In 1971 I had the choice of making $5000 teaching agriculture or borrow a considerable pile of money to try and make $5000 per year.  I chose to teach and farm part time and after teaching long enough to be vested in the retirement system, I never chose to give that up over the risk of farming on my own.  I really didn't have the training and support to borrow that much money and pay it back.  We lost half our farmers in 83 and it made the choice look good but never really satisfied my desire to operate a full time successful farming operation.  I've enjoyed those 31 years of dedicated public service now for 12 years so it still looked like a good choice.

The art of borrowing money or equipment of whatever and making a living while growing the operation and paying back is a rare art indeed.  I admire the handful of you who did it, you did something I wanted to do but never took the risk.  Farming is one of the managing risk tasks as tough as any business venture.  There is no easy money and it takes great emotional control and faith and hard work and a whole lot of luck some say.

I don't know the answer to your question and never met anyone who did but there are individuals who can learn and be taught how to do this.  Most of us cannot so we find something that uses our talents.  For me it was teaching.  I know now I could have managed a school district or farming operation but no where had the faith, training or experience to do it at 21.  It takes certain talents and a lot of nurturing to be successful at anything.

I am surprised you still have that many independent hog operators, that started to die here in the 80's and vertical integration pretty well took them all out by 1998, remember the nickel hog prices?  I saw that at age 16 so my love of raising pigs was never stronger than the fear of working for nothing as a career.

I guess we all have to find our niche and a handful will do it.

Ed Winkle