protecting a farming legacy
The soil is deep and rich along the Missouri River where John and Robert
Williams farm outside of Richmond. But sometimes — sometimes — the
river can take a sudden and cruel toll on corn and soybean crops.
“When we’re sandbagging, we’re losing money,” John says. “Most of the
time we can raise a pretty good crop but the possibility for that zero crop
exists — and that’s when we need our crop insurance.”
Against a backdrop of high risk and thin margins — and tough-topredict weather — crop insurance from FCS Financial is just one of the
tools in the box for the father-son team. It’s even more critical for Robert
who returned to the family farm after college in 2009.
“As a young man, I don’t have the assets built up yet to the extent that
I could survive a crop disaster without crop insurance,” he says. “It’s just
another part of the operation — a pretty important one for me.”
Robert’s FCS Financial involvement includes serving on the Young,
Beginning and Small Farmer advisory committee as well as participation in FCS Financial Connect, a program to help
young farmers gain advanced farm finance knowledge.
The Williams family is also an FCS Financial Legacy member with Robert becoming the third generation to be an FCS
Financial member.
A part of that family farm heritage is continually changing, adapting and updating farm practices. Most recently that
includes the addition of cover crops — cereal rye and radishes — to build and protect the soil.
Of course when the river runs high or the rains fail to fall, John and Robert rely on their FCS Financial Crop Insurance
professional Wendy Howell.
“Wendy keeps us up-to-date,” John notes. “She gets right back to me when I have a question — and I can come up with
some bizarre questions. She can answer them, though. Wendy does a heck of a job.
“We don’t ever want to collect on crop insurance but I wouldn’t farm without it. And FCS Financial has done a great
job making sure we have what we need for what we want to accomplish.”
we need to make sure we’re all going for the same end
result.”
That focus on communication extends beyond family
and employees to t