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Windom, MN | Good luck to you, and I hope these guys know that you would be interested in farming their land if they decide to hang it up. Also don't get too upset if they go in another direction.
I am also fairly young, and I will share a little story about what happened to me. 2 years before I came back to the area, dad bought a new planter, really too big for us at the time, but it had 15' rows. We custom planted soybeans for 2 guys for about 7 years. So I was around for 5 of those years and ran the planter some for the custom work. We did a good job, picked up rocks that they had left lay (more so I didn't wreck our planter) and things were great. They have both retired, and we did not end up with any of the land they farmed. One guy even told me he had no idea I wanted to farm, even though I had been around working a part time job and working with my dad for the last 5 years. Told him I was very interested, but I really didn't want to make him feel like I was only planting his crop because I wanted his land. Always thought it was a delicate situation, because I didn't want to make them mad. Anyway, he let me bid on the land in the end, but told me right away that whatever I bid another guy he had in mind could match it and he would get to farm the land.
I was pretty crushed, but bid anyway, and bid pretty high, would have been our worst farm, and would have been the highest rent. But the other guy matched me so I missed out I guess. Still feel he was always going to rent it to the other guy anyway, and he used me to get more money out of him. The other guy we planted for ended up renting it to someone in his extended family, so I wasn't so upset about that one. If I had a great uncle with 300 acres, I would hope he would rent to me as well.
Moral of the story is let them know your intentions (respectfully of course), do the best job you can, opportunities come and go, some will work out, others won't, but most importantly don't burn bridges, you never know what will happen. But also don't get a feeling of entitlement because you have a good working relationship with someone and you just assume you will be farming the land when they retire. | |
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Is There hope for young farmers
