Cutting Out The Middle Man

[BA Deere]

I try to spread my seed corn purchases over a number of companies to not get skunked on a company having a bad year or a "Star Link" fiasco and being a little shot to begain with I`m at the mercy of the dealer as to what volume discounts I get. 

There`s a company that we`ll call "P" that has a reputation of "stand issues" I like their beans and buy a few bags of corn because my theory is those complaining about standability of P is really just their soils are deficit in Potash.  Now my P dealer is a hell of a nice guy, I ordered a token amount of corn and he looked at his lap top and said "this is too high!  I`m gonna bundle your order on some of mine so you can get a volume discount" .  But I figure if P was good enough for Francis Childs, that carries alot of weight with me. 

As far as the Syngenta seed products, it`s something I haven`t had much experience with. 

[Longcreekfarms]

I really like syngenta NK beans. Late threes to mid 4's for my area. They pod up and are generally a hardy plant. 44-D5 has been my highest yielding so far.
NK corn I have minimal experience but there is one I keep using. N68B-3111. Strong stalk, long ears with excellent kernel depth. Also, it dries down in the field well. When all my Dk's and huebner varieties are 18, this one is 15-15.5. It was 111 or 112 day corn.
Hopefully there are discounts on the seed and chemical packages as some of the Syngenta herbicides work very well too.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Did you have to set up a paper or real orgtanizaation to become a wholesaler or otherwise cut out the middle man (I'm not talking about the seed discussion here)?

Any licenses, fees or increased storage or handling rules by EPA, DNR, counties  or other organizations?

Does USDA treat you differently if you are a corporation or whatever it takes to cut out the middle man?

[sw363535]

The COOP example at one time worked ----- but the idea of creating a middle man to eliminate a middle man just does not fly.

More often than not the "created" middle man was undesirable to work with.  Who wants to move from buying through a company rep. to a committee of neighbors.  Most often coops do not serve their paytrons, they serve their boards.  

Coops should serve their paytrons needs.  The expectation that all paytrons have equal needs is a clue to do business somewhere else.

[Husker-J]

I have a different approach.  I sometimes cut the middleman, and sometimes I try to be the middleman.  
For example, I don't have many acres  of row crops, so I have my fields custom sprayed, even though many of the 'real' farmers around here, do their own field spraying.   However, on the flip side, they hire an airplane to spray weeds in their cattle pastures, and I spray those on my own.   Unlike a field, most pastures only require spots sprayed here and there, instead of full broadcast, and I can save more money, by doing my own spraying in the pastures, than it costs to have the Co-Op do my fields.

Same way with repairs.   I do all my own repairs, the most I can possibly do, as well as maintanence.   Even if it takes me twice as long to do as a 'real' mechanic, which it usually dos not, I'm still getting over $50 an hour for my time.   Rather than work somewhere off the farm for $20 an hour to pay a $100 an hour mechanic, I do as much of the $100 an hour stuff I possibly can.

 As for seed, it seems that every year one company or another is always having some sort of incentive, and now that they have to have the breeding # on the bag, I can get the same variety from whoever sells it to me at the best price (provided they still give decent service - as that still has value).