no welfare payments on this farm!!!!!!!! | paul, read your post, sometimes you got to rock the boat a little to get people thinking, my 1980's is already here, been here for 15 monthes now and now it is getting super expensive, yes i will make it threw it no matter what, the reason i know i will make it is kind of explained in your post about money, what does it really do, you are correct it cant by happiness, so many of us let it control our lives, and letting it control our lives is not healthy nor good for a family. I think you said what I am trying to push more then anything about staying in the game. when our for fathers left everything they had to come to this country they didnt have insurance, they didnt have a cbot setting prices, they didnt have really anything but a boat ticket and optimism. they had a long term plan, when a man buys a farm does he do it based off of one days cbot prices and cash flows. no he does not, he is making a guess for the next 50 years. I remember going to a land auction when commodities were limit down for 2 days, the auctioneer called and asked if i minded if it was postponed, I said its notmy farm nor is it up to me and laughed at him if he thought it would affect prices. that land sold that day for a great price because the buyer we not loocking in the next 50 years on that bad day. same goes with the renter, its hard to get land, equipment is getting larger and faster, no till farming is making some things easier, large investor backed well established farms are looking to expand and grab up any and all land. all this talk about not farming the ground or letting it go is being based on 4 monthes of bad markets. none of these guys were thinking about letting it go a year ago so what changed, the thing that changed was the price went down and it can go up just as easy as it can go down. something as simple as a couple bad freeze predictions, or people discover what is happening around the country and start ralleying crops. either way we can loose a dollar or raise a dollar on the cbot but its not going to matter unless you are in the game. you can sit on the sidelines and say you would have done this or that or you can be in the game, but its hard to make any money as a farmer sitting on the sidelines.
going up to a land lord and telling him your not going to farm his ground next year, may burn a bridge, telling him you cant pay as much money could also burn a bridge and make him look elsewhere, telling him its not profitable may make him look for another farmer and regardless the numbers if that farmer wants the land and pays the check then that landlord will forever assume that you are not as good as the guy who just wrote out the check. i guess i am saying its hard to find land in todays ag world, are you sure you want to let some go or talk some down when that leads to a very good chance you will never step foot on it again.
you might ask why i am so optomistic
1 i think california is done for a couple years unless they get monstor amounts of rain and snow(in a area where they call dessert) if california has no water, those growers out there will come to arers with water and try to make it work on whatever crops they can and i dont think they will rent ground in the southern midwest to grow corn, when they have veggie contracts
2 this country is 1 % farmers and we dont have much say so in anything, the other 99% are questioning what we are doing every time they turn on the news and hear some b.s. report about ag. how long before we cant irrigate in nebraska, sounds nuts to us but we dont make the laws or have much say so in the lawmaking do we.
3 what if they say no more farming of wetlands, i havelearned alot about the differance between the nrcs and the epa lately and it scares me. what if the epa comes out and says northern iowa and southern minnisota are a wetland, everyone says they cant do that, ok i will just watch on that one.
4 consumer fears, the consumer is scared and the media and lawmakers are taking advantage of that, they will play this fear to hurt agriculture.
5 farming assumes alot of liability and risk, yes you can crop insure but I am talking about risking your entire net worth every time you send a semi down the road, or exposing yourself to alot of liability when you simply cross the highway with your tractor.
6 cancrete and asphalt. where was the city limits of every big town you see 30 years ago. we have been breaking out acres from grass which tend to be lower producing acres and covering up good ground every day. someone tell me where the northern edge of des moines was in 1980 and where is it now.
7 technology: this country is demanding clean energy, they consider ethanol clean energy but demand more and better. they seem to think haresting fuels from the earth like oil and gas is what ruined the enviroment instead of burning them fuels in there car or truck. remember big oil ruined the enviroment not all the billions of people who burned 2.5 gal of gas every day. all this negitive media will influence people to vote for things that dont make sense just so they dont have to blame tehmselves and they can keep consuming all the energy they want, they will most likely vote to get more energy from americas farmers somehow which will create more demand for farmground.
8 increasing population, simply said more people eat mroe food, score one up for the farmer.
9 big lawns, this kind of goes with the towns expanding and more concrete, but how often do you drive around and see a house and 5 ac that used to be farmed. did the people who built that house and 5 ac put 5 ac back into production before they bought that 5 ac and took it out of production. yes there is gardens there but what used to be 5 ac of corn or whatever is now grass and gets mowed 20 times a year which demands more energy.
10 highways, people want to get from point a to b and they want a big safe smooth highway so they can drive fast and get there quick and burn alot of energy getting there. have you ever sat back and looked at how many acres of this country are covered by roads, just take your average four leaf clover highway intersection, there goes 300 ac right there, and then using even the road sides for feed or something like that would make too much sense so we have to spend alot of tax dollars buying energy and fuel to mowe that roadside 5 times a year.
all 10 of these things go threw my head every day to keep me optomistic about production ag. i am loosing 50 ac this year which was farmed last year and will never be farmed again. others will be loosing ground very soon and these record acres of production in the us will start to decline. i feel we need to keep demand for usa produced food to capture all of the price increase that should follow . the bad thing is i listed 10 reasons why i am optimistic about land and didnt even have to use the biggest reason, INFLATION, does anyone thin inflation will stop? good luck sorry for the long post |
update on my friends rent next year-that sent notice's
