We also work closely with local restaurants, the Littleton Food Co-op and North Country Farmer’s Co-op.  All of our vegetables are grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. We strive to improve the health of our soils and pastures which, in turn, nurtures the vegetables, fruits, animals and ourselves. We practice crop rotation, cover cropping, active composting, companion planting and rotational grazing.  Guests are welcome to rent rooms in our Farmhouse and to explore Pinestead Farm!

The goal of FarmStart is to provide working capital to help start-up farmers establish a positive business and credit history during the early phases of their business careers. Within five years recipients should be positioned to graduate to a conventional line of credit from Yankee or another lender.

To learn more about FarmStart please visit our website or contact your local office.

Is your Financial Management System as efficient as it can be?

While accounting software may be easy to find and purchase, what really matters most is the ability to enter your data into the program in a way that is meaningful. The system you use should allow you to enter transactions easily and intuitively so the data will be accumulated into the correct ‘income or expense bucket’. If your business accounting software system is not intuitive or is just plain difficult, you will find mistakes being made, and this will make the analysis of the data extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The number one reason for having an accounting software program is for viewing information that allows you to make important management decisions. Are you able to pull out the information you have entered in such a way you can make good management decisions for your business? Taking a bigger picture view of the business using reports to analyze where the business is, where it has been and where it should go? By using your accounting software and data in the correct way, you are ensured of making better, more informed decisions, thereby improving your business’s profitability in the short term and for years to come.

Are you:

• Interested in discovering how your accounting software can help you manage your business. 
• In need of help setting up your accounting system. 
• Thinking maybe now is a good time to hire an outside professional to process the financial accounting data for you.

Our team at Yankee Farm Credit is here to assist you!
 Click here to request more information, or visit us at 
yankeeaca.com

Yankee Farm Credit 2016 Annual Report

In preparation for this year's  Annual Meetings, a full version of Yankee Farm Credit's 2016 Annual Report is ready and available for viewing.

2016 Annual Report
Annual Meeting Schedule and Registration

FarmStart-Adam Allen, Kingdom Timber Logging & Forestry LLC

Adam Allen, owner operator of Kingdom Timber Logging & Forestry LLC

Adam Allen, age 22 is the owner and operator of Kingdom Timber Logging and Forestry LLC in Eden, VT and a new Yankee Farm Credit FarmStart investment. Adam earned a bachelor’s degree in forestry operation through Paul Smiths College in NY December 2015.  He is using his FarmStart investment to purchase a new skidder and assist with day to day operating expenses.  With this new equipment Kingdom Timber will be able to offer a wider array of forest products and services. 

Kingdom Timber operates mostly in northern Vermont, serving both private and industrial land owners seeking a forester to manage their land. They offer private forestry consulting, current use application and planning, timber theft cases, maple sugarbush management, set-up and management of timber harvests, boundary delineation, and professional timber harvesting.  They plan to produce saw timber and pulp which will be marketed to saw mills, pulp mills and bio-mass plants inside and outside of Vermont. 

Adam has already established himself in the logging community and industry in Northern Vermont with 8 years of logging experience. He has a mentor in place to help him make important management decisions and has a good reputation as a hard worker with a passion for logging.  We look forward to helping him achieve greater success.
Check out his Facebook page here.

The goal of FarmStart is to provide working capital to help start-up farmers establish a positive business and credit history during the early phases of their business careers. Within five years recipients should be positioned to graduate to a conventional line of credit from Yankee or another lender.

To learn more about FarmStart please visit our website or contact your local office.

VT Secretary of Ag. Tebbetts Plans Conference Call for Dairy Farmers-TOMORROW

Secretary Tebbetts would like to provide an update to dairy farmers that may have migrant labor by conference call on:

Tuesday, February 14 from noon to 1 p.m.

 

 

Call in number:

877-273-4202

 

Conference room number – 8279200

 

Agenda for the call

 

1.       Work done so far

a.       Brainstorming at meeting Feb. 2.

b.      Governor’s cabinet on Civil Rights

c.       Law to be passed and impact to farm labor

2.       Ideas for emergency milking relief

a.       Assistance from inmates

   i.      Training

  ii.      Pay

 iii.      Length of time

b.      Longer term hiring of inmates upon release if trained etc.

c.       How to alert farmers that this exists without keeping a list

3.       Longer term action

a.       H2A application for 10 months of labor

b.      Emergency application

4.       Feedback from those on the call

 

Please share this message with other dairy farmers who you may know that fit this description.

Please help us get the word out widely. 

 

New Employee - Amy Baisden

Amy Baisden joined our Middlebury staff at the end of January as a Loan Documentation Specialist. Amy earned her Juris Doctor degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and most recently was a managing partner of a small law firm in South Burlington. For generations, her family raised beef cattle in Fayette County, WV. Amy is looking forward to turning her career toward supporting farmers and agricultural businesses.


Welcome to team Yankee Farm Credit!

FarmStart - Justin and Rachel Sauerwein

Justin and Rachel Sauerwein are a FarmStart investment with Yankee Farm Credit. The Sauerweins will be using their FarmStart investment to purchase feeder calves for their beef farming operation Almanack Farm in Chelsea, VT.

Justin is a graduate of the University of Illinois and is the farm’s primary manager. Rachel, Justin’s wife, is a graduate of the University of Chicago and provides secondary management along with managing the farm’s financial records and web based marketing. The Sauerweins raise grass fed beef on the beautiful rolling hills of their 70 acre farm. Currently their herd consists of nine animals but should grow to roughly twenty by the end of the year. Their animals are processed locally and distributed through a local wholesaler to various inns and restaurants throughout Central Vermont. The Sauerweins use this sales and distribution method to regulate their sales volume but are hoping to better utilize their farm’s website as their capacity increases. Yankee is excited to partner with Justin and Rachel as they build their herd and expand their capacity to meet the growing demand for locally produced grass fed beef throughout the association’s territory.

The goal of FarmStart is to provide working capital to help start-up farmers establish a positive business and credit history during the early phases of their careers. Within five years recipients should be able to graduate to a conventional line of credit from Yankee or another lender.