Richard Canfield discusses how farmers can avoid traditional bank loans through alternative financing strategies like infinite banking. The conversation covers why farming requires so much capital, the barriers young farmers face, and how to plan farm transitions so the next generation inherits financial stability, not debt.
Chapters
If I'm a farmer and I'm raising cattle and I went into town and purchased cow chow, you would all laugh me right out of the county. He says, you've got to be growing your own cow chow. Well, shouldn't you be growing your own capital? When people think about farming, they picture open fields and tractors and sunsets and maybe a few cows gazing in the distance. But what they don't picture is one of the most capital-intensive businesses on the planet. Starting a farm is not an inexpensive proposition. Maintaining one, let alone growing one and having to deal with all of those potential obstacles that are going to come up, right, that are weather-triggered, economically-triggered circumstances that are outside of your control, but yet you've got all your capital growing uninterrupted day in and day out.
If we had a loan that was due with borrowed money, we would have not been able to do it, but because we had the infinite banking in place, it was possible to divert stuff and change our plans and just keep going.
What are some of the biggest financial challenges that young farmers face?
Well, the sheer dollar value to get into it. If you're looking at just buying a quarter of land to start farming, that's a big price tag starting out. Banks, they're very scary with young people and those big dollar values. So it's hard.
The farm and the future transition planning, things that'll change, you know, things that are out of our control. They shouldn't be expected to have to just work hard. If they have some options and there's a little bit more capital in their control, would make farming much more enjoyable for them and not have to just, like I say, work hard every day. You know, you can't just work hard. You have to have things in place.
When you have a goal of leaving behind financially capable children, that is a goal worth discussing.
