re-claiming old farm land

Has anyone noticed :
There seems to be a lot of farm land re-claimed they leave a nice farm house empty and let the barns fall down, bulldoze it flat, re-vitalise old growth, trees pushed back, level it and more black tube work.

I noticed this on the most traveled roads, here in Ontario just 80 miles NE of Toronto, so I'm wondering what is happening on the side roads and back country.

This work and the amount of it must cost someone big bucks

Does these people have inside information as to future Agra or food prices?

The high price of land is pushing the trend some. Also you can restore your own land cheaper than you can buy other land. It is right where you already have land, no travel hassle. Plus you can do it a little at a time too.

As for the older farm houses getting abandoned. There are just fewer people in many parts of the country. Also remodeling an old farm house is costly. I have done several that it would have been better money wise to level them and start over.

I have a good friend that owns a lot of land. His quote is "The best remodeling tool on an old farm house is a D8". If you are going to farm the ground his statement is spot on. The cost of keeping houses/building up and then the bother of renting them is a money loser.

JDseller,

But there are soooo many beautiful old brick farm houses that I see vacant, falling further away from it's once beauty and rehabilitation now not possible.

It puts a tear in ones eye to think of all the hard work a family had to do just to scratch out a living just to be bulldozed a 100 years later.

I think of this every time I see a fence row or a pile of stone in a field. (BTDT) not a 100 years ago though.

I'll tell ya Tom, I used to farm a little northeast of you, on the other side of the river. This started in the depression, and good jobs in town during the war didn't help, that's why some are abandoned so darn long the trees are like virgin timber. Not unusual for the people selling out to the nieghbor, who only wants the tillable, doesn't need or care about the house, I would consider renting it out, but sometimes that is a drag, not worth the extra money. Some areas the buildings are taxed if usable or even standing, so down they go. Next town over might not charge a penny. Modern politics doesn't help either , US or Canada, the politicians back east worry about the issues of the cities, out west the farmer has one in his pocket, I don't know about crop prices, but reclaiming a field is a good bet- or 'hedging a bet'? Seems the idea of reclaiming your own land is better than good sense, no land should ever have been left to go wild, the settlers took their whole life to clear a place, 1-2 hundred years later it costs just as much with a bulldozer, less time more cash. Your Ontario brick houses are built like bunkers, the stick builts might not have a foundatain visible- until the dozer hits it. As far as the rest of the continent, there must be a programe where someone applies for a new mobile home and the gov't tears down the old one, you can drive for hours out west- ya know people have lived there between the teepee age and now, but all ya see is newer single or double wides. Water is the issue out there, not out this way eh? I saw 'one' actual adobe ranch house in New Mexico, had to stop and take a picture before the state bulldozed that one too.

One of the sadder things I saw was going to a farm sale east of the Twin Cities, was small dairy country - 40-60 cows and a couple hundred acres a farm.

They were all being bulldozed out & townhomes were being built up, 50 to 100 buildings in squares that all looked identical. Big beige squares with no trees, crowded together.

I think I'd want to kill myself if I had to come home to something like _that_ and call it home. Yuck.

But - can't support yourself on those small acres any more, so there is less people living out in the country. If you own the farm, the extra yard is a liability - it attracts vandalism & bad people, you can't find honest people who want to rent it for next to nothing, it's something you have to drive around with big equipment - cuts up the field, irrigation or tiling is much more difficult, selling off the yard to rich folk who want to live in the country used to look good but turns out those people create real problems for farmers and not so many of them to sell to with the ecconomy now, and with farm land worth $5-8,000 an acre these days, picking up 3-4 acres for a day or two's work with a bulldozer starts to look pretty good investment.

Not saying it is a good thing, but if you've been there, done that, it makes sense in today's world, they are excess housing and too small out buildings that just have no use any more.

--->Paul

Tom, I see the same thing happening all over the rural US and it is depressing to see once grand old houses sit vacant. But JD is right, it's best economically to bulldoze them and the dollar speaks loud. We've torn down two nice old houses on land we bought. Gets them off the tax roll, cuts vandalism and takes away another place for the meth makers to ply their trade.

Renting them out is a complete loser when you figure in maintaining a well, sewer, furnace, etc. All for families that reward you with junked cars left behind when they move out in the middle of the night without paying the electric and phone bill. Jim

Tom,I live over in huron county and the same thing is happening here. There is really no land up for sale and since last year the crops where so good farmers have the money to buy whatever they can. All over this area people are laying tile like I've never seen and cutting back treelines. It's just a sign of the times.

Around here it either ends up owned by one of the mega dairys or the Amish buy it. If it's a typical older farm with ledge, swamp, hills,hummocks and small fields the Amish will take it and make it work again. If theres any chance it can become one big field with not a hedge row or home in sight... it goes to the big dairy.

You want to really see something that'll break your heart for the old timers and their effort, go find some old pictures from the Adirondacks. Used to be lots of open country and farms. All that is gone now, back to brush and trees. Wasted effort?

You got it Bret! That is where I farmed- still in use so I hear, and nearby, where my..ancestors.. moved to from Quebec long ago. Almost all grown back, but alot was tough farming, rocks growing up the secong strand of barb wire, supper freezing to the wood burning range, black flies carrying off the children... money poorly spent.. I sold my farm for what I put into it, the guy that bought my family's place, just lately got a long gone relative's land- he bought it at the county tax auction, for the same $150 an acre the guy from New Jersey paid for it in 1971, this year his family let it go for the taxes owed. Great place for deer tho... funny you mentioned it, my Amish neighbors came from central Ontario- land prices near Tom must drive them into the land of the bug eatten bark eaters....

im just south of you in middlesex county and its the same thing here.

To All who answered:

It never entered my mind it was simple economics.

I would now guess the tax on small acreage would be getting to be too much to just let it sit, like they did in the 50s.

And I can understand about not trying to rent with the tax, liabilities, insurance, damage, utilities not paid, and the midnight move.

But even so, it's still A sad state.

Thanks, Tom