Matt Ronkin
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
We haven't really branched into ranchers specifically, although it's something that we've talked about, also talked about. We've got a few clients and numbers that are permanent crops. So we've got almond producers, potato. I guess potato is not permanent crops. We've got a lettuce farmer down in Yuma. We've got tobacco and cucumbers out in the Carolinas, but for the most part in the Midwest.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
But yeah, this is a universal skill box or skill set that we can teach anybody that's a producer.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
100%.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Hmm.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah, good morning, guys.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah. Uh, so first of all, thanks for having me. I've seen a number of your podcasts, love the energy, uh, love the communication and the conversation. So I was just happy to be a part of that. Um, so my background, I've been the CEO of uncommon farms for about three years now. Uh, before that I was not in agriculture at all.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
I, uh, spent the first 25 years of my, uh, career at nested curing on pet food, uh, in St. Louis. And, uh, Started in business development roles, brand marketing, et cetera, and then moved into more general manager roles. One of my last roles for Purina was to lead the strategic planning group between our brand portfolio and then our retailers. So I know a little bit about strategic planning.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Louis.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah. So Uncommon Farms actually started as a business entity 60 years ago, 6-0, as a company called Agris Solutions. And The founder's vision or thought was that farmers needed better mastery of the numbers in order to make better business decisions.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And obviously back then, no computers, no apps, et cetera, but just a philosophy that farmers were just not on the whole good business people when it came to looking at the numbers and then ultimately able to make better decisions. About 25 years ago, that same founder started a concept called the Family Farms Group. And what he saw was that in livestock,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
there was you know violent consolidation and just saw that same dynamic that was eventually going to come in row crop and so wanted to prepare the farmers to be better business people and to be better masters and have a better skill set in order to run their business you know and work on the business not just in the business so the family farms group was started in 1996. i came on as the ceo of the family farms group in 2021 um
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
you know, not having a strong ag background, I spent the first six months of my time as CEO on farm with our members and just trying to get an understanding of what were some of the challenges, what were some of the pinpoints, what were they doing to better themselves in terms of better business people.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And, you know, it was clear to me that to take the common approach to farming was going to end in a not so good way. And that's a little bit of ironic, right? Normally, you know, do the same things and get the same results. The reality of what's changing so much in farming and what has changed forces you to take a different approach.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And so I was passionate to change the name of our group to a community of uncommon farms. And the whole premise again behind this is business unusual, not business as usual. So you've got to build that skillset And think about yourself as the CEO of a very dynamic multi-million dollar operation that has all of the challenges that a corporate CEO has and not define yourself truly as just a farmer.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
That's right. And so, you know, at our core, we define ourselves as business advisors, growth advisors, and kind of that aggregate, you know, MBA, if you will. And so, Farmers are very good at what they do. And so don't get me wrong, the instincts and the quintessential entrepreneurs and have the entrepreneurial mindset and the innovation mindset, et cetera.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
It's how do you round that out and how do you put it into a framework the same way that a corporate CEO would look at their business. So everything from strategic planning, which is what you all started talking about.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
These are family farms that succession planning is always a big piece of this, risk management, financial acumen, leadership, HR and people, and all of those where, yeah, quite frankly, where would they pick up those skills? And you didn't need those soft skills, especially as much as you do today, a generation ago. And most of the farmers have learned, you know,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
business from the dad or from their uncle um maybe they've got a cohort or some kind of of network around them that they've learned from but for the most part they're doing it through instincts and so what we can introduce is is some framework around that and a guided tour if you will a sherpa tour through that in terms of setting up strategic priorities and plan the work and work the plan
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Not too late.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
That's right. Yeah. So at our core, like I said, we're business advisors and we work with each one of our members one-on-one and, uh, and give them the value that they, that they need the real value. And, uh, and so earmuffs to the rest of my organization doesn't come from the learning that they, we can provide to them. Um, it's really about building that, that community.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And as you guys know, farming, you know, as a vocation, it's a very isolated, uh, you know, job by nature physically. And, uh,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
it's also isolated emotionally and mentally right and and mentor wise it's very difficult like i said it's a very myopic relationship between you know the generation above you and below and maybe a little bit around you but to provide a community um where there's peer learning um like we've set up is quite unique and so We build that in a number of different ways.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
We do member conferences, we do region meetings, we do what we call training Tuesdays, which is every other Tuesday we'll do Zoom calls and every one of our members can jump on with a speaker or workshop. We've got a member portal that they can tap into and, hey, I'm thinking about getting heavier into the trucking side of the business.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Anybody out there have this thing figured out and amazing just the robustness of that. The biggest part of our community building is around our peer group program. just recognizing that these guys don't have the coffee shop to go to, especially at the size that they are. I mean, it's just not, they're gonna be in competition for land or competitive advantage, et cetera.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
So we set up a peer group program that has multiple peer groups. We don't put more than 10 or 12 farms into a peer group. And then we slice and dice it just based on the level of complexity that each farm has. So our very largest farms who are truly GMs, managers of managers, We've got them in a group. We've got our managing directors who are really managers of kind of the line staff.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
We've got a operational manager group. We've got an agronomy group. We've got a women's peer group for those women that are highly involved in the operation as a spouse or as a partner, quite frankly. And then one that I'm really excited about that we've had for a couple of years is our emerging leaders peer group, which is young adults that are from age 16 to 26.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
that either are thinking about coming back to the farm but don't have a role yet to those that are in college and then are going to need a role when they come back, or those that are out of college that are starting in a certain role, and then how do they start to build those skills to be able to take on the GM role eventually from their dad?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
No longer are you emerging, yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah, we'll start that group, too.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
A million percent. A million percent. I mean, and it's, you know, what's cause and
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
them as hard as they've had us and the most important question is are you willing to invest in your own education right are you willing to give back to the community in order to to get something out of it and so you know financial resources is one thing that the biggest barrier is time as you guys know i mean it's i can't spend time off the farm you know i'm too busy all of those things and you know we flip it around and go yeah you you have to invest time and resources in order to get better so get better before you get bigger
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah, so we've had different models in terms of how we've done that. Think about it as a retainer fee, what we call an access fee. And so they pay an annual fee and get access to all of the resources and have a coach, as I mentioned, a guided tour through all of the work that we do with them. Included in those fees is a certain number of peer group entries.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And if they want to add more resources to our peer group program, they can. They have access to all of the other community aspects that we do. And then the last piece of our value proposition is our strategic partner program. And so, you know, as you guys work with partners and, you know, that's what you, that transfer of trust.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And so a lot of my job in the leadership is just to go out and build relationships. Who's doing cool stuff? Who's doing innovative things? Where are some things that we can bring? A lot of times these aren't large companies. I mean, these are smaller companies that just have a great idea that need lift off.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
And so to be able to bring those ideas and have discussion at the peer group level or at the conference level, a few of our guys try it in terms of proof of concept. And then from there, it just goes. And so that's another huge piece of our value proposition is to our members, we're bringing them new ideas that they wouldn't find on their own. And then we can be of value to our students.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah, so the best way to find us is uncommonfarms.com. And so the website will tell a lot about just the whole experience of joining Uncommon Farms. We're on Instagram as well, so uncommon underscore farms, on LinkedIn, on Facebook as well. So, yeah, you can find us, and we'd love to have that conversation.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Breaking Down the November WASDE Report: Andrew Kaabes - Lighthouse Commodities
Yeah, so we have members in 22 different states. When you add in our financial solutions, we have a number of customers that still use us on that financial. That adds another six or seven states. We're in Canada. We're in three different provinces in Canada. For the most part, we concentrate on row crop. They can have livestock.