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east central ND | Let’s stir the pot some more on the employee question.
How many additional acres do you have to farm just to pay for an employee? Include all wages &benefits: housing, vehicles, insurance, retirement, unemployment, employer’s half of SS tax, etc, etc. If you pay an employee a total of 50k, how many acres of your farm is just to cover it? I know a guy spreads the employee cost over all acres, but......
And with lower crop prices, the employee’s wages take more acres. Of course, once you reach the economy of scale, the employee’s labor brings in more than it costs. But it sounds like a lot of smaller/mid size farmers are at that tough spot where they are too small to afford a full time employee, and bordering on to big not to have one. And adding just a few acres will not return enough, a major expansion would have happen.
Part time seasonal help bridges the gap, larger equipment has probably delayed this issue for years, but with labor getting harder to find.... | |
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