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Mohawk Indiana | Kind of reluctant to post but I've known these guys since they were kids. I was friends with their Dad. He had to quit farming in the mid eighties a victim of the farm crisis. He passed away a few years later from a brain aneurism.
Their Grandpa was one of the finest gentlemen I've ever known, very good farmer, worked at a local GM factory and farmed. Worked around the clock and did an excellent job. The brothers helped him after Dad went out. Grandpa was killed in a farm accident several years ago.
After he died the boys kept on farming but had the same frustrations that most of us have gone through where they tried everything they could try to rent more ground without much success. I think they felt they were not being taken serious because they were young and didn't have an older generation behind them anymore.
They tried the high rent thing on their own and then about 2010 they took the Family Farms route. They have rented ground in several counties, raised everyone's rent, made some enemies I'm sure.
In my mind from watching their operation it just doesn't seem sustainable to me. Lots of entities etc. but at some point you just can't raise the best crops if you can't be timely. With lots of employees and such there is just too much slippage.
As far as I know they have never held a gun to anyone's head to rent their land. Just lots of cash, it's hard for a lot of Landlords to see the value in a dependable, solvent long term tenant. It is kind of like the Wal-Mart thing.
I would think that this lender should have done its due diligence and had some sort of belief that they would be paid back. I don't understand why banks, implement dealers, fertilizer dealers, seed dealers would deal with them but they do.
My business model is more about trying to build equity in owned land rather than seeing how many acres we can farm on a tight margin, so they have not had much effect on me. I have friends and neighbors that they have had a pretty serious impact on. There are some pretty hard feelings.
All of my life there has been someone who was always been operating over the edge and coloring outside the lines, but after a few years they end up taking a pretty big haircut and getting returned to earth with the rest of us.
Their demise has been predicted quite often over the last few years, but they have kept going. I won't wish them any ill, although I have neighbors that would like to see some blood!
It gives the Coffee Shop crowd something to speculate about! | |
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Another BTO in trouble?
