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Bigger Bigger Bigger Farms

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
$450 cash rent, I used to farm 2000 now the county average is 3500 to 5000, CRP and huge direct payments, it goes on and on... What can we do as farmers and enthusiasts to help reverse the bigger bigger trend? I have written John Deere corporate several times basically asking them, as the industry leader, to focus more marketing towards their "6 row" customers instead of force feeding monster equipment. I"ve had some positive response from this. I hire local "smaller" farmers for any custom work and get some of my inputs from them. I"ve never asked a big guy for a custom price because I don"t care to do business with them. I refuse to pay over $150 cash rent as I feel the higher cash rent is what is really destroying the farming level playing field. My goal is to have someone in line when I can"t farm anymore to take over my small part-time operation. It may be a family member or even a younger hired guy from church or etc etc. Thats a long ways off! But what can we do as farmers and enthusiasts to help reverse the bigger bigger trend?
 
I am not sure how you stop the bigger thing but when I shop I do it locally and I do not shop at Walmart... Bud
 
If you are looking for a low cost solution from the "CHURCH" I'd be inclined to bet all in against you.
 
The catch 22 is the trend (not only in agriculture) needs less and less producers (workers) but still needs everyone as consumers. This is the basic problem with things like the housing market. It's like "too much" progress becomes a self-defeating entity. I googled "average size of farms in Switzerland" and found they're 52 acres. Switzerland seems to be one of the more stable societies. Where will all our displaced young (would be) farmers go?
 
educate the consumer of what grains are used for other then food , where their food comes from and encourage them to buy from local small farms.

when farmers are satisfied with being a farmer making a sustainable living for a life time and then passing it on to the next generation instead of being wealthy land barons the trend might change . I dont see it happening though!

south western michigan has one grower with somewhere around 40,000 acres of corn and beans combined, could be more.
any time there is growth of this magnitude in any business few will be wealthy and many will be poor.
 
My son's renter went to cattle only this year. AS soon as the neighbors heard that, the phone started ringing and it was big farmers calling wanting more ground..
 
Once again the government is the problem. Handing out money to make up for your so called losses ( subsidizing) . For once I would like to see free market take control of the winners and losers.
 
The govt won't keep the free market, is the problem. Embargoes and such, wrecks the farm ecconomy, See Nixon & Carter and thank them for the 1980's....

The current shift for the next farm bill/program is to increase the crop insurance subsidies.

The govt likes this because it gives them a known amount they will be spending, not the ups and downs of crop failures direct subsides.

Bigger farmers like it because it reduces risk, so lenders are willing to lend them more to get bigger.

It all works out, everyone is for it for their own reasons.

Not sure it's the right direction for food security/ supply, but that's probably not important any more, everyone knows if we run out just get more food at the grocery store.....

--->Paul
 
I'm not in Switzerland and I don't want / need the government(big brother) taking care of me that is why I work for a living. It is ridiculous to pay a farmer wages to install a fence to keep his livestock in or pay for the seeding of his pasture fields.
 
If you want to know where this started look here some of us old men remember this i rememember dad saying there go the small farmers.

http://www.culinate.com/articles/opinion/meeting_king_corn

http://grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/
 
Any government that wants to get elected wil always promote a cheap food policy. Could you see someone campaining on raiseing food cost , so farmers can get all their costs recovered from the martket place,and end government supports like tariffs, subcidys, or the farm bill , which just allow the consumer to pay for their food twice. Once with their cash at the store, and again with their tax dollars. Most folks don't know about the tax dollar side. If they had to pay the full up front cost of food they eat, there would be a huge cry out for the government to do somethig. There would aso be alotless money for other things, like the China junke pepole buy at Wally World. I don't see it happening till the governments are all broke!!
This post is full of spelling errors, I guess it just shows how tic off this topic makes me. Bruce
 
Gonna say some things now that probably won't be well recieved by some. I don't even like it myself. But reality is what it is.

Like it or not, farming is going to go bigger and bigger. It's no different than other business'. Everyone has access to the same technology and the same markets. The only way to get a competitive advantage is to grow the operation. And farming is a competitive business, especially so to the big guys.

What we consider a "small farm" these days might have been a HUGE operation just 50 years ago. And times are ever changing. Don't you suppose stage coach drivers in the 1890's thought their jobs would be around forever? How about the village blacksmith? But times changed. They were left in the dust when those times change. It's EITHER change with the times, OR be left sitting along the roadside. There will always be a place for smaller "niche market" operations, but the day of raising a family on the income of a 100 acre grain farm are in the rear view mirror, like it or not.

Granted, most of us long for the days when we could make a living on a small place. But face the facts, the big guys are slowly but surely changing the face of farming.

The 410 acres dad raised our family on seemed like (and was) a big place back in the 50's and 60's. The home place is now just a single field and a small part of an operation that would have seemed unimaginable to me when I was growing up. I don't see this trend reversing itself any time soon. We don't have to like it, but by darn, we might as well start to accept it.
 
I think we're seeing a transitional period that can't be sustained. What are young people going to be doing? Where will the dollars come from to buy what's produced? We can't keep putting more people on food stamps. It's said that half of college graduates either are unemployed or underemployed outside their training. Unemployed grads aren't counted as unemployed if they've never been employed.
 

It has been seen over and over...

Past a certain point, efficiency falls off (the point of Diminishing returns)..

That is the ONE thing that we must keep a eye on..

Then, we have the COLD HARD FACTS:

We ALL KNOW that what we are used to ONLY came about since the OIL BOOM and it WILL NOT be around for all that long..
The World Population has Exploded since then..because that sized population could be supported...
THAT IS what must be considered for the Future..
I know..I am looking a little beyond the Horizon..BUT..the writing IS on the Wall, Guys..

Ron..
 
It's not often that I agree with you.... but on this subject I do mostly agree with you.
One can either accept the situation and find a way to move forward or perish.

Rod
 
Yes, because of the large population, farm will tend to be just as large. And I agree the oil boom has brought this about, it would take major changes in govment or oil prices to change the growing of farms. Most people are going to buy the cheapest stuff if they can't see a differance in quality.
 
What many are 'used to' today is not a result of the oil boom as such but more a product of the defecit financing that has been used without abandon since the second world war. The old line that we're going to grow out of the debt is coming back to haunt us.
It's rather ironic that a couple of generations reaped the benefits of this defecit spending, refused to pay taxes to cover the spending, got the jobs that resulted from the spending.... are now retiring with large pensions from those jobs, then going BACK to work on contract in their old jobs.... and the generation that is expected to pay for said previous defecit spending can't find work because the jobs have been exported.... and we're now going tobear the brunt of some very major spending cuts to bring things back in balance... otherwise it will colapse.
but I'm not bitter...

Rod
 
Agree, it's like the example external_link used about someone getting a fancy meal at a restaurant, you come join him and right then he gets up and leaves with you to pay the bill. It started long ago with government "security" programs, each generation passing on bigger bills to the next.
 
But what can we do as farmers and enthusiasts to help reverse the bigger bigger trend?[/quote]

We need to pay attention to new legislation & regulations designed to decrease competition and shift the advantage to the corporate farmer.

There's several in play now. USDA is about to require animal ID chips and/or tags. If this becomes law, all poultry, cattle, hogs, horses, sheep, goats are going to have to be tagged or micro chipped. If you're farming using a confinement feeding operation, you'll only be required to ID the confinement area but if you're a little guy and you pasture your chickens or cattle, you will have to pay to ID every individual bird or animal. Then, you get to keep records and more records. How much time does a little guy have to fill out paperwork every day.

This is being sold the same way that food regs have been sold before. Food Safety. More like safety for big farms and more work for the little guy. The big farms pass the cost on to the consumer. The little guy goes broke. So, if you really want to know what the little guy can do to try to reverse the trend to bigger and bigger farms, s/he can voice their opposition to regulations like these which will damage and destroy the small farmer and remember to vote their senator and representative out of office when they vote against the small farmer.
 
(quoted from post at 17:30:25 06/16/12) I just state facts....You argue.
Click to expand...

I read your prior post as a conclusion. Not sure why you responded the way you did. Perhaps you just want want folks to accept your conclusion that they should accept the demise of the small farmer. If you want someone to respect your conclusion, maybe you ought to respect theirs.
 
You state your point of view the same as anyone else. That may be fact to you but it's not to a great many.

Rod
 

I still cannot understand external_link's statement that "Just because you can't afford something, is NO reason you should NOT have it anyway"..???

Uh--WHAT..????

Ron..
 

Double-Dipping certainly should not be Legal..but I see it every day, right here in my home Township..

But then, "Township Work" used to be a Minimum Wage Job..
NOW, it pays $70.000 Before Double-Dipping..!!!

We "Volunteer Firefighters" received a whopping $3.oo/Fire run..NOW, Each Firefighter gets $68,000+ Starting Pay...!!!
Just "What Happened"..???
Ron..
 
You MIGHT wanna try reading AND looking at reality at the same time. Then you'll realize my "conclusion" is based on FACT. Not some fantasy you seem to have. Just because you don't like what I have to say doesn't change reality. And your statement just makes you look the fool.
 
Now THAT is what I like about you. You constantly and consistently prove yourself to be incapable of discerning fact from your opinion. I'm not concern with what "great many" believe. I'm more concern with being correct. I understand why you're so bitter, your being so out of touch with reality and all......
 
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