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Mohawk Indiana | I started farming in 1979 and these are some things I remember.
1980 was dry, I remember listening to WILL radio to the August crop report with my Dad and the Missouri crop was really hurt bad, our yields were down, but crops were dry, Interest rates were climbing fast, I forward contracted Jan delivery corn in October for 3.60 at my Dads insistence, I just knew it was going higher!
1981 Land peaked in my neighborhood, 40 acres sold for $4000 an acre in March, Partime farmer with a good job bought it, it squared him out, probably paid cash. Planting was delayed, rain rain rain. We were planting when they were running the Indy 500, it was rained out, we got rained out, rained 5 inches that night! Got started planting again June 6th, we were luckier than a lot of guys, As I remember the crop was good enough, but extremely wet, don't remember much about price.
1982 was a good growing season here and crops were good, price was low. We put the 82 corn crop under loan, and I think you could put it directly into the farmer owned reserve, The reserve paid .26 per year storage and you had to store it unti price reached a Target price which was over $3 Loan rats then were higher than they are now $2.75 for corn I think
1983 PIK Program. Government allowed you to bid to sell the corn you had under loan to them so they could use it to make the government payments In Kind It was one of the screwiness things you can imagine. We were still holding reserve corn, only planted 50% of our base corn acres! DROUGHT! Corn went up to around $3.75 as I recall. Bean price went to $9.00, bean yields were good. Reserve corn was sold for a good price.
1984 planting was late, crops were good,wet. I remember delivering Fall corn to Beech Grove for $2.75
1985 Good growing season, crops yielded good, harvest kind of strung out, Prices were lower but nothing stands out
1986 '85 farm bill is implemented, loan rates are slashed, before if crops were under loan and prices never reached that level you could forfeit the grain to USDA, now the loan rates were a lot lower but you could repay the loan at the posted county price if it was below the loan rate, but you had to use PIK certificates! There was basically a secondary market for PIK certificates, Grain Merchants would buy and sell them. I can remember buying them at 115% of face value. On an up day you would take your certs to ASCS before the end of the day to redeem loan bushels before the price adjusted upward the next day. The '85 farm bill also brought about CRP, HEL, and all the Wetland Crap. Also remember putting some 86 crop corn in the reserve, crops were mediocre, prices sucked
1987 Dry early,crop saving rains, dry late, Crops under loan
1988 Drought. Corn high Threes Beans over 9. Bean yields were good
We had to leave set-aside almost every year to participate in the Government Program, it was a giant pain but was pretty much the only game in town
There were cash rents in my area in the early '80s around $150 I remember a bid situation that brought about $165 in about 1982
Rents had fallen to less than $100 by the late eighties
The biggest issue was borrowed money that was costing so much more than anyone ever expected when they took out the Mortgages in the seventies. Dad had a variable mortgage with Federal Land Bank and I think the rate got as high as 14.5%
I was young enough and not well established to take on a lot of debt, was able to rent ground on crop shares. I was Lucky!
Seemed like there was always a next logical step, for me anyway. I have more trouble finding that next logical step today.
Some guys were just screwed, timing made all the difference in the world. For some all of the belt tightening in the world wouldn't have helped. Lost marriages, lost farms and unfortunately some couldn't stand the pressure and took their lives.
Some guys on here say the eighties will repeat. I hope for all of our sakes they don't!
Edited by Wreckless 8/30/2016 13:58
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Millennials: Welcome to the 80's
