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| I am just a VERY small row crop farmer, in the same area as you. I primarily raise "natural" hogs for a company, and I'm getting to the point I may just direct market, as that makes about 10x the net profit/hog, selling any additional weaned pigs at the sale barn for whatever I can get. I think 2000-2500 row crop farmers in Iowa by 2050 is optimistic, especially with AI and autonomous control of vehicles. Or, I should say, even if that number is correct, 1900-2400 of those will be farmers who only farm their own ground, the remainder being the corporations that rent all additional ground. I know many people have a passion for grain farming, they will even do it at a break even and have a secondary income sustain them, and the grain farming is simply pure fun for them. Or others that own enough ground, a blind sow could operate it and make a profit (and even some of those operate at a loss). The corporations with unlimited borrowing capital will realize the profit they can make by pushing out the rent crop farmer due to economies of scale, and make anyone else non-competitive, save the few farmers that are big enough already to capitalize on that economy of scale, or only farm owned and paid for ground. If you get big enough, you can be your own co-op (seed/chemical/fertilizer dealer), at that point, you can have large enough tanks/bins to haul semi loads of anhydrous, diesel, propane, fertilizer, etc. And that X% of additional profit will be what takes out the "normal" grain crop farmer. You could even get large enough that a corporate farm could have their own millwright company installing grain bin setups. I'm one of those "kiddos", there's no opportunities for us in large scale monoculture grain farming. I wanted to get to about 500 acres, for enough economy of scale I could buy my own sprayer good enough for spraying 3oz/acre of product like Sonic, anhydrous toolbar (with my 4020, you don't make enough money to have a bigger tractor doing 500 acres row crop farming), and a proper grain bin setup (cost me about $3/bushel putting up a 6k grain bin just to feed the hogs, making it out of 2 used bins, and doing all of the work myself, including the electrical service). I'm holding out for the next few years, and then I'll probably give up. :( | |
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How many corn farmers will there be in Iowa in 25 yrs?
