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Ryan Renko 
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Edwardsville, I
Points: 2313
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 Topic: How is it possible?????
Posted: 23 Mar 2024 at 8:31pm |
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I'm not the smartest person in the world but how can a farmer make it nowadays?? 50 years ago corn was $4.00 a bushel and a new combine cost 30k. I know yields have increased but a new combine now costs 600k++!!!! A big planter is over 500k!! And most of them drive a 100k truck to the coffee shop every morning. How do they continue to remain in business??
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Lars(wi)
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Permian Basin
Points: 6639
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Posted: 23 Mar 2024 at 10:47pm |
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Ryan, you sure are poking a hornet’s nest.
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I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.
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DMiller
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Hermann, Mo
Points: 29486
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 5:30am |
Most of it is Write offs and write downs, the Large farms I know of around here lease nearly every piece of machinery, hire hands to run them and operate the farms itself, the owners just write it down to an extent to cover larger investment returns. All Paper Numbers in a broader spectrum.
As to what I consider 'Normal' size farms the money as noted is NOT there. Up to a thousand acres owned and leased cropped, or hundreds of acres owned and additional hundreds leased for Stock Farms make a Income but at a cost of hours spent, moneys spent and hard lives lived between Births to Sales, feeding, medicating, chasing and tagging, moving failed or dead/dying animals, watching dollar signs evaporate each week as prices ebb and flow. Attempts to Catch that rise to garner a few cents a bushel or price per pound get closer and closer only to ebb just before the sale. Story of Countless lives and fortunes made or lost.
Then are a few still doing as I or others on here, Subsistence Farms, what IRS calls Hobby Farms, anything Less than 500 Acres as was explained at our taxes session. Get a few deducts but limited, cannot cash in on any real money as no room to feed a ton of money in to make just that much back. Old Machines, back breaking work, some subsidizing as the Sheep Herder next door for wool no one wants, or for animals that if yell too loud lay down and die. Dawn til Dusk trying to make a little heaven from a piece of ground that fights back every day and yet we still get up, still do the work and still enjoy our accomplishments.
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WF owner
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Joined: 12 May 2013
Location: Bombay NY
Points: 4388
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 6:08am |
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A Canadian friend of mine was telling me about his neighbors new combine. He said, with heads, it was $1,200,000 Canadian.
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jaybmiller
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Greensville,Ont
Points: 21464
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 6:51am |
re: And most of them drive a 100k truck to the coffee shop every morning
Can't be a REAL farmer !! REAL farmer's don't have time to go to the coffee shop every morning !!! Too busy tending to their animals, or prepping equipment or actually WORKING in the fields. 'Spare' time is spent doing paper work, calling about parts or seed and prices.
I want to say THANK YOU to all the real farmers though. Hopefully you CAN make enough of a profit for a rainy day. yeah, that's when you're in the drive shed, installing those parts that finally came in,so you can get back out into the fields, hopefully before dark.........
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor)
Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water
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DMiller
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Hermann, Mo
Points: 29486
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 6:51am |
 WF owner wrote:
A Canadian friend of mine was telling me about his neighbors new combine. He said, with heads, it was $1,200,000 Canadian. |
Have to think, Just Why? In No way can cutting fields Wider and Faster make the difference between $30,000-50,000 machines to jump to $1,200,000 machines.
Can remember as the First Caterpillar Challenger rubber tracked tractors arrived in the St Charles and St Louis Counties Gumbo Bottoms after flood of 93, were Pricey at over $75,000 a Copy, those now well over $400,000 and owned by AGCO. Were exceptionally handy in 95 pulling deep shank sub soilers rolling over the sand covered ground. I cannot even afford a newer Massey or International(Still at least 8-10 years old) to bring my capabilities up to 110-130hp for general farm use, JD Green is absolutely out of the question.
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WF owner
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Joined: 12 May 2013
Location: Bombay NY
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 1:07pm |
I can't figure it out.
A local dairy farmer just completed (at least I think it is complete) a $28.5 million dollar expansion. They built new barns and added a 100-cow rotary parlor, along with a methane digester.
I have no idea how anyone could justify an investment like that.
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Alberta Phil
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Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Location: Alberta, Canada
Points: 3651
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 5:07pm |
And up here in Canada we have the added cost of the hated Carbon Tax on fuels including propane which farmers here use in grain dryers. And it's going to go up another 23% on April 1 !! It boosts the cost of everything we use and eat.
The carbon tax on my last heating bill for natural gas was 1/3 of the total bill !!
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Location: new york
Points: 1011
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 7:44pm |
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Dairy farms are a just another way to print money these day. Hire central americans to do all the work. Hoard's dairyman now considers a farm of 1000 cows a small farm. Economy of scale.
Now you could make a case that these are agribusinesses, not farms and i would be hard pressed to agrue with you. I disagree with people who say they abuse their cows. A comfortable cow makes more milk. But maybe i am old ( wait, i am) but i think if you work with one of god's creations, the relationship needs to go beyond economics. My dad was a miserable son of a bitch but when a cow reached 20000 pounds, she went out on a side hill pasture until she couldn't make it up anymore, then the vet came out to put her down. He use to say " no body is sticking a fork in her gravy" i just don't see the operators of those mega dairies doing that. They may drive a 100,000 dollar pickup but do they like what they do?
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Lars(wi)
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Permian Basin
Points: 6639
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Posted: 24 Mar 2024 at 9:59pm |
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Hoard’s Dairyman, gosh haven’t heard that name in decades, didn’t know they were still in print.
If there is reincarnation, and I come back as dairy farmer, I will have a different breed than Holstein, just to be different, would want Brown Swiss, or maybe Guernsey.
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I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Location: new york
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 6:17am |
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I have a neighbor with brown swiss. I love how slowly they mature but he says you need the patience of a saint to get those calves to drink.
I love my Guernseys but i wish some of them were a little tougher. And they seem to have a lot of twins.
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jaybmiller
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Greensville,Ont
Points: 21464
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 6:24am |
Here in Ontario, every dollar I spend on Natural gas cost me another dollar for the 'carbon tax'.
I expect to be 'going to the polls' in late fall.
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor)
Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water
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Pat the Plumber CIL
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Joined: 11 Sep 2009
Location: Springfield,Il
Points: 4677
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 7:11am |
dr p wrote:
I have a neighbor with brown swiss. I love how slowly they mature but he says you need the patience of a saint to get those calves to drink.
I love my Guernseys but i wish some of them were a little tougher. And they seem to have a lot of twins. |
My father milked 30 Guernsey cows .Every twin set of calves was always bull calves.
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You only need to know 3 things to be a plumber;Crap rolls down hill,Hot is on the left and Don't bite your fingernails
1964 D-17 SIV 3 Pt.WF,1964 D-15 Ser II 3pt.WF ,1960 D-17 SI NF,1956 WD 45 WF.
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Lars(wi)
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Permian Basin
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 9:11am |
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My brother worked for a neighbor that had Guernsey’s, and there was a neighbor a few ‘roads over’ that had Brown Swiss, and both those enterprises appeared to need less acres to get the return on milk production, especially the Guernsey herd. I milked Holsteins my whole career, they definitely are hard on the equipment, and take feed like there is no tomorrow. Holsteins produce more volume of milk, but back in the day it was tough to maintain 3.5% fat unless you fed a ton of baled hay all year long.
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I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.
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AC7060IL
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Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Location: central IL
Points: 3198
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 9:54am |
This Farm Subsidy Database site might help answer your quandary per those farms enrolled ~ probably all if not most, Big Time Operators are enrolled. I have picked Illinois to show it's totals. You can pick your state, county, district, & see it's totals. http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=17000&statename=Illinois
On that same state selection page, if you scroll down you'll see a box icon labeled "farm subsidies". Click on it to see the numerous "elements"(programs) available. So any given farm can choose multiple elements for cyclical subsided payments. It gives a description, payouts, etc for each element. Or, here is a shortcut to it. http://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php
Edited by AC7060IL - 25 Mar 2024 at 10:24am
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Location: new york
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 8:53pm |
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Wow pat, i thought it was just me. Thirty years and just one set of twin heifers. Out of a senior yearling no less. Came out to the pasture and there were all three. Picked up both calves ( i was a lot younger then) and all four of us walked up to the barn. Mom never missed a beat and i think she bred back first service.
Did just have my first fertile twin heifer to a bull. Even got her bred but won't admit how long she ran with the bull
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Dorix
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Joined: 21 Apr 2020
Location: fox valley
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Posted: 25 Mar 2024 at 9:39pm |
But maybe i am old ( wait, i am) but i think if you work with one of god's creations, the relationship needs to go beyond economics.
I'm on the same page, other than I age part I think. I tend not to believe these mega dairies have a lot of outright abuse, however I used to drive past the Rosendale dairy almost everyday the largest dairy farm in WI at the time, I think 8000 plus. But unless a door was open you didn't see a cow. Just large metal buildings and concrete bunkers.
While we shouldn't see livestock as pets, I don't think god intended for us to regard them solely as a commodity either.
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Mike Plotner
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Joined: 02 Apr 2014
Location: Central Ohio
Points: 1576
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Posted: 26 Mar 2024 at 9:32am |
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My wife and I milk about 14-20 Brown Swiss now and a few Holsteins.
We ship grade B milk and sell herd shares. Farming around 350 acres.
Not getting rich, but we're getting by with my working full time too, and my wife finishing her doctorate of pharmacy
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2001 Gleaner R42, 1978 7060, 1977 7000, 1966 190 XT, 1966 D-17 Series IV and 1952 WD and more keep my farm running!
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WF owner
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Location: Bombay NY
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Posted: 26 Mar 2024 at 12:53pm |
I, too, worked full-time off the farm to keep going until we lost our barn in an ice storm in 1999.
It reminds me of the story of the farmer that won a multi-million dollar lottery. When interviewed by the news media and asked of his future plans, the new millionaire farmer said "I will probably just keep farming until it is all gone".
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