Re: Farm bankruptcies jump 24%

Posted by Goose on November 05, 2019 at 16:52:57 from (166.181.250.24):

In Reply to: Farm bankruptcies jump 24% posted by hadley on November 05, 2019 at 07:27:15:

I can comment on farmers because I was one, myself, once.

I've always wondered if farmers understand the law of supply and demand. Corn prices are down because of an over supply on the market. So, they plant every square foot into corn to have more bushels to sell to increase income, putting more downward pressure on prices. Have they ever considered alternative crops instead?

What I'm getting at is, when I was in high school in the early 1950's I worked for a neighboring farmer, "Spike", for a couple of summers. He was early 30's, third generation on that farm, had been to college and got a degree in some area of agri-business, and looked at farming with a slightly different perspective than the older neighbors.

Spike began growing soybeans at a time when it was unheard of to grow soybeans in Nebraska. Still raised corn and wheat, but every year he had a respectable field of soybeans. The older, traditional neighbors laughed at him and said he was crazy for growing soybeans. Yet when these same neighbors complained about not making enough money off of corn and wheat, Spike had a stabilizing source of income from (tah-dah) his soybeans.

So, I've often wondered why today's farmers don't look at alternative crops. Milo was big here in Nebraska 30-50 years ago, but you don't see it much anymore. One thing about milo, if you had a dry spell in the summer when corn would have been done for, milo would go dormant and then when the rains came it would wake back up and continue developing where it left off.

BTW, several years later, Spike said to hell with farming, went back to school, and studied to become a mortician. He spent the rest of his life as a partner in a mortuary. Took him a while to get rid of the nickname "Spike".

Replies:

• Re: Farm bankruptcies jump 24% Traditional Farmer 19:20:18 11/05/19 (0)
• Re: Farm bankruptcies jump 24% 44 massey 18:38:58 11/05/19 (0)

Add a Reply! You must be Logged In to Post Name: E-Mail: Subject: Comments: Optional Link URL: Link Title: Optional Image URL: Optional Video Title: Optional Video Embed: Advanced Posting Options Email Notification: If you check this box, email will be sent to you whenever someone replies to this message. Your email address must be entered above to receive notification. This notification will be cancelled automatically after 2 weeks. No political comments, hate speech or bigotry of any kind will be tolerated. Violations will be removed and posting privileges may be permanently revoked without notice.   Advanced Posting Tools   Select Gallery Photo  Attach Serial No List  Return to Post  Upload Photos/Videos Choose Files from your local computer Upload one or more videos to your post. Photo and video filesizes should be less than 5MB. Formats allowed are gif, jpg, png, ogg, mp4, mov, and avi. Be sure to use filenames without spaces or special characters, and filetypes of 3 digits lower case.

TRACTOR PARTS	TRACTOR MANUALS

We sell tractor parts!  We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today. [ About Us ]