Re: How can you get into farming with these kind of land values?

Posted by Blue_tractor_man on April 14, 2018 at 07:18:46 from (174.236.143.50):

In Reply to: How can you get into farming with these kind of land values? posted by BrianV_ on April 13, 2018 at 18:55:18:

Brian, welcome to the forum. There is a lot of wisdom
and experience here. A lot of things done right, some
wrong, dreams realized, and dreams dashed. Money made,
and money lost. Busted knuckles and showstoppers. My
post is is a little long, but it might be helpful. I was
born in 1962, the son of a veterinarian. My dad was the
first in our line to finish college, much less become a
doctor. My family has been in the same area just north
of Memphis since 1817. I was born in Illinois while my
Dad was straight out of vet school working for the USDA
testing cattle for brucellosis (bangs). We were not up
there long then my dad came home and opened a very small
clinic with the help of a wealthy uncle. My dad bought a
John Deere 110 mower with an 8 horse Kohler engine. I
loved that machine and my dad bought me a John Deere
hat. I wore it 24-7. We would go to the tiny dealership
in our little town (back in those days there was a JD
dealer every 10-20 miles around here) and I would pick
up sales brochures out of the rack and read them over
and over. Back then, around here, there were lots of 40
acre farms with 20 cows and people running 40-80 hp
tractors. I think around 1972 my dad took in a partner
who had inherited a couple hundred acres and so we
became real farmers. We had a JD 3010, 4020, and 6020.
We grew beans, cotton, and hay. Back in those days there
were a lot of show horses around here and clean bermuda
hay was in high demand. Somewhere back then soybeans
went to $12 a bushel and the government told all of the
farmers to tear out every fence, borrow lots of money,
and buy all new equipment. My dad and his partner must
have seen the train wreck on the way, so they rented out
the land and stopped farming. So, as a 16 year old,
after school and during the summer, I went to work for a
relative who farmed about 1,000 acres and had a seed
cleaning operation. He ran 8 row equipment with JD 4840,
Case 1370, and IH 1466. Notice how quickly farm size
grew. Now we have local farmers farming 10-20 thousand
acres. So, I set my sights on farming. I went off to
college to get an ag degree. I can remember being in
class at Mississippi State University and my professor
said "Boys if you aren't farming, don't start. If you
are farming, get out". That was really good advice back
then. Interest rates had gone up to over 20%, and all of
those farmers who had listened to the government and
borrowed a lot of money were in foreclosure as crop
prices collapsed. We had already had the Soviet embargo,
hostages in Iran, boycotted Moscow olympics, etc.
Farmers were killing themselves and Willie Nelson
started Farm Aid. It was a really bad time to farm. My
Farmhouse fraternity brother's family ran an auction
company and he spent every weekend selling off someone's
dairy herd. Dairies were in freefall. So, I got out of
college and started a lawn care fertilizer and weed
control company and now I have 50 employees farming
5,000 square feet at a time, along with several thousand
miles of rural county roads. I buy over a million
dollars worth of herbicides and fertilizer each year. My
dream had to be adjusted to the reality at hand. Now I
have 100 acres of timber, 10 acres of hay, 2 horses, 5
chickens, and 30 bee hives. I am the "Gentleman Farmer".
I pay no attention to commodity prices. Matter of fact,
the worse it is for the farmer, the better it is for me
because my chemical and fertilizer prices go down.
So, back to Brian. There were several people around here
who rented and begged small pieces of ground that had
been too small for the larger equipment. They bought
older, smaller equipment and patched it up all winter.
They found markets for hay and peas and turnip greens
and sweet potatoes and sweet corn. Their wives had jobs
in town and got them health insurance. Some of these
guys also had jobs in town or did custom baling or
harvesting. They kept out of debt or kept it to a
minimum. They kept their ear to the ground for bargains.
They are scratching out a living and raising their
families on the farm.
As you should know, agriculture is very cyclical, boom
and bust. And as someone said "The cure for high prices
is high prices, and the cure for low prices is low
prices". It is also said that is is better to go broke
farming on paper than it is to go broke in real life".
Lastly, get lots of good advice, save your money, bide
your time, plan ahead. Trust me, those ridiculous land
prices will fall. Equipment will be liquidated. But,
there will always be niche markets you can fill. Don't
go head to head with the BTO's. Nibble around the edges
like a little mouse. Be nimble.

Good luck.

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