Dehlinger's Favorite Story of 2022

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (DTN) -- Few people get excited about financial ratios. You have to really love numbers, and you have to love the honest truth, because unless the math is wrong, numbers are incapable of lying.

So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Many people become writers because they hated mathematics in school. Writing has always come naturally to me; my gift with words made me think I was bad at math. I was in my mid-20s when I realized just how false that dichotomy is. The fact is, I'm better with numbers than I ever gave myself credit for, and I like writing about them.

My first hint that words and numbers weren't an all-or-nothing game should have come in my senior year of high school. I took advanced placement calculus, mostly because I wanted to avoid taking a math class in college. I thought I was bad at math and wanted it out of my life for good, but little did I know that I'd have to take statistics anyway. So, taking calculus was an unnecessary choice that filled my soul with frustration for months on end. It clicked and started to make sense just weeks before the big exam, and I scored high enough to earn eight college credits. I got a C+ in the class -- the lowest grade of my academic career -- but it's the grade I'm most proud of because I worked so hard for it. And those credits allowed me to earn minors in subjects I thoroughly enjoyed. (History and sociology, if you're curious.)

I also didn't get the second hint: Microeconomics. The professor put me to sleep, so I stopped going to the lectures. I went to the labs, did the homework and showed up for tests. I was crushed to score a 50/100 on the first exam, so I vowed to work harder. I got a 52 on the second test and a 55 on the third. I thought I had failed the class and didn't know how I'd explain it to my parents. As it turned out, the professor assigned grades based on a bell curve, and I was an outlier to the high side. I probably would have saved myself a ton of stress if I'd just gone to class.

I finally got the third big hint. I'd started working for DTN as an intern shortly after graduating in 2009. Once I moved into a copyediting role, I realized I understood a lot more about what our lead analyst at the time, Darin Newsom, was writing than I thought. I don't come from a farming background, but I understood enough about the markets to ask him questions that he occasionally found frustrating. I thought it was fun. Some thought I was nuts for "poking the bear." If you've ever met Darin, you know what I mean. When DTN's longtime markets editor, Pat Hill, retired, I applied for the job. That's the point in my career when I really embraced numbers and kicked that false dichotomy to the curb.

Fast forward 10 years, and it gets us to my favorite story of 2022, which was actually published as the cover story for the January 2023 issue of Progressive Farmer. In "Gauge Your Bottom Line," I discussed the ways farmers use financial ratios to make decisions.

I've wanted to write an article about these numbers since I attended The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers in early 2020. I saw farmers nod their heads, take notes and engage with a variety of ratios in Dick Whitman's financial management session, and I knew there had to be a way to bring that topic to DTN and the Progressive Farmer's readers. It was important, actionable information that came with countless examples of improved decision-making.

It took a while to figure out how to make the topic interesting and relatable, because let's be real: A list of different ratios, their definitions and applications may be a helpful reference, but it's hardly engaging reading.

I had the privilege of filling in for DTN/Progressive Farmer Crops Technology Editor Pam Smith on DTN's View From the Cab series several times in 2022, and it was clear to me that Colorado farmer Marc Arnusch likes talking about numbers. I'm grateful he shared some of his experiences for my January article, because without those real-life examples, it'd be like reading the ingredients on a cereal box. I hope you find something in the story, whether it's Arnusch's anecdotes or the bankers' expertise, that you can use to make better business decisions in 2023.

See my original story on DTN at, "Gauge Your Bottom Line to Make Informed Decisions," at https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Katie Dehlinger can be reached at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com

Follow her on Twitter at @KatieD_DTN

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