senodak - 10/31/2015 22:18

The type of talk that we need more young people in farming is true but it drives me absolutely nuts. I just turned 35, if that matters.

100 years ago everybody got 1 quarter. Maybe if you had the inside track in government / banking / railroad you got more... but all of our ancestors had 1 quarter or less 100 years ago. Now an operator needs at least 10 quarters to pretend that he's remotely competitive. You could take everybody's land away and start giving it out 1 quarter at a time again but I'd guarantee you we'd be back to people needing 10 quarters or more in a lot less time than 100 years. I'd give it 20 years until it would be this way again.

You give 100 random people a quarter of land, 99 of them will want to rent it or sell it... and that one crazy SOB will want to farm it. That's us on this thread. And chances are that once that crazy SOB buys some of the quarters from the other 99 that are happy to cash out, he'll be passing on to the next dimension and his kids will have to sort it out... and chances are that they're among the people that will want to rent it or sell it instead of being one of us crazy SOB's and farming it. So, that's why it is what it is, and always will be. There's no fixing it! So quit saying we need more young people... stupidest damn argument ever... basically you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink.

It takes a lifetime to build an operation up... and then you need the next generation to keep it going or else it gets distributed amongst other established operators that can buy it... the unavoidable consolidation of any industry.