De Forest, WI | sparkiefarmer - 6/6/2023 05:05
A little late here but had a couple days off from Ag Talk.
My unhappiness stems from EVERYTHING being a fight.
Moving machinery is a constant battle, local traffic has increased by a factor of 8 in the last 5 years according to traffic studies.
Somethings broke, if i dont have the part number I have to do mental acrobatics to get it ordered then pray they actually put the order in.
Getting people to do anything is a fight. Allis blew up before seeding, one shop had the cylinder head for 3 weeks before they decided they didnt have the tooling to fix it; AND sent me a bill for $200 for their hard work.
My newest tractor had a glitch and d-rated during that nice stretch in april. Took dealer 4 days to get someone out, and when i called on day 3 to inquire about when they'd come they were all surprised I didnt have it fixed myself, which took some self control to keep my "nice" voice on.
GPS stuff seems to have glitches and screw up as much as it works.
Half the landowners complain every time I see them. Some are annoyed I have a new to me (2015) pickup, other get annoyed if a 50 year old tractor shows up in their field.
Feels like the general public is anti farmer.
Wife wants me with the kids more.
Then there's the classic father son dynamic where all the bad is directly my management's fault but all the good is a fluke of nature and just good luck.
Maintaining our landbase gets me down the most. I can see what's on the horizon and a course change is in order before we find this operation caught in a malestrom. Neighbours farm changed tennants and is rented for $500 an acre this year.
Lots of farms within a few miles of me have changed tennants, but either Im a garbage farmer, person, or dont go to the right church.
Watching the competion roll around in new iron as I pound over the acres in my 8760 and mx110 makes me wonder what Im doing wrong.
Would be nice to have a couple days where I dont have to argue with anyone or explain anything to anyone. (Never guessed as a kid/teen how much time I'd be forced to spend basically teaching)
So thats my long winded and whiney list of aggrevations. Im sure theres more but that catches the main points.
That and if you farm with parents they will never retire and offer you an opportunity to farm. They refuse to sell any land to the farming children. Lots of “mistakes” happen as they get older or maybe they just don’t care any more. I have had just under $1000 worth of “mistakes” that I have to pay to fix or replace. If they had been my mistakes I would be paying to replace them.
Running over equipment, moving parts outside machine shed to get equipment out, then forgetting about them and running them over later. Tossing tools in a utv that were going to be used in the grass and then hitting them with the mower, ditto with extension cords, not putting the cover on tight on the gas can and then tipping it over and spilling it all over the floor, running over fence posts and taking electric fence wire when cutting hay or plowing (don’t bother to say anything about it and just have to discover it later), chop up irrigation hose with chainsaw because felt the need to cut a dead tree one day for fun and didn’t see the bight blue hose, And on and on.
At what age should an older farmer stop doing things and switch to “help only”.
I think farming till you’re dead is one of the main reasons younger people get discouraged. They will never have the opportunity that was offered their parents. Once you reach 45-50 there is no way to reasonably acquire enough assets to get them paid off before you’re dead. There is no longer a concept of a generational farm.
Economically, no one is going to loan a million for an 80 plus an extra 50-100k for equipment and the 250-300 for a house. There will only be very large family farms with lots of equity or corporate farms in the future. It is a LOT easier to get venture capital money for an IT gig with a big unknown potential than to start a farm.
At what age should someone |
Unhappiness in farming posts?
