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Proactive financial reviews are a critical tool to farm risk management 

An ag attorney says regular financial reviews could help producers avoid loan defaults and bankruptcy.

Austin Peiffer is with Iowa-based Ag and Business Legal Strategies.

“It’s essential to have a cash flow,” he says. “Once you’ve got that data, then you have to act on it. Is there a line of your operation that isn’t making money? You have to know what that is and make a decision.”

He tells Brownfield his company is seeing an increase in farm financial stress.

“Interest rates are high and a lot of farmers are struggling,” he says. “A lot of farmers are trying to borrow against the equity that they have and it’s really hard to make it work. We can’t write a cash flow that shows a profit this year. We haven’t seen that for any of our farm clients.”

Peiffer says for farmers that have defaulted on loan payments, Chapter 12 could be an option to help restructure debt.

AUDIO: Austin Peiffer, Ag and Business Legal Strategies