Kansas Landowner Conference

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Macroeconomic Implications for Kansas Landowners

Brian C. Briggeman - Professor

Director, Arthur Capper Cooperative Center

Brian Briggeman is a Professor and Director of the Arthur Capper Cooperative Center in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University. Dr. Briggeman’s research and extension program focuses on agricultural finance, cooperative management, and macroeconomics. As Capper Center Director, he leads and delivers educational programs for farmer cooperative CEOs, CFOs, employees, and directors. Dr. Briggeman also teaches agricultural finance and cooperative management and advises a number of graduate students.

Kansas Land Values and Ownership Trends

Crop Insurance & Government Program Payments (breakout session)

Robin Reid - Extension Farm Economist

Agricultural Economics Department at Kansas State University

Robin Reid is an Extension Farm Economist with the Agricultural Economics Department at Kansas State University.  Robin works on a variety of economic topics including farm policy, farm financial management, land values, Women in Ag. programming, and much more. Robin grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and earned a B.S. in Agricultural Business from UW-River Falls.  She also holds an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from K-State.

Best Practices in Landowner Tenant Communication

Negotiating a Farm Lease (breakout session)

Ashlee Westerhold - Director of AgKansitions

Agricultural Economics Department at Kansas State University

Ashlee earned her Bachelors and Masters in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Westerhold served as an Area Extension Educator at the University of Idaho where she created, delivered and collaborated on major risk management programs. Westerhold has always been passionate about Succession Planning because of her advisor, Dr. Ron Hanson. Her main objective is to keep families in farming and ranching.

Protecting the Legacy of your Land in Kansas

Components of a Good Written Lease (breakout session)

Roger McEowen - Agricultural Law & Tax Topics

Roger McEowen is the Kansas Farm Bureau Professor of Agricultural Law and Taxation, Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, KS.

Roger focuses on legal and tax issues that agricultural producers, agricultural businesses, and rural landowners face.  He teaches an undergraduate course in agricultural law at Kansas State University in addition to agricultural law and tax courses at the law school.  His website, www.washburnlaw.edu/waltr(link is external) contains much information on ag law and tax topics and provides access to his “Agricultural Law and Taxation” blog.

BREAKOUT SESSION SPEAKERS

Wind and Solar Leases

Wendee Grady – Kansas Farm Bureau

Wendee Grady has been at Kansas Farm Bureau for 7 years, where she serves as Assistant General Counsel and Director of the Legal Foundation. Prior to joining KFB, Wendee was in private practice for 7 years, and then at the Kansas Department of Agriculture as a staff attorney, and then Chief Counsel. Wendee grew up in Holcomb, Kansas, and attended Kansas State University where she received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in agricultural economics. She attended law school at the University of Tulsa.

Wendee and her husband, Jason, live in Pottawatomie County where they raise livestock (mostly boer goats at the moment) and their 3 kids.

Climate & Carbon Credit

Micah Cameron Harp - Post-Doctoral Fellow

Department of Agricultural Economics Kansas State University

Micah Cameron-Harp is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University. He received his M.S. in Sustainability from Arizona State University and his B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University. Micah’s research involves solutions to agricultural sustainability issues which jointly improve agricultural productivity and conserve natural resources.

Lease Basics & Types of Leases

LaVell Winsor – Farm Analyst

Agricultural Economics Department at Kansas State University

LaVell Winsor is a Farm Analyst with the Agricultural Economics Department of Kansas State University.  LaVell primarily works directly with farm clients to assist them with their finances – whether that be evaluating a farm expansion, an annual financial check-up, or addressing a difficult creditor situation. She also helps farm families with succession planning. Over the past 27 years, LaVell’s professional work has been focused on risk management and farm financial management.

Conservation Programs

Jeffery Olson - CSP Program Manager

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Kansas State Office (Salina, KS)

I graduated from the University of Idaho where I majored in Rangeland Ecology and Management and received a minor in Soil Science. I held multiple positions with the USDA as well as in private industry before transitioning to the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) in 2015. Since that time, I’ve served as a District Conservationist, Easement

Coordinator and currently serve as the CSP Program Manager for the state of Kansas.

Conservation Programs

Nicole Welborn - Agricultural Program Specialist

Conservation and Price Support Division of the Kansas Farm Service Agency

Nicole Welborn is an Agricultural Program Specialist in the Conservation and Price Support Division of the Kansas Farm Service Agency State Office in Manhattan, Kansas.  Nicole came to the FSA State Office in 2018 after serving in the Shawnee County FSA Office in Topeka as an Agricultural Program Technician working with Shawnee County farmers and ranchers.  Nicole has worked with conservation her entire career with FSA and has a strong passion for the mission. 

Hunting Leases

Drew Ricketts - Extension Wildlife Specialist, Associate Professor of Wildlife and Outdoor Enterprise Management at Kansas State University

Drew leads extension and outreach efforts related to wildlife damage and habitat management for KSRE, and helps stakeholders in these areas. At K-State, Drew teaches courses on human-wildlife conflicts, wildlife habitat management, shotgun sports, and coaches the K-State Shotgun Sports Team. He is a lifelong Kansan, growing up in Labette County, and later moving to the Flint Hills after completing his B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Management from K-State. Drew then owned and operated a wildlife habitat and rangeland management business serving the Flint Hills region. After several years in business, Drew returned to K-State to pursue a PhD in wildlife biology that focused on the effects of rangeland management practices on small mammals and coyotes. 

Charitable Strategies in Agriculture

Darci Cain – KSU Foundation, Senior Director of Gift Planning

As the Senior Director of Gift Planning at the KSU Foundation, Darci Cain, leads their team of professionals who have combined knowledge of over 120 years in charitable planning experience. She has dedicated her career to the financial planning field and obtained her CTFA (Certified Trust and Fiduciary Advisor) early in her career, working with families in farm transition planning and other small, large family corporate transitions.

Charitable Strategies in Agriculture

Brenda McCrady – KSU Foundation, Senior Executive Gift Planning Officer

Brenda McCrady is a licensed attorney with almost 25 years of experience working in higher education philanthropy. She is currently a Senior Executive Gift Planning Officer at the KSU Foundation. Brenda has considerable experience in helping donors accomplish their philanthropic goals that benefit the donors, their families and charities. Her primary focus is upon what is best for the donor. She has helped hundreds of donors to makes gifts through wills, trusts, charitable trusts, beneficiary designations, transfer on death deeds, donor advised funds, gifts of personal property, gifts in kind and more.

Prior to working in higher education fundraising, Brenda was an attorney in private practice.

Crop Insurance & Government Program Payments

Jennifer Ifft -Agricultural Policy, Crop Insurance, Agricultural Finance, Farmland Markets, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist

Jennifer Ifft has an integrated research and extension program that covers policy and regulatory issues that affect the viability of U.S. and Kansas agriculture. Before coming to Kansas State University, she was an assistant professor at the Cornell University Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and worked in the Farm Economy Branch of the USDA Economic Research Service. She has a PhD from the University of California - Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a BS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She grew up on her family’s farm in central Illinois.

Property Tax

Allen Featherstone – University Distinguished Professor, Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Director of Masters of Agribusiness at Kansas State University

He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from Purdue University.  He also holds a B.S. in agricultural economics and economics from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.  Professor Featherstone is recognized as a leading scholar in agricultural finance. His work has resulted in teaching and research awards and quotation in the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and other publications. He served as Associate Editor for the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and on the editorial board of Choices.  He has more than 150 articles published in a variety of journals. He has experience lecturing and researching in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Easement Panel

Jim Pitman - Regional Biologist, Ducks Unlimited

Jim Pitman earned a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Science from Purdue University and a Master of Science from Kansas State University in Ecology and Systematics. In his career, he has worked for the Indiana Division of Fish & Wildlife, Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks, the Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and Ducks Unlimited (DU).  He has extensive experience with wildlife research and surveys, numerous habitat restoration practices, government conservation programs, mitigation programs, and conservation easements.  He’s currently a Regional Biologist for DU where he provides technical assistance to private landowners interested in wetland restoration.  He also assists DU and other conservation organizations in Kansas with real estate transactions involving conservation easements and fee title land acquisitions. 

Easement Panel

Ginevera K. Moore - Kansas State Director The Conservation Fund Leawood, KS

Ginny joined The Conservation Fund in 2016, bringing to the Fund and its partners more than 20 years of expertise in environmental and natural resource law. She leads the Fund’s conservation efforts in Kansas, providing local, state and national partners with the Fund’s full array of conservation programs and initiatives. She also chairs the Fund’s Conservation Loans Committee.

Ginny holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa and a J.D. with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law. She is a member in good standing of The Missouri Bar.

Easement Panel

Lindsey Reinarz- Conservation Real Estate Manager- The Nature Conservancy-Kansas

Lindsey manages and assists on conservation projects in Kansas as well as other project areas around the country, working with a diversity of landowners and partners to achieve conservation goals.  Lindsey has been with the Conservancy for over 13 years and has been with the Kansas Chapter since 2022.   

Farm Economy Outlook

Joe Parcell - Professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, Director of the Center for Risk Management Education and Research. 

Dr. Parcell’s research involved price analysis, marketing, risk assessment, and assessing value chain drivers. In total, he is the author of over 200 journal articles, book chapters, abstracts and proceedings, posters, organized symposium presentations, and extension publications.

Dr. Parcell is a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL). He has served as state and federal reviewer for the USDA producer value added grant program, and he has reviewed and been a panel member for SBIR proposals. He has served USDA in the capacity of Livestock Marketing Information Center representative committee member for mandatory price reporting. Dr. Parcell’s global marketing discovery missions have taken him to Europe, Central America, Africa, and many Asian countries.

Grain Marketing 101

Dan O’Brien - Grain Markets & Market Structure, Farm Mgt., Risk Management

Daniel O’Brien was raised on a grain and livestock farm in south central Nebraska. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1978 & 1980). After working as a Nebraska Extension Agent (1981-1987), he completing a Ph.D. at Iowa State University (1988-1992), becoming an Extension Ag Economist with Iowa State Extension (1992-1994) and Kansas State University (1995-Present) – being located at the Northwest Research Extension Center in Colby, with a stint as an Area Extension Director Northwest KS (1983-1986). His ongoing professional interests are in a) grain market supply-demand, price analysis, and risk management strategies; b) bioenergy market trends; c) irrigated and dryland cropping systems, and d) cropland leasing arrangements.

Lease Rates

Gregg Ibendahl – Farm Management, Finance, Production Economics

Dr Ibendahl is a farm management Extension faculty member. He grew up on a small grain/beef farm in southern Illinois. Dr. Ibendahl has experience in private industry and academia having worked several years at Dekalb Genetics in their production area. His current work includes estimating net farm income, predicting crop yields, and estimating farm expenses. He annually publishes estimates of county cash rental rates for the state.