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central Ia | In 81 we dove in head first at farming, I was 25 at that time. My landlord was retiring and he sold me his line of equipment on contract, first few yrs the payment was low until he turned 70 then had a balloon payment and still had a few more yrs on the contract. He showed me how to plant and helped he adjust the combine the first yr and then I was on my own. We bought feeder pigs to raise. We farmed on our own but I did custom combine for an uncle and he hauled in grain. My late wife's parents lived 3 miles south of us(she was a farm girl and I was the town kid). We started with 240 acres, landlord had 160 and my mom had an 80( at first I wasn't going to farm that, when I asked her if I could farm it she told me that she had given my uncle persmission to farm it until he didn't want to, he told me I could farm it, tough mom :) Drove truck part time, got more ground to farm, that got sold, uncle retired and picked up his 80, then went to work in 94 for the county(just until I could find more ground) still there after a few years I figured out how many acres I would need to farm to make the same as the county job so I stayed with the county and farm 320 acres> Hope to find a young person to sell acreage and machinery to sell to in a few yrs. I think it would harder to start on your own today mostly because the livestock industry has weeded out the small producer. | |
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? for those that started farming on your own
