Ken Ripley

Farm and crop insurance is all that keeps me busy besides family.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, it's definitely a great match for that because I can easily take off time in the spring and the fall because agents don't want to see, you know, we're head of claims for our claims team.

I'm not getting pulled into that very often, but it's just, it's nice fit.

Many other jobs, if I was CEO of John Deere on the equipment side, I wouldn't be sitting here and farming and doing all this.

It just wouldn't work, but it definitely helps out.

How were the crops in southern Minnesota this last year?

So 2024 was a disaster, so worst crop ever.

This was not a record on our farm.

You don't go too far from us, it was a record, but top three.

So I'm very, very blessed.

We're thankful.

It's a lot more fun to pull something plus 200 versus mid-100s in my neck of the woods.

Yeah, no, there's no question that it's always tough when you get right towards that APH and you don't quite trigger and price drop didn't trigger you far enough.

I hear you.

Did you get smacked pretty good with the southern rust here too?

I came down to Des Moines for some training in September, and I was talking to some agents on the way down.

I'm like, what happened in Iowa?

I could not believe how dead it was early September.

So, yeah, we got hit with southern rust too, but nothing like Iowa saw.