Labor Episodes
Every Ag View Pitch conversation on labor — summaries, key takeaways, and full transcripts.
Episode 738
Business lessons from 2025, solutions for 2026
The Ag View team names what 2025 taught them: right-size machinery, track your time, delegate faster, and build a State of the Farm talk for your banker.
Aug 2025
The brain of your farm business
Why a dedicated farm office pays: Shay covers the $100,000 to $350,000 price tag, five reasons to build one, and the three reasons farms put it off.
Episode 695
Managing people, plants, and urban markets
Karl Shlagel farms 150 acres of fresh market vegetables 23 miles from Capitol Hill. He walks through H-2A crews, farmers markets, and family transition.
Episode 687
Opportunity management
The Ag View team on sizing up 1,000-acre opportunities: capacity, culture, collaboration with neighbors, debt service in a trough, and what you say no to.
Episode 536
Payment in kind
Paul Neiffer explains payment in kind: no 15.3 percent payroll tax on commodity wages, paying kids under 18, and donating grain instead of cash to church.
Rewind
Dad's wisdom rewind: On the farm with Jerry Meissner
Jerry Meissner on growing a 2,600-cow Wisconsin dairy with low equity, buying land at $1,200 an acre, and hiring help before he could afford it.
Episode 505
Internships matter
Shay Foulk and intern Tim Moon on shaping an internship around the student, what it costs for a summer, and why the payback is not free labor.
Episode 496
Maximize the value of your data: become a citizen data scientist
Scott Klososky and Matthew Bertram explain how to train someone on your farm to turn scattered data into decisions, in about 50 hours over 12 weeks.
Episode 492
Why is it so hard to keep people? Secchi founder Mike White
HR veteran Mike White explains why farms lose good people: undefined goals and roles, no documentation, and toxic workers who cut team output 40 percent.
Episode 489
Make the connection
Shay Foulk on using your ag network when a problem stonewalls you, plus a request for winter work for a trusted H-2A employee in North Dakota.
Episode 484
Is the H-2A program dead for farmers?
Paul Neiffer explains proposed H-2A rules that push a tractor driver who also drives a truck from $13.32 to $22.55 an hour, plus $15,000 filing fees.
Episode 482
The Captain Patrick in Jamaica show: tips for success in life and business
Captain Patrick, 23 years with one Jamaican employer, tells Chris and Alissa Barron how love, honesty, and teaching keep good employees from leaving.
Feb 2023
Progressive farm outlook with Kristjan Hebert
Kristjan Hebert explains his time, brains and money split, monthly draws for parents, a known $780,000 burn rate, and keeping equity out of equipment.
Dec 2022
Retirement plans: a paradigm shift for farm operations and employee retention
Travis Martinek breaks down 401(k) versus SIMPLE IRA limits for 2023, the Roth option farms lose with a SIMPLE, and why plan fees deserve a hard look.
Dec 2022
Agriculture's top ten issues and opportunities for 2023
Chris Barron lists the ten issues he tells clients to plan around for 2023, from land rents and equipment values to lenders, transition and labor.
Oct 2022
Dream big
Hannah Foulk explains the dream manager role: a 100-dream list, categories, every-other-month check-ins, and how it cut turnover in the book's case study.
Aug 2022
Part two: five additional best practices of top tier operations
Washington wheat farmer Jason Monson on a three-person board of directors, core values that drive hiring, and making decisions without analysis paralysis.
Jun 2022
Tax and financial management 201
Paul Neiffer and Mike Finley break down HSAs, Roth versus traditional plans, fee-only advisors, and holding working capital near 50% of operating needs.
Mar 2022
Liability risk reduction for your trucking LLC
Chris Barron lists eight checks that keep your trucking LLC intact: separate books, entity paid insurance, itemized invoices, and certified drivers.
Jan 2022
Ag View Executive Business Conference: Damian Mason
Damian Mason on reguflation, immigration and China at the Ag View conference, and why he expects more change in ten years than in the past century.
Apr 2020
Paycheck Protection Program update for farmers
Paul Neiffer on why partnerships apply instead of partners, why H-2A workers do not count, and why a Schedule F farmer with low taxable income gets little.
Apr 2020
Paycheck Protection Program: a moving target for farmers
Banker Andy Roach explains how PPP loan amounts are calculated from payroll, what counts as payroll cost, and how the forgivable portion worked in 2020.
Mar 2020
Important information: CARES package for farmers passed last week
Paul Niekerk explains why most row crop farms come out ahead taking the refundable payroll tax credit instead of a small SBA loan under the CARES Act.
Mar 2020
Ridin' the storm out! Coronavirus and its current impact on agriculture
Chris Barron and Duane Lowry on cross-training before planting, restructuring farm debt as rates fall, and why Duane expects stimulus to be inflationary.
Feb 2020
Time tracking and its importance on your farm
Chris Barron explains why labor is 15 to 25 percent of production cost and how tracking hours by profit center shows where your farm really makes money.
30 of 645 episodes · page 1 of 2