After moving home to continue the family farming tradition, Sydney Caraballo has relied on crop insurance for everything from hail damage to record-level vomatoxins affecting her durum wheat.
Off-farm life
When Sydney Caraballo left her family farm en route to her first year of college, the life she saw in her rearview mirror was not one she planned on returning to. In fact, Sydney’s love of writing and science would take her far from her childhood home near Wildrose, North Dakota.
Her next several years brought many changes and accomplishments, including two college degrees, enrollment in graduate school and of course, a boyfriend. “Kevin was serving in the Army at the same time I was in grad school,” Sydney said. “We fell in love and eventually got married.”
Big changes back home
Back home in North Dakota, Sydney’s parents were looking to scale back their farming and ranching operation. Art and Linda Glasoe had worked many years to build their business, but with retirement on the horizon, they considered renting some of their land and selling their cattle.
However, Art proposed a different option. He recommended that Sydney and her two sisters form a limited liability company (LLC) and run the operation from afar.
In 2010, they formed Tre Farms, LLC. The cattle portion of the business remained as Glasoe Angus. The sisters continued operating the LLC for nearly five years, using vacation hours from their full-time jobs to help on the farm whenever possible. Eventually Sydney, Kevin and the kids moved back to the farm full time.
A family affair
The Caraballos now maintain sole ownership of Tre Farms and Glasoe Angus, with their children lending a hand and Sydney and Kevin each playing an important role in the business. Sydney said her father also remains a crucial member of the team, even in his “retirement” years. Art, as well as Linda, still contributes many hours and experienced labor to the operation, and more importantly, well-earned wisdom.
One tradition Sydney is especially proud to carry on is her family’s relationship with AgCountry Farm Credit Services. Tre Farms now utilizes FCS for its operating line of credit, crop insurance and equipment loans.
The importance of crop insurance
“We purchase multi-peril insurance with revenue protection on all of our crops,” Sydney said. “While I don’t purchase hail insurance on all of our acreage, I do buy hail protection on all of our contracted barley acres each year, and I also typically purchase hail coverage where we tend to be more vulnerable to bad weather. I have Farm Credit Services on speed dial in case the weather forecast looks menacing.”
Peace of mind is often hard to come by in the world of agriculture, but Caraballo said their experience with FCS has been truly life changing in that regard.
“Our barley has been damaged by hail two out the past three years, and our region was hit in 2014 with record levels of vomitoxin in durum wheat. That hit to our durum crop while being in our first year as full-time farmers would have been catastrophic without crop insurance.”
