This has been a premise of mine for years. I couldn't agree with you more. Farm and ranch operators will need to become better business managers if they are to survive in today's agricultural climate. I like to put information in two categories. Internal information comes from the operations financial and production record-keeping systems.
External information comes from outside the operation.
This includes information from land grant universities as well as other sources of production research. I would like to take issue on one point you made. You propose three choices for ag producers to improve their management power. The first, and your preferred choice, is for producers to dedicate the time and effort to learn to be better managers themselves. The other two choices outlined involve consolidation and contract growing.