Finding new ground?

I am looking for some more ground in my area. Do any of you have any suggestions on how to locate new ground and how to approach the owners. Most of what I am looking at currently are old horse/cow pastures that will need a lot of work i.e. brush hogging, fence removal, fallowing, etc. I am willing to do the work but not willing to pay $150 an acre if I have to do all the improvements. Lets say I have 100 man hours into getting a field cleaned up before I even drop a plow what would you consider reasonable? Thanks All

Matt

Matt,ground leases are pretty much done by December.
I believe I have to cancel my agreement by November to stop it.

Here in the midwest where it is all row-crop farming, with 3.40 corn, I believe there will be all kinds of land for rent in the next couple years. These guys who have been paying $350/acre are going to run out of money.

If you can rent fenced pasture reasonable you will make more money running cattle than row crop farming.

There was a guy here a few years ago trying to get started. He was clearing out autumn olives and brush for the first years rent. He gave it all up this year though. Corn got too cheap,he said he's working 50 hours a week,and he couldn't get decent crop insurance on those small pieces that hadn't been worked in a long time. No history so he had to take county average,so it was tossing money down a rat hole.

I'm doing the same thing. I use excavators and track skid steers. It's the fastest way I found to clean it up fast, summer fallow then plant buckwheat to winter kill and start farming it. With time, fuel and seed your looking at 200.00+ an acre. Rent for 5 yrs isn't over 60.00 an acre. So 500.00 into clean up and 5 yr contract comes to 100.00 an acre over 5 yrs.

Eventually I will get into the cattle as part of my 5 yr rotation. Unfortunately I do not have $300+ to pay per head at the livestock auction for calves to pasture. Otherwise would be great. I will finish the pasture here at my house by end of next month and get 2 beef to start with. I believe you are right but for now just do not have the funds.

Matt your due south of me 11/2 hrs? How many acres do you own? Isn't it sandy where your at or is that just west of you?

Im doing something similar to 4020 electrician. I bring my excavator, and dozer in and clear. Whatever ground I clear I farm no charge for 5 yrs. The rest of the ground I pay the going rate for 5 yrs. For example, if their is 30 acres and 10 of it is junk, I clear the 10 and farm it and pay for the remaining 20.It seems to work out well for both parties. The down side is that now it seems like I spend more time moving equipment than I do farming. Im going to pull my horns in, finish out the contracts that I have and buy a bigger piece of ground where I dont spend all my time loading, chaining down unloading, etc.

There are a few sandy areas but for the most part we have a fairly good loamy soil. Much of my ground is clay loam and muck. I own 2.25 acres with my house. We have a family farm that is 80 acres with 60 tillable however that is tied up in a lifetime lease. During my last deployment the farmer that has been farming it since the mid 80's talked grandma into it. He knew when I got home I had planned to take that ground over. So now I am trying to rent ground. Currently I have manager to rent about 20 acres and still working on about 25 more. Grandma is 88 yrs old.

We are fortunate in that we rent 100 acres out of 500. The other 400 is free as long as we keep it planted. 100 acres was a former deer club that we only plant wheat on and millet.

Matt, I started up on my own 4 years ago. I was lucky that my parents had 40 acres, but I did like you are saying and looked around for more patches and old CRP ground that could be picked up. One thing I like to do is get on the online county plat map and look at the overhead view. You can tell what is grass/idle/scrub and what is row crop if you zoom in far enough. I was able to see some smaller fields back off the road that I wouldn't have known existed from the road. If your County doesn't have an online GIS plat map then you can also use any overhead view such as Google satellite view or Earth. But I use the plat because then I can click on and see the owner and the soil types. Of course you may be doing this already... I didn't take on anything that couldn't be bush hogged and disked under, some of it was 2"+ saplings and I broke plenty of shear bolts, had to disk it all about 4 times, and risked tires but it worked out. I've not lost a tire yet on several of these locations. That first 18 acres of rough marginal ground led to some other opportunities in that neighborhood as the neighboring landowner asked me to farm his 40 acres the following year. The more I farm the more people see me out on the road and the more opportunities I get. My system was to contact the landowner and let them know I was trying to start out and most respect that, and also that I could add value back into their property. Sometimes the owners were out of state and then I'd cold contact them via letter or phone if I could get their number online. I'd talk about fair prices and would shoot for farming it for nearly nothing the first year, say maybe $35/acre, but discuss that I'd need to do it long term to make it worth my while. The CRP people I can sell on the fact that while they may be getting a payment, that their ground will be far more valuable and taken care of actually being farmed. I'd negotiate what a fair rent would be for the longer term, usually $80 to $125/acre. I have written leases every year. The first year I'd just include an additional line in the lease that the general intent of the agreement was to have me keep farming it for the discussed long term rent. I haven't ran into any problems yet.