As agriculture becomes more and more complex, farm and ranch managers need to understand and communicate in the financial world. The University of Minnesota's Center for Farm Financial Management has created a new online workshop series to help ag producers (and anyone who works with them) understand and use common financial statements and measures. The new Web site, http://ifsam.cffm.umn.edu, called Interpreting Financial Statements and Measures (IFSaM), is intended to teach producers the basics of interpreting the four major financial statements and the 21 financial measures recommended by the Farm Financial Standards Council.
IFSaM is a series of online videos that producers can watch and work through at their own pace, and it's free. Each session provides benchmarks, based on actual farms, that producers can use to evaluate their own financial position and their financial performance. Case studies are also used.