A little more small farm talk if you please

I don't post here much, but read almost daily. I've been following the small time operator threads with interest. Now I'll add to the mix.

My brother and I farm around 200 acres which is the family farm and we use much of the same equipment that's been used forever or slightly newer versions.

Today at work I got a call from a young fellow who was interested in renting some ground. He's a young lad trying to get started, so even though it's not for rent, I heard him out.

He offered me $40.00 per acre, but with the stipulation that he'd be able to use my equipment for the first year. "USE" not rent, lease, or purchase.

After a bit more discussion it came time for me to tell him that we had NO tractors with cabs, no self propelled combines, or corn pickers, and we plowed with a couple 3 bottoms and harvested with 7 foot heads and one row pickers.

With a disgusted tone to his voice he let me know in NO uncertain terms that he'd HAVE to upgrade that situation immediately after harvesting his first crop.

I'm 58 and my brother is 70 and combining our years I don't believe we've lived long enough to have seen a pair like this lad's sporting.

I just felt terrible as I politely asked him to lose my number, then near drove my truck into a wall from laughing.

Do not feel bad. You were far more polite than I could of, or would have, been.

Isn't entitlement a sad thing to encounter? It always depresses me.

40 an acre plus he uses your equipment, god thats a
good deal, did you offer to do the work for him too.
I might go out today and try to wrangle up some land
using those competitive figures I might have to get
a 9760 after all.

Sad to hear. My son is a state trooper and together we own a small amount of land and we rent 30 acres from our local feed store for free in return for selling him all we produce on all the land. We farm with a 72 HP Ford diesel and an 8N (which does all the planting, spraying, and fertilizing) and have a 60 year old two row New Idea picker with other equipment about that age. He wants to farm when he retires and I am helping him line things up. We are always looking for land to buy or rent, raise chickens, hogs and rabbits and a huge garden for canning veggies. Along with about four deer per year, his two freezers are full by winter.
Just try to get that old Ford away from him! And just try to take away my 8N! We are not in debt farming and what we little make goes right back into the farm account. His two boys help out as well, so we're not short of labor for now.
I think thats the way to start farming!

Sounds to me like he just wants to talk about
getting started farming. Im trying to rent some more
ground too, but holy crap around here that
conversation would have went a lot differently. They
would have either horse laughed him into the next
county, or stuck a pistol in his face and charged
him 40$ to not use that particular piece of
equipment.

What was he smoking to make him that optimistic?

'Round here to rent you better be offering $250, and sounds like you need to be in the $320 range to actually get new land.....

Bring shiny equipment or the landord will look for someone else next year. They gotta brag about the new equipment in their fields.

$40???? Wow.

--->Paul

Guys, Guys, stop...I think it was a typo. He must have meant $400. Other wise the story sounds made up.

Well said, well said.

(quoted from post at 22:02:49 11/25/11) Guys, Guys, stop...I think it was a typo. He must have meant $400. Other wise the story sounds made up.

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Well thanks Belgian, I appreciate that.

The fact of the matter is, that this isn't the magical midwest with $400 rent, it's the confluence of the Appalachian and Allegheny mountains, where the shale blends to the coal fields.

$60.00 - $75.00 will rent you quite a bit of ground here, $400.00 might get you an acre with a decent house on it.

I long had the same thoughts about some other folks who wrote of $400.00 rent and 200 bpa corn. Here's some examples of what we've got for ground. Try to ignore all but the ground in the background of these pix and maybe you'll see why the numbers might not make me such a liar.

Ron, from the looks of your soil, this miscanthus might be something that you would want to explore.....

nobody pays 250 where I live, Im glad I live where I do, landlords dont brag here about whos farming their land and what with. Some are absentee owners, and most are retired farmers who seem to like the old equipment more anyway, I dont need to cut their trees down to get my combine in fields and back semis through their yards. Agriculture is screwed up I hope something changes.

(quoted from post at 07:45:03 11/26/11) Ron, from the looks of your soil, this miscanthus might be something that you would want to explore.....

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This subject came up at one of my applicators renewal meetings where Penn State was doing the presentation and they didn't say much good or bad, except to strongly urge that if you were going to plant it, be sure it was "sterile" and to say that in our location transportation would probably be the deal breaker.

I'll tell you,it's sad. I BARELY survived the farm depression of the early 80s. Took me a whole bunch of years of working with a banker who was he11 bent on helping me make it,or I wouldn't have.
This stuff is cyclical and these young guys who think the good times are going to go on forever are in for a rude awakening,and sooner rather than later I'm afraid. It's going to be hard to feel sorry for some of them as cocky as their attitudes are and as unwilling as they are to listen to the voice of experience.
As high as these land prices are getting,it truly is time to "walk while others are running".
There are a few around here who have been a little TOO mouthy to me personally who are going to crash and burn. I'll be smiling from ear to ear at their auctions,trust me.

The most I pay is 40,yes,that's forty,four zero. Rent some as low as $23.

This guy isn't a welder who owns a motoX track and hangs out on the tool forum is he?

He's offering you about 15% of the going rate for land rent (at current going rate around here), not to mention the part about wanting to use YOUR equipment, not to mention wanting you to buy a bunch of new equipment.

I wonder if he's found anyone else who's willing to go along with his scheme.

It takes all kinds..........

Oh no, never thought about him. LOL

This is a kid who's got some big ambition and like everyone else no money to fund the projects. I hope someone will sit him down and explain custom planters/harvesters and or renting equipment and who knows maybe someday he'll pull up in my driveway step out of his limo,,,, ok tricked out dually and spit at my feet.

Or hit the wall and end up with a job in town to support his habit. :mrgreen:

It cost that much for a parking space here!

Makes a little bit of difference if you actually PAY the rent. The one that I pay $23 for is one that I've worked off and on for better than 30 years. There have been at least 5 others try it over the years. Some of the best ground I have,but like the old lady told me one of the first years I had it,you have to live right here to be able to work it. It's low and wet,very few days you can get on it and you have to get in when it's ready,not when you're ready. Most everybody else who ever tried it abandoned the crop and didn't bother to pay the rent. I've replanted that farm more times than I ever have all my other ground combined because it gets saturated and the seed rots if you get a big rain after planting and before it gets up and growing off the roots,but I grow some hay on the higher spots and the bulk of my silage corn on the rest.

I rent several plots for my truck patches. Not much farming in these parts. I get most of my land for a share of the produce or percent of the profit. I often get land for just maintenance on it.

I have a friend that suggested I speak with an old man that had a prime spot for just doing some land maintenance. The owner likes the idea, but told me that If I wanted to use his big tracto that It was old and no AC or cab. I said that was fine and I offered to give his family a good portion of the produce.

I think you handled the equipment usage well. I have a nieghbor that truck patches a large area. He uses old JD 40s. Both broke down and he needed to disk or till both sides of his tomator beds. I loned him my 35 hp diesel Yanmar, and 5 foot tiller. I went to the feed store and while outside the door I heard him telling some of the patrons there that my deisel tractor was the soriest thing ever made. Even though it was the same tractor as a 950 Deere. I walked on in and he hushed. as soon as I left I swung by his place and picked up my sorry tractor.

Youre up above me in Michigan so maybe its lake effect weather but I can relate to what youre saying. I see posts on this site and read articles in magazines (mostly news from the big I's) about 250-400 dollar rent. If that happened to me here in Ohio, Id have to call it a day on most rented ground. The highest rent I paid for 2011 was $102, and the average is $75 and common to pay, be asked to pay or hear about is 50-60. I rent 35 acres off an absentee landowner who lives about 80 miles away. He also owns a 60 acre farm near the one I rent (farmed by another guy) and another 40 acres about 8 miles away closer to town. I pay him 50 an acre for his ground, you can bet the others are paying the same, I asked him what he wanted for it I did not approach him with an offer so I assume he went with what the other two guys were paying.
The first year I farmed his 35 acres was 2006 he stopped at the farm the fall of 2006 while I was combining corn and asked if I would be interested in doing the 40 acres 8 miles away. I said I had just been by there and the fields were chiseled and he said I guess they plan on doing it next spring then. He then decided he had to call them. $50 an acre and they werent paying, they were paying 25 an acre in spring and then stalling all fall and winter and trying to trade things with him and then spring would roll in and they would pay another 25 but they were screwing him on the full 50 for a year. Anyway in 07 they still owed him 30an acre for the year, they fall plowed it to "secure" it for next year. I wrote him a check in November for $2000 and Ive done it ever since. By the way these guys are big farmers in the area, also have a big ag business and new shiny equipment. Go figure.

There was a flash in the pan kid here working his grand dads place for a few years doing the same thing. Went around taking land from some other guys by offering $70. I don't know to this day of anybody who ever got paid a cent. I'd heard from one guy that got a place taken by him that he didn't pay the old lady who owned it the first year,but kept promising he'd get caught up "next milk check". He put a crop in the second year,still hadn't paid her. She was a tough old bird and wouldn't let him back on the place to harvest,but nature took over and she had to spend a few days in the hospital. He went in and picked the corn while she was in there and never paid her.

That one that I pay $23 for,I'd paid as high as $40 for it before,but when I was milking cows,I really didn't need it,so whenever somebody else came around looking for land,I'd send them to see the owner. Last one in there had part of it for a couple of years,I kept the worst of the low ground because he wanted to grow dry beans and that wet ground was too risky for him. After 2 years of no rent and promises,the owner came to me in desperation and said if I'd take it all,he let me have it for $23.

had a homeowner come over to me while baling one year and told me that he has to bush hog his 4 acre weed lot 3 times a year and said he liked the look of alfalfa more and wanted to know if I would connect it to my hay field. I asked him what he wanted to do with all the trees, of course he wanted to keep them all. So I said I wouldnt want to mow rake and bale around 20 trees on 4 acres. Then he said "think about it, Id like to get around $75 an acre for it, I asked the dairy around the corner and he said hed think about as well, so first come first serve." Anyway its fenced off with a couple steers now, haha, what a moron, he wanted 25 more an acre for a woodlot than I was paying for an actual field, then tried to put heat on me to make a decision. I thought he was gonna let me do it for nothing so he didnt have to bush hog it.

Trying to think where I read a story a few years ago about something similar. Maybe Hart Parr Oliver Collector or something.
Anyway,the guy was telling that when he was a kid,a neighbor came over to ask his dad if he was interested in cutting a field off.Said the field was kind of rough,but it had been cut before. He said it was kind of a dry year and feed was short,so his dad made the guy an offer and he took it. Well,he said that thing was the roughest field they'd ever been in. Broke a couple of wagons getting it off,but they got some hay off of it. Said his dad was telling another neighbor about it a few days later. The neighbor said "you paid HIM for it?!". "He just wanted the stuff cut off. Last year he paid ME to cut it off for him".

Pays to ask questions I guess.