We held the second session of our 2025 Farmers ’N Bankers program on Wednesday, June 18, at Great Shots in Sioux Falls.

It was an opportunity for our farmers to hit some golf balls and socialize in addition to the education portion.

In this session, agri-marketing consultants Hurley & Associates lead a training focused on grain and cattle marketing while Erik Gerlach, a state statistician for the National Agricultural Statistics Service, presented to our farmers.

Taking a business-minded approach

Hurley & Associates kicked off the meeting by talking about the goal of marketing and the importance of taking a business-minded approach rather than a market-minded approach.

They also discussed understanding the cost of production, cash flow, and goals: things the producer can control, and not all the “noise” that most producers use to market grain.

Finally, we went through various marketing strategies and played a game that utilized the different techniques of marketing in a real-life setting, incorporating scenarios that most customers see in a given year.

Understanding what’s happening in agriculture

Our other presenter during the session was ag statistician Erik Gerlach.

He began by sharing the history of the National Agricultural Statistics Service dating all the way back to George Washington.

He talked of the value that Washington and Lincoln saw in understanding what was happening with farmers, as they knew the impact of what farmers were doing to help feed people.

Lastly, Erik discussed how important it is to understand what’s happening in agriculture today and how it will impact world food supplies, but also to have an independent, non-partisan group publishing information for farmers to use to trade commodities.