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WCMO-SWMO Area | Its not the 1980's yet but it could sure get there..My area got hammered in the 1980's..
Starting with 1980 we had 6 bad crop years in a row..In 1980 the wheat made 50,milo 15,early beans 3,and the DC beans made 0...It got up to 112 degrees in the middle of July....Only one field of corn was harvested in the entire county...Crop insurance amounted to next to nothing back then..Hay was in short supply..Everyone baled milo stalks..I had no livestock and sold all of my milo stalks to a farmer 25 miles away.
Starting in May of 1981 it rained and rained and never quit..Half the county was in wheat and people mudded it out for nearly 2 months losing lots of it.Most never got any double crop beans planted,...That fall we mudded out early beans in to December..
It forgot to rain in 1983 except at bean harvest..I mudded out lots of 15-20 bu beans.
Interest rates were 15.9% on vehicle and farm machinery loans in the late 1970's in to the early 80's...Lots bought land in the 70's and some were paying up to 20% variable rate interest on it..Land that was $200 per acre in 1970 was selling for $1000 per acre by 1980..Cash rent that was $20 per acre in 1970 was $40-50 per acre by 1980..
Starting in the early 1980's it was nothing to see 2-3 year old new combines and tractors sitting unsold on the dealers lots..They couldnt give them away..One dealer had over 20 repo combines.
Starting in the early-mid 1980's there was farm foreclosure after farm foreclosure..I remember lots of big sales at the Nevada,MO Speedway where 5-6 farmers at a time had all their machinery sold together...I remember one tractor selling to the bank at a sale and it wasnt there when they went to get it..It was double mortgaged and the first note holder came and got it.
Some farms were sold on the courthouse steps for $300-500 per acre..Some went unsold for several years...There were no buyers..
Farmers that tractor pulled, drag raced, stock car raced-etc could no longer afford to do it so quit....Lots of farmers quit taking vacations and eating out.
Not much of the above has happened yet but it may come..
Land that was $1,000 per acre 20 years ago is now bringing $6,000 per acre...It hasn't slowed down any yet...Cash rent that was $60-70 per acre is now $100-150.
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Worst farm economy since the 80s
