Their Story

Eldon Hesterberg has been farming all of his life.  He planned to pass his farmland of corn and bean production down to the next generation, even though farming was not the traditional career for either of his two daughters.  But his daughter Christina knew from a young age she wanted to carry on the tradition.  She explains, “Farming has always been in my blood.” Currently, Christina share rents the property Eldon owns while Eldon continues to cash rent another farm.  Christina says, “Right now we work as a team.  My dad is one of my best friends so even when we face challenges, we are still facing them together.”

 
Even though Eldon thinks of their arrangement as “semi-retirement,” the father / daughter team is facing some difficulties.  According to Eldon, “weather is the largest problem.” Christina agrees, “We do the best we can with the management decisions we can control, but there is a lot, like the weather, that is out of our control.”  Knowing Christina’s interest in exploring new ways to innovate on the farm, her agent brought Total Weather Insurance (TWI) to her attention.  “We spent hours going over the risks versus the rewards.”

Both Christina and Eldon decided to purchase for their respective acres.  Christina explains, “We bought it for two reasons:  First, we were watching La Nina and suspected a large risk for drought this year.  Second, we trusted our crop insurance agent, who also acts as a risk advisor, and he believes in the product.”  Eldon agrees and adds, “It helps us sleep better at night, not worrying about the weather.  We didn’t buy TWI to make money, we bought it for protection.”

As it turned out, Eldon and Christina did face a drought this year.  “We received a net payout after certain components settled.  That was helpful, to not have to wait for a payment at the end of the season.”  Also, because Christina received a payment mid-summer, she did not have to take out additional capital on her operating loan. Eldon concluded, “For us it worked.  I would recommend others look into it, see if it fits with their operation.  It was a positive experience from the beginning and we felt like we had a lot of control over the process.”