Farmer's Lender Split Sparks Success

Ryan Bivens' first crop was an FFA project in 1994. By 2013, the farm he built in Hodgenville, Kentucky, was stretching his bank's lending capacity. The first-generation farmer had finally grown his business and reputation enough that a major lender wanted him as a client.

It seemed like a great deal. His new lender got behind all his ambitions: a refinance on the home farm, a loan to build new grain bins, a revolving operating line large enough to support his growth and funding to buy the 400-acre farm across the road.

Bivens' original banker understood, wished him luck and sent him off with a warning: Beware when the pendulum swings.

"For the first couple of years, things were great," Bivens, now 46, explains. "Then 2016 hit, and we had a bad corn crop."

Finances were tight the next few years, but Bivens still made his payments. His lender wanted him to sell the farm across the street and corn at a loss to make payments. He felt micromanaged. The personal relationship with his lender went sour.

"I was trying to work with them, but I wasn't working in the direction they wanted me to work," he says. "I finally knew the divorce was going to happen in 2019, when my youngest son had a bad accident here on the farm."

Bivens' original banker called less than 12 hours after his son's helicopter landed at the hospital in Louisville, offering to help any way he could, even though they did very little business together. Bivens didn't hear from his new lender until the next week, and after polite inquiries, the lender wanted to know when Bivens would make a payment.

Ultimately, Bivens and the lender reached a legal settlement in 2020 as part of their separation, and to comply, he cannot name the lender or the affiliated institution. But, just like a divorce in a marriage, the experience changed the way Bivens thought about finances.

TOUGH TIMES MAKE YOU STRONGER

After Bivens' dramatic breakup, he returned to his original banker. That bank had eliminated some of the challenges that sent Bivens looking for a new partnership. He kept the contentious land loan with the other lender but had otherwise severed ties.

It turned out that Bivens' business wasn't in as tough a financial position as he had thought. Bivens set a new goal of funding his operating costs without a loan, which he did in 2021. He thought he'd stay on that path until he had the opportunity to rent 1,600 acres from a retiring farmer the next year.

"I keep a small (operating) line today," he says. "We've increased our working capital position greatly, and we've bought a few more farms since then."

When Bivens was in college, he knew guys that came from large farming operations but didn't want to go into the family business. "It just killed me, because I felt like I'd give anything for that. But, looking back now, yes, things have come a whole lot harder, but I appreciate things a whole lot more."

RELATIONSHIPS MATTER

Bivens credits his banker's support early in his career for a lot of his success. While they didn't always agree, his banker believed in him and his goals.

"It's more about the relationship you've got, in my opinion," Bivens says. "When you do hit hard times, you have that working relationship with somebody. They understand things. They've seen your past performance, and they're more willing, I think, to work with you than whoever it was that came and offered you a little better interest rate."

Last winter, Bivens flipped through his year-end balance sheets going all the way back to January 2005, when he purchased the home farm. With a debt-to-asset ratio of nearly 50%, he's surprised he was able to get an operating loan.

He thinks his banker "looked at it through the lens of, 'This guy is improving,'" Bivens says. That might be tougher to do with lending standards today, but for him, it made all the difference.

HAVE A BACKUP PLAN

While Bivens is very happy with his current banking relationship, he's also prepared in case something happens. His banker is retiring, and even though he likes his replacement, it's always possible that something could change.

"I've got another lender that I currently don't do business with, but I share my financials with them every year just to keep that knowledge and relationship built," he says, joking that he reminds his current banker of this fact frequently.

After his experience, having a backup plan is comforting. There'd be nothing worse than not getting an operating note renewed right before the start of the season when you'd need to be buying inputs, but instead you're courting new lenders, Bivens says.

"You always need to have a Plan B," he adds. "That's one thing I learned. I got too comfortable with my Plan A."

IT WASN'T ALL BAD

While there are parts about the breakup that Bivens is still bitter about, his feelings have softened toward the institution, and he's grateful for all of the good things that happened in his business because of it.

"Oftentimes, you look back on something, and it makes sense, even though at the time you were madder than a hornet," he says. "Down the road, you figure out that, hey, if that had happened, this probably wouldn't have happened."

Bivens started his farm with zero owned acres, a strong work ethic and ambition. He now raises corn, soybeans and wheat on more than 10,000 acres and works with more than 80 landowners. He was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 2025.

"I've been told 'no' more than I've ever been told 'yes,'" he says. "Never, never, never give up."

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