Amanda Durow: Speaker Interview Series

On this special episode of Let’s Chat Dairy, Betty Berning welcomes Amanda Durow, Vice President of Corporate Agribusiness Banking Group of CoBank. Amanda will be joining the Ag Lending Panel at HighGround Dairy’s third annual Global Dairy Outlook Conference in Chicago next month. The podcast can be found here on our dashboard, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Subscribe so that you never miss an episode!

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General Registration is open for HighGround Dairy’s third annual Global Dairy Outlook Conference this June in Chicago! Space is limited at the historic Union League Club so be sure to register soon to secure your spot! Click here for more details, including the agenda, expert speakers, and more.

Transcript:

(0:14) Betty Berning:
Welcome back to Let’s Chat Dairy, HighGround Dairy’s informative podcast keeping the industry abreast of market-impacting news on a regular basis. Today you are joined by Betty Burning, HighGround’s Contributing Dairy Economist. I am very excited to record a special episode of the podcast to interview one of the lenders who will be speaking at our upcoming third annual Global Dairy Outlook Conference, taking place from June 18th to the 20th at the historic Union League Club in downtown Chicago.

The HighGround Conference has quickly become one of the must-attend shows in the summer in the dairy industry and we have put together a fantastic agenda this year that will start the morning of Wednesday, June 19th. Our topics this year include a Domestic and International Dairy Market Outlook, a Price Forecast by the Market Intelligence Team, and then we’ll have a discussion and update from speakers in Europe and China, some conversation around Federal Milk Marketing Order reform, a US Producer Panel, Global Weather Outlook, and our Agricultural Lending Panel, and did I mention there also will be a Dairy Protein Demand Trends Panel? There’s a lot of, “but wait, there’s more” in that line.

At any rate, we’re really excited and we hope you can come. If you haven’t registered, please visit highgrounddairy.com/conference and you can learn more about our speakers, about all those topics I just went through and get your spot locked in. Registration closes on June 14th.

(1:53)
Today, without any further ado, I am joined by Amanda Durow, Vice President and Lead Relationship Manager at CoBank, who is a fellow Minnesotan. Hi, Amanda. How are you today? We’re so excited to talk.

(2:10) Amanda Durow:
Hi, Betty. It’s always great to connect with you. You and I have known each other for, it seems like forever in dairy.

(2:16)Betty:
It has been some time. Well, Amanda, you’re going to be speaking at Highground’s Outlook Conference coming up here in just under a month. Why don’t you start out our interview today, by talking a little bit about yourself? Who do you work for? I know you’re on a farm so maybe tell us a little bit about that too.

(2:36)Amanda:
Yes, happy to. I am Amanda Durow, Relationship Manager with CoBank. I’ve been at the bank for 10 years, and been in financing, supporting dairy farmers to processors for 15 years. I support dairy processing relationships across the country and we are really excited that CoBank is one of the leading and top lenders to US dairy and US dairy processing. I also live on a dairy farm. My husband and I are fifth-generation dairy farmers in Minnesota. So I am excited to be a part of the dairy industry in all ways, starting with a milk check twice a month on the home base.

(3:08) Betty:
I love it. I think it gives you such a good perspective on the entire dairy supply chain, and I’m sure your clients really appreciate it too. You already said this, but we have known each other for some time. We both went to the University of Minnesota and we were, strangely enough, in the same sorority. But folks, it gets even weirder. We actually had the same portfolio in rural Wisconsin. Do you want to share anything about that?

(3:36)Amanda:
Well, Betty, you’re great. You’ve been a great woman in dairy, and I’ve just followed your path, right? I followed you after at the university and into the sorority, and then the portfolio at Northwest Wisconsin, right? So, you set some good groundwork, and I just followed along to learn as much about dairy as you have.

(3:54) Betty:
That is really kind of you and very humbling. Thank you. I’m really laughing here. Oh, my goodness.

We better be serious and talk a little bit about this upcoming conference. Tell everybody what you will be talking about at the conference on our Ag Lending Panel. I’m going to be facilitating. What are we going to learn about?

(4:16) Amanda:
I’m really excited for the opportunity. I know you and Alyssa were pretty instrumental in thinking about the finance side because money gets things done across the industry, right? It takes a lot to be in this business from a capital perspective.

I’ll be sharing more of the perspective on dairy processing. As you look across US dairy and US dairy processing, we see that the industry is in a transition period. And the positive thing is we’re investing in the future. We’re building new plants where Americans and even global consumers are eating more dairy than we’re drinking. So you see across the sector, US dairy is really investing in those assets. They’re going to manufacture high-quality products for both domestic and export markets. That comes with a lot of cost, investment, and capital so bank partners are very much involved in making sure capital needs are being met.

There are different industry trends that are changing how customers—how my clients—are managing their balance sheet and managing their working capital to just put themselves in a really strong financial position to manage through the markets. You guys are the experts in helping them understand the markets on a daily basis and we’re going to help look at that long term and those long-term capital needs and make sure they have the right liquidity and the right tools and other risk mitigants to really manage their business going forward.

(5:35) Betty:
Well, we’re really excited to hear all of this. And just I think our audience is going to enjoy learning more about the lending side of things. What are some of the trends that you’re seeing right now with processors?

(5:48) Amanda:
Yeah, there’s a lot of things that processors are facing. There is market volatility that’s been unprecedented for many of the last couple of years. And I know the HighGround team has been helping them through and understand those near-term things. But it’s changed how they look at their balance sheets and their business long term and setting things up so they have things managed.

We know Federal Marketing Order reform is top of mind because the industry sort of wants to reset the manufacturing cost that basis to get milk to market and really drive that value, which we know impacts the farmer milk checks, but there’s a balance in play. And there’s a lot of industry experts that are coming together to manage that through to support the industry for the future.

Other processors are looking at managing working capital and getting more creative with account receivables, inventory, and other liquidity tools to really optimize their business. And again, there’s a lot being invested. IDFA shared with everyone in the industry in January at their conference that US dairy is investing $7 billion in new manufacturing assets. So it’s pretty cool to see how the industry is just looking for that future growth.

(6:59) Betty:
Unbelievable. Yeah, $7 billion.

Let’s wrap up here just with a couple of lighter questions. I didn’t prep you for these at all so we’re going to see how this goes. You are going to be speaking during June Dairy Month and you’re on a dairy farm. What is your favorite dairy product?

(7:16) Amanda:
Oh, my favorite dairy product is cheese, not just because I finance cheese plants, but because cheese has so many applications.

Betty:
It’s true. Lots of things you can put it in.

You are on the farm, though. I will not ask you who your favorite child is because we know they’re all your favorite, as any mother would say. But who is your favorite cow?

(7:37) Amanda:
Oh, Tammy is a cow that we’ve had for a very long time. She’s had wonderful daughters from us. Tattoo was one that my daughter showed last year. We have a registered Holstein herd so every cow has a name and every cow family has the same first letter. Everyone gets to be creative and come up with different names for each of the cow families.

(8:07) Betty:
I love it. I thought you were going to say you got a tattoo of your favorite cow. But Tattoo is another cow’s name, folks.

Amanda:
Yeah, that was one of her heifers. Tattoo is a heifer calf and Tammy’s granddaughter.

(8:12) Betty:
Oh, that’s perfect. So last question. You are headed to Chicago in June. Do you have a favorite thing to do when you’re in Chicago? I know you come here sometimes for work. What would you recommend?

(8:25) Amanda:
Well, I love the Chicago food scene. I think Minneapolis has good food as well but Chicago has a great food scene. And when you’re an ag banker, food is something we all have in common. So it’s always great to find the best deep dish pizza and other Chicago-style foods that are favorites and only found in Chicago.

(8:41) Betty:
Well, Amanda, this has been fun just to catch up again and see how you’ve carved out your own path. You have such an impressive resume and you were one of the first people we thought of when we started putting this panel together and we’re just really grateful that you’ve agreed to come. I hope everybody is able to attend the Outlook conference and hear what you have to say.

(9:11) Amanda:
I’m so thankful to you and Alyssa for the invite. I’m very much looking forward to it and looking forward to connecting with everyone at the HighGround Dairy Outlook Conference in June and happy to connect further to talk about the future of dairy.

Betty:
As a reminder, those dates are June 18th to 20th in beautiful Chicago. You cannot beat Chicago in the summertime. Visit highgrounddairy.com/conference to see all of our speakers and register. Thank you again. And be sure to listen to the other podcasts in our speaker series, which include two of our producer panelists.

Have a great day.