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Pilot Grove, Missouri | When I was living and working in the STL area, I rented my small amount of row crop acres to a close friend on 50/50 shares. We started in 1996 after I bought the family farm from my parents at the end of 95 as my Dad had dementia and Mom bought a house in town to better take care of him (unfortunately he soon went to a nursing home and passed in 97). I supplied the ground and he supplied the equipment/labor and we split all the crop input expenses (seed, fertilizer, chemicals) 50/50. We split any FSA payments 50/50. I also paid for lime when needed and he hauled my grain to the elevator (only 1.5 miles away). I also occasionally did some "recreational tillage" on my own dime (i.e. had some Allis-Chalmers plow days with friends). This started with just the 3 bigger creek bottom fields but I started farming for myself some SRW and beans on a couple small hilltop fields (that had been cropped before by my Dad but we had left to be excess pasture starting out) in the mid to later 2000's and custom hired him to plant. I did any tillage myself bought a small old Gleaner for $600 (EIII) to harvest and figured the rest out myself. It was a great way to start learning more for me.
On hay ground we did the same 50/50 split and he bought my half of the hay to feed cattle he ran in my pasture acres. But as fertilizer prices went up and hay market prices went down, I often lost money on the hay ground so I ended up giving him use the hay ground for free. On the pasture ground, we trade that for 1/2 a beef every year or so.
The first 10 years or so I also let him live in the old family farm house rent free in exchange for watching over the place and keeping it fixed up. This worked great for both of us. He built him a new house on his farm after about 10 years and that worked well for us as we had started coming out more on weekends and vacation time to visit the farm with the boys and we could stay in the house on weekends. In 2015 we moved back here full time and started building a new house and moved in it January 2016. That's when I took back over all the row crop farming full time from my friend but we continue this day with the same arrangements on the hay and pasture ground. | |
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land on shares
