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Chapter 1: What is the Pendleton family's farming background?
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There is a podcast in Iowa. Funk for profit was named by they. They stirred up a banker near. Then quick came an auctioneer. Making profit was their first goal. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Soon may the farmers come to bring us guests and beer and fun. One day when the recording's done, we'll take our mic. Live at the Brant Booth, 2026 National Farm Machinery Show.
This is the Farm for Profit Podcast. My name's Tanner. This is Corey. And Dave's here. We had a listener comment in on one of our posts. They said, man, can you do the intro any differently? Sometimes I tune in and just want to skip it. Yeah. Is it different, or do they just not want an intro?
We might be able to appease them, but don't forget to— I think it's just a testament to how good our guests are and how good a guest we find. That's right.
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Chapter 2: How did Amanda Pendleton's education influence her farming career?
Because they just want to get to the meat and potatoes. They're tired of listening to you talk. I think you're right there. They do. But I need to ask for a favor, though. What? I need them to go subscribe to our YouTube channel. Okay. Maybe that could be our new intro. Can I ask for that? We didn't even say who our names are. Just go subscribe. Okay. Do it. That's fine.
Well, we're here to talk whiskey. Yeah. Now that I have your attention. Gotcha. We do. We do have a father-daughter team. We have the Pendletons here. We have both the father and daughter here to talk about their operations and what they're doing to continue the legacy of their farm. So happy to introduce the two of them. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Kevin, why don't we start with you first? Let's first of all find out where you guys are from. Okay, we're from Lafayette, Indiana. We farm about 1,500 acres there, and then we have a crop insurance business that we do as well. Lafayette, Indiana. Have you ever been to Lafayette? Well, I don't think not maybe through there. I don't think I've been there specifically, no. Dave, you? I agree.
I've been there. Just been there once? Been through there.
Chapter 3: What are the challenges of generational farming?
Amanda, what about yourself? This is my first year full-time back on the farm. I graduated from Purdue in May studying agronomy, so I'm kind of learning the ropes as I go. Awesome. Agronomy from Purdue. That's a pretty good spot to get a degree. Yeah, and they had a good basketball game the other night when we were watching. They did? Yeah, against Nebraska, so we cheered for Purdue on that one.
That's good. We did. So Kevin's third generation, which makes you fourth generation. Yep. So let's talk, you said about 1,500 acres? Yep. And it's corn, soybeans? Corn, soybeans. Okay. Pretty much a 50-50 rotation? Pretty much a 50-50 rotation. Okay. We used to raise a lot of seed corn for Remington Hybrids, and that has since went away. So we're all just corn and soybeans.
We have an ethanol plant three miles from our house. So we're pretty fortunate for that. That's pretty convenient. That's very nice. Don't you wish? Yeah, he's probably the guy at the ethanol plant that brings wagons in. I probably wouldn't be a very good neighbor if I did that. There's a neighborly aspect to that, isn't it? Well, I've got to ask, what's the basis of your ethanol plant then?
I think today we're option price. Yeah, we're 19 under at ours. So fresh out of college, coming back to the operation, what's the role there that's available for you? Well, I'm kind of figuring that out. This year primarily I've been bookkeeper. I've been learning the ropes of that, kind of seeing things as I go. I've been working with Ambrook.
We used to work with QuickBooks, but this year we took on Ambrook to learn the farming accounting side, and that's kind of been my role, but then also just kind of filling in as we go.
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Chapter 4: How does Ambrook assist in farm financial management?
Well, let's dive deeper into that a little bit later into the show. That's kind of neat because we love Ambrook. We've found a lot of synergies between the mission of Farm for Profit and what they're trying to do for farmers themselves. But I want to go back and I want to learn about little Kevin. Okay. What was it like growing up?
My grandpa and my dad were farmed, and I went to high school, helped through high school, went to college, went to Blackhawk College, got a two-year degree there, and then came back to the farm and started farming and farmed for a couple years and then decided there was – I needed to do something else. So I started looking into the crop insurance business.
And this is my 34th year selling crop insurance. Whoa. So that's where the Pendleton Ag Solutions comes in. So, yeah. So to roll into that, that was so in 20 – my dad retired in 23. I took over the whole farming operation at that time. And then we also started Pendleton Ag Solutions, which is our company, our crop insurance company. And I brought Amanda on at that time then to –
to try to help with the crop insurance side, helping with the farming side. She's my drone operator. We're finding places that, I told her I wanted to give her the ability to throw some new ideas out. I was trying to, I want to try to be open to, you know, what's new, what do we need to do? And that was one of the things she brought up she wanted to do.
So we put that in there and we're just scouting with a drone right now, but we're picking that up and trying to grow with that a little bit. When you were younger and came back to the farm, did your dad, was he as open to new ideas as you seem to be? Probably not. But I think that was just a different time.
But, yeah, that's, you know, I've learned over the years that they can bring a lot of things to the younger generation can bring a lot to the table. And do you have any siblings? I have one sister. Okay. And she involved in the farm at all? Not involved in the farm at all. Okay. That sometimes helps, right?
We've done a lot of interviews talking about succession and what family transition looks like. And sometimes it's great to have multiple siblings that are excited to be a part of the farm. Corey farms with his brother. Mm-hmm. And that provides both benefits and sometimes conflict.
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Chapter 5: What role does crop insurance play in modern farming?
Yeah. Well, anytime you're working with family, right? Yeah. There's opportunities for conflict. There is. And now it's you. Yep. And Amanda, do you have any siblings? Yeah, I have two older brothers, but neither are involved in the farm. What are they up to? One of them works for a news station in Indianapolis, and then the other one is a general manager at Crew Car Wash.
What does he do for this news station? Is he like the weather anchor? He's like a program behind the scenes. He's our Cody. Yeah. He's producer Cody, wherever he went. Gosh, we lost him. You never know where they're at. Behind the scenes is right. Can't see me. But that's cool because that provides another opportunity for your family. Right.
That you're able to provide a – streamline is the wrong word. I'm looking for better terminology. The ability to focus in on what that potential transition brings to the table. Yep. So, Amanda, your brothers didn't want to come back to the farm, but you did. Were you more involved in the farm growing up?
I think I was a little more interested than they were, but I really didn't have a huge interest until about COVID. I was spending a lot more time on the farm. That was when I was applying to college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do in the future. And so I kind of followed along in his path and that led me to Purdue.
I started out in ag business, but kind of figured out my interest lied in agronomy. So that's why I switched majors and Took some internships in crop science and loved it, and then it kind of just led me back to the farm, and that was kind of what I wanted to do since I went to Purdue. What type of internships did you have? My freshman year, I worked with Beck's Hybrids.
I lived in Atlanta, and I worked on their crop research side, so being a freshman in college and not having a ton of experience, that was really great. A chance for me to step out of my comfort zone, and then my...
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Chapter 6: How do the Pendletons balance farming and crop insurance?
Second summer, I interned for Advanced Agrolytics, which is kind of like a crop consulting thing, and I really enjoyed that. That was a whole other experience where I stepped out of my comfort zone and spent a lot of time by myself in the field, but also learning a lot as I went.
And then actually my third summer, I worked with him selling crop insurance, kind of learning the ropes of that, because by that time I knew that was what I wanted to come home and do. So, yeah. So crop insurance is all about relationships because everybody sells the same product, correct? Correct.
So did you learn to build a whole lot of relationships at your other two internships or just with your dad? Primarily probably with my dad. I feel like especially my second summer working in crop consulting, I spent more time by myself than I did with, like, farmers or anyone like that. But when I worked at Beck's, I felt like I did build some relationships and had some experiences that helped me.
But primarily I would say working with him. built those relationships. What was it like 34 years ago starting a crop insurance business? It was kind of crazy because at that point, all we talked about was yield. Revenue was not a concern at that point. And very few farmers carried that. You know, we saw, I sold a lot of hail, but not very many people carried crop insurance. And
government programs came out and, and, you know, a big thing for me was, was cat and catastrophic coverage or cat coverage came out. And when cat came out, I was kind of young. I was young. I had, we had one, I had my oldest son at that time and I was digging for everything I could get to try to get something off the ground.
So I wrote every cat policy I could get, get my hands on and all those kinds of, you know, we started taking care of those people and it's all about customer service with that business, like you were saying. And, and, those people became buy up customers and so on and so forth. My, you know, it's, so it's, it's been really great. We've been able to hold onto a lot of those guys.
Farmers are, you take care of them. They'll hang with you. And, and that's what we do. We feel like we've got to do a crop insurance episode every single year. Yes. Because the amount of stuff that changes and how you try to sort through the acronyms and holy smokes, the fact that it was just yield tide. 30 years ago. Yeah. And now I think there's 1100 options. Yeah. Or more.
And they all have an acronym. So when was it that the government programs came out and actually like everyone started having
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Chapter 7: What fun experiences does Amanda share from her 4-H Queen journey?
So that would have been in, see, that was 96, I believe, is when that cat program came out. And you had to at least carry cat. And it was like a $50 per crop per county policy. I mean, it didn't generate a lot of premium, but everybody had to have one. And so we, you know... A lot of people, a lot of agents didn't want to mess with that, especially if they were doing other lines of business.
And I was doing farm insurance at that time, but really wanted to focus on this. And as things got more complicated, I figured out pretty quickly that to be really good at crop insurance, crop insurance is the only thing I need to do. You know, I need to know everything there is to know. Especially now. Yeah. As far as how fast products change and what private products look like. Yep.
We try to do our best to help listeners understand. Yes. And you just can't in 45 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like he had a much easier start to this than to what you came back to because you've got the list. Yeah, he literally printed out like an ABCs of crop insurance lists for me to learn. I think the acronym pages, there were 10 or 12 acronym pages for her. Holy cow.
I still don't know them all. So for the next 30 minutes, we're going to go through. And put that into place. That's fascinating. People probably want to get their hands on that booklet that you got. Yeah. She was a little bit overwhelmed, but she wasn't afraid to grab ahold of it and take off. So are you still doing crop insurance or just on the book side? Yes.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that earlier. So on the farm side, I like to do the bookkeeping. That's my role. And then on the crop insurance side, full. Okay. And it looks like you got a nice rock on there, so you found time to get a man. Yes, he's actually over there. Fair enough. That actually just happened this past weekend.
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Chapter 8: What future plans do the Pendletons have for their farm and business?
Oh, it did? Yeah. Congrats. Thank you. Wow. I didn't have that in my notes. I think when those notes were taken, I'm not sure that was ready to go yet. Now we've got to get the story. Did he ask for permission? He did. Yeah. He did. All right. How did he do that? Well, he stopped by and he's been around for a while.
So it was, you know, he stopped by and he's like, hey, I'd really like to have Amanda's hand in marriage. And I said, no. But then I told him it was okay. Did you ask? I did ask. And I was trying to get my father-in-law by himself, was trying to get to that perfect moment to be able to ask. And we had a shop party and kind of a post-harvest, you know, wrap up everything, celebrate. Yep.
Everything kind of being done before you got to start it all over again. And I just couldn't get him alone. And finally it was time to take the trash out. And I said, I'll help. And he's kind of looking at me like, why are you helping me carry a bag to the dumpster? And I asked him out by the dumpster because it's the only time I could get him alone. Yeah. And he told me it was okay. Yeah.
He also told me because my wife's the youngest. He also said, no, go for it, but I will tell you that if you want to just go to Vegas and get this done and over with, I will take care of you because he knew what a wedding was going to cost. I'm beginning to figure that out. Yeah. It's still an option. It's still an option. All the bills probably haven't came in yet. Yeah.
You know, just price shopping right now. Yeah. Did you ask for permission? I did. Yeah, it was simple. I don't have a really good story about it at all, but I remember it was like, are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to do this? They gladly accepted me. It just was like, I don't know. I was like, the goody two-shoes. I don't know. Did you ask Dave?
I did, yeah, on the fender of a tractor, baling hay. There you go. So I rode out with him to do that, but mine was only after six months, so it was pretty quick. So I was waiting to see what the answer was going to be very quickly, and he's like, well, you're bailing hay, you're helping me there, so all right, fair enough. I was like, all right.
Yeah, I don't know if he needed help with bailing hay. That's what he needed, yeah. Whatever it takes to keep someone around here to toss these bales around. Yeah, old Ford tractor, yep. Oh, nice. Well, congratulations. Now, are you going to plan a fall wedding? Yeah. You might think Iowa just grows corn, but the truth is, corn grows Iowa.
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