Farms come and gone

How about the farms that have come and gone, then come and gone again? I drove by the dairy farm down the road today while delivering a few loads of manure to their final resting place. I got to thinking. This farm has a new operator. Young local kid about 25, very hard worker, hope he can make it fly. When I was in school this farm was the home to the grand parents of one of my school mates. It had been in the family for over 100 years. Grandpa and his son owned over 600 acres of ground plus rented. This was in 79 to 1980. By 1982 they were all gone.Second grandson was employed by the new owner of their farm and was able to cut a deal with him to buy back grandpas 40 and a 40 cross the road. The stress put grandpa and grandma into the ground in a short time. These were very hard working well respected people. Their offspring not so hard working. Their son, and grandson moved from the used trailer house cross the road to the home 40 and decided to start milking cows. Fast forward 12-15 years and Son and Grandson have lost the family farm again. I am by no means old ,But have lived to see this place fold twice by the same people. I remember Grandpa calling my Mom and I over to his place to ask if we could help him plant strawberries. He said he paid off this farm raising berries so he would repay the debut his lazy son had made raising berries again. This man was in his mid to late eighties. He wept like a child as he spoke of his 600 acres he handed down to his son debt free only years earlier. I will never forget how sad I felt seeing this old man tell me how he could save his home. Now to see it lost once again. I Guess most guys today just see dirt up for grabs. I still see the family homestead. I see Grandpa hauling manure in the cold, On a early spring day, on an open station tractor before the auction so all the barns would be clean and look good,A very proud man. While the son and grand kids sat in the house feeling sorry for themselves. History has repeated its self. Hope this new kid can break the cycle.

Farming can be a fickle mistress. A small bad decision can be fatal if there is a big market swing shortly after the mistake. Also it is hard to keep family businesses going in general. I think the trouble is the drive to build a business is different than the management to KEEP a business going. Also you have no way to tell what your heirs are going to be or do. Actually this turn over is a good thing in this country for the average person. We do not have hundreds of year old holdings here. That is a strength for the country.

We maybe getting a different lord/surf type of thing going with today's corporate ownership of too many things. This is NOT good for the long term health of the country. You need the average man to be able to "OWN" his own destiny for the country to be successful.

Some folks work hard , some folks hardly work. Rags to rags in 3 generations .

Yep,like Bruce said,it usually takes three generations. The first generation builds it,the second generation maintains it,the third generation looses it.
I can think of two places just like that here. One,the old guy used horses right up until he died in the mid 60s. He owned the mortgages on at least 11 houses when he died. At one time he was holding the paper on every milk route that hauled in to Carnation. He loaned for cars,farm equipment,pretty much ran a bank out of his house and the dairy barn. It's all gone now.
The other one,the guys Dad had a half way decent place,but he went out on his own after WW2 and built that place up to the biggest thing around here. It got down to his grandson. The boy ran it in the ground and lost everything in about two years.

I really have to take issue with that but in a friendly way. I know of more than one situation where the second generation would have sunk the farm with their bad decisions but the wife was willing to work like a slave and the boy throw his life away by not having a family or decent vehicle "to save the farm" so as not to live through the embarrassment of "failing."

Lots of changes in the neighborhood for a variety of reasons. Do not assume you have all the facts as to why something failed even if the last owners tell a reason. I know a guy who tells everybody in his new surrounding that he sold out on his own when the locals darn well know the place was sold on the county courthouse steps.

And to go the other way plenty of farms around here including us have made it past the dreaded "third" generation which I didn't know was the benchmark until I read this thread.

Takes more than hard work to make a farm successful. If you buy when interest rates are high and they decline while you are in business then it doesn't matter what you do, you will be successful as your asset prices will rise. If rates go the other way, you will likely lose it no matter what as the value of your investment declines. In the last decade many have been successful despite themselves as asset prices have risen thanks to QE. Hard work was largely irrelevant. As for the guy starting now just post QE bubble peak, it will take a miracle to succeed or starting with a large fortune to make a small one.

And to go another way yet the first generation may have had the great start due to the father being an effective crook. There used to be a person that would try to stop by our farm when dad was not around to "borrow" stuff so dad would in theory think he misplaced it. The guy one time tried telling me when dad was not around that the hydraulic cylinder on our cultimulcher was his. I knew he was lying because I was with dad when he bought that cylinder at the local IH dealership which I knew this guy would have never have bought anything there anyways. That incident led me to despise that man for a great number of years.

I can tell you why the first one I referenced failed,and that one was done by the second generation. The third was there for a little while,but left because they knew there was no future.
The wife of the second generation finally told me after he died what happened. His brother looked like a light went on when I told him what his sister in law said. I brought it up because he was bashing his brother for flushing the place down the drain.
She said that after the old man died,her husband stood out in the yard for three hours trying to figure out how to set the drill so he could plant oats. Somebody finally drove by and saw him out there and stopped and set it for him. She said that was how things went though,the old man did all the thinking and just sent his son out to do the work when everything was ready. Never taught him anything whatsoever about how or why anything was done around there. Left him with no management skills at all.
His brother said,yup,that's it exactly,the big boss never taught the little boss how to do anything.

There is a couple round here like that. First was an apple orchard, big one that had been at it since I believe the 1870's. I think it was the third generation son was lazy and couldn't make it like the rest of his family. They sold probably 3/4's of their land to the DNR so as not to lose the little they had left. The hunting ground just west of me is a mix of autumn olives set in an overgrown orchard, the end of the huge orchard they had. Now the 4th generation son has got it going again and seems to be doing really well. He probably wishes his dad hadn't lost all of the other family ground. The other is a mint and maple syrup farm. A buddy of mine his grandpa started it, they own hundreds of acres. Employed a lot of the local high school kids, his grandpa bough all IH equipment and maintained it meticulously. He died while still working the farm. I think that really affected his son who let things slide down hill after that. They had rental houses that people were on a waiting list to get into. Fast forward 30 years and they were so bad they had to tear them down. Now his grandson, my buddy, is trying to get the farm to its former glory, and is doing a good job at it. They have mint, cash crops, beef, maple syrup and vegetables sometimes. Luckily for my buddy, they never had to sell any of their land or the IH tractors his grandpa bought new, even if some of them are now pretty rough. He just does a little at a time, it is getting better slowly, he's doing a good job. I am currently doing a mechanical restoration on an IH 656 hydro that his grandpa bought new.

Ross

Nowadays it is often the second generation that loses it.

On mine my dad tried to control everything. When he started he married money and his brothers worked with him in the 70, s he gave me what he thought was a good deal a 100 bucks a month and room and board. Finally milking cows by hand and trying to farm with junk machinery got to me and I moved out. He then sold the cattle and machinery and uncle sam took most even though I would have given anything to start.Started by machinery and renting on my own got a chance to buy into a milking setup my dad found out and wanted me back. Several people warned me not to but it's the home farm. He cosigned the loan and then had the bank do as he wanted. Ended up having to borrow at high interest loans eventually it was back to where I left the first time. I got smart and told him he was either selling the farm today or he's milking tonight not what I wanted but it was on the breaking point. He sold the farm to me and then went and told the banker to sell me out.
The neighbor wanted the farm and the banker wanted his business. We proved forgery also had a witness to testify the banker had bragged how he set me up to lose the farm. The judge decide that the forgery was not brought to him in a timely matter and the affidavits were not written up correctly my lawyer got a bankruptcy declared before the bank got the farm for that she got fired and her boss became a judge in a neighboring county and by the way when his reelection came guess who donated money.
Sorry this is long there is a lot more to this story. But my dad always went around and told everyone I couldn't make it and a lot believed him to this day I still have trouble with this.
So it's not always what it seems funny thing a lot of guys my age had farm's given to them and lost them but I'm still hanging on.

I just realized I'm the third. I guess my days are numbered. lol

A lot also depends on how many children there are.

It's one thing to run a big operation when it's paid for. But if a son tries to take over by mortgaging it so the brothers and sisters get their share of the estate he's usually doomed before he starts.

I am at least the 5th generation on this farm. I will probably be the last due to a variety of reason. I am the last "heir" interested in farming, and my sons are not interested in it. My surroundings are becoming incorporated into houses and the city.
I have diversified into different crops to remain viable, and plan to continue as long as I can.

I've seen the 3rd generation theory play out several times. It seems like if the 1st and 2nd generation are successful, they send the kids to college and they lose the work ethic and become "too good" to work on the farm.
There is a farm a few miles up the road that the original owner built up during the 80's when everyone else was calling it quits. He did custom harvest work and worked long hard hours doing things no one else wanted to do. His son worked right beside him and they rotated shifts getting their crop in, feeding cattle and had a feed business too. The son sent his kids to college and now there is no one to hand it down to. When the son dies it will be divided and sold off.
I'm the 4th generation on this farm but it's just a small part of the original 5000 acres that my G grandfather put together in the 1890's. The rest has been sold countless times. I managed to buy a small part back.

Well this whole third generation thing don't sound great to me, I am the third generation. My grandfather came to America from Germany with his family when he was young in the 1920s, he started farming on his own cause his father he said was an ornery man. Grandpa started renting farms in NW IL and later bought the farm I am on in SW WI for 6,000 dollars, no loan just paid for it! He never did have a loan his entire life, bought the farm next to it 12 years later. My dad bought the home farm in 93, he never did really want to farm! My dad wanted to be a mechanic for a dealer, so he never put much into the farm, seemed he never cared. So now I am trying to make a go of it, buying newer equipment, doubled the dairy herd and renting some other farms. The land prices have me worried how I am going to pay for it and make it! Had a great paying job at a mine but quit to milk cows for myself! Push comes to shove I may just sell the cows and find a job to pay for the land and rent out or farm the farms, later in life go back to milking, after most is payed off! If that happens, I am only 33 now, I have some time, I hope!

Hey that sounds like what is happening to my next door neighbor, the boy is my age and has yet to plant anything, his dad does it all, was sure smart in school but has no common sense! When any thing breaks it is call the implement dealer, cow gets sick call the vet, need a new fence, call the guy who builds fence!

I can't afford to be rich.

The Harvard Business Review has statistics on the family-owned business failure rate, and only 10 percent surviving the third generation. It's not just farms, but all privately held businesses. You guys have hit on many of the reasons- work ethic, education, transition and planning.

I hope I'm lucky that my Grandpa was not full-time farming at any point, nor my Dad nor I, so we have never depended on the farm for living wages. I really respect and feel for those who do choose this as their livelihood, the risks and level of control are outrageous. I try to defer to the full-time farmer when my hobby might impede them.

I will most likely be the last to farm this ground. I only know a couple of people who, when they hear what I do outside of my day job to make this farm work, don't think I am absolutely insane. And they may be right.

My dad hyped farming to me as a kid. When he retired from the Army and we moved to MN to buy a farm I was pretty excited. We got out here for my junior year of high school. I was shocked that the farm kids I went to school with could talk about nothing other than graduating from school and finding a job off the farm. This was in 71. I had it pretty much figured out by the end of the school year. These kids worked 7 days a week 365 days a year. Most had to feed cows before they got on the bus. Then it was home, chores, dinner and homework. Their summers were spent on a hay wagon or cultivating corn while the kids from town were at the lake swimming or fishing. In short dad worked em pretty hard. They dreamed of working 40 hour weeks and having holidays off. Sure a few wanted to stay on the farm but the majority that I knew did not. I know of 5 guys my age who stayed on the farm that are still farming. between them they run 3 farms as 2 of the farms have brothers farming together. All of them are getting ready to turn over to a 3rd generation. I think 2 of the 3 will be alright. As for the other guys that I know who stayed on the farm none of them made it through the 80's. Kinda being an outsider looking in what killed most of them was debt. And it seems to me a lot of the current farms in the area today made up of what failed in the 80's many are deep in debt. Of the 3 above one carries a heavy debt load. Another thing that affects kids taking over is post secondary education. A lot have never been anywhere but the local area. College gives them a whole new experience and opens up horizons. The may start out with an AG major but many will switch and go onto other things.

Now when there are siblings involved money matters come up. They all think they deserve a piece of the pie. So if that isn't taken care of before dad dies the one who stayed looses out when the brothers/sisters demand that the land be sold cause they want their money. They smart guys take care of that before they get too old.

It's sad to see some of the family farms fail for whatever reason. But some are going to fail. We no longer live in a time when boys did what they were told and farmed because dad made them stay on the farm and they had no other options.

Rick

I take for granted you milk brown swiss? Used to milk jerseys in the 80's. would like to hear about your dairy opperation. thanks kenny

This brings up a good point and I've actually seen some articles in the news about what is effectively a rebirth of feudalism.

(quoted from post at 19:34:49 03/20/16) This brings up a good point and I've actually seen some articles in the news about what is effectively a rebirth of feudalism.

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Feudalism has been part of the US sense we run the British off. We have failed to acknowledge it until now.

Rick

Feudalism is why my great-grandparents left Germany.

Al don't know if I can add much but when a farm goes out around here its gone for good. For me part of mine has been in the family for over 200 years.

You pretty much nailed everything that I was going to say about the topic of how lots of family farms fail. Lots of farms around here were ran by hard-headed old tyrants who never bestowed any sort of management knowledge or management responsibility onto the next generation, therefore setting the place up for its demise when they passed. The next generation must be taught to make their own decisions and be given the chance to run an enterprise on the farm before the whole place is left in their lap.

In another vein, some people are just hell bent on failure and it's simply unavoidable. I'm currently watching a multi-generational dairy farm in my area slowly implode. Of course if you talk to them, they're the best around, but it's fairly obvious the wheels are wobbling. Machinery is shot, not cared for, left to set out all over the place; yet they scarf up every available acre to farm. Farmstead looks like a bomb went off, buildings in disarray, garbage everywhere. They're lucky they're not on a main road where lots of passers-by can see their cows or PETA would likely be at their door. The smell is just awful. Its sad, not sure who is to blame exactly, but its a shame.

Most of the old tyrants that I saw never had any management ability. The operation survived despite their efforts by having all the spouses in the family obediently working off farm as well as do minor chores such as feeding calves. Most of them operated in an era where you could throw up a poor addition to the milk cow barn and not have anybody fuss about it. They could do the same poor job in the field because while they were not going forwards they were not going backwards. Work the ground six weeks ahead of planting in the spring losing valuable moisture to start a crop.

I milk 60 cows in a 30 stantion barn, mostly Holsteins, a few Brown Swiss and a few Blue Roans. I am breeding them all to a Brown Swiss bull. Half the cows cows stay in the barn when the weather is bad and the other half have a bedding pack in a shed to go into. As of now they have been staying out on the pasture, a lot easier on me then feeding them in the barn. Cows are fed bales in a ring and corn silage in the barn yard, grain is fed in the stalls at milking and distillers is top dressed over the grain at milking time, I don't have a TMR. Looking to get a mostly Brown Swiss herd, maybe cross breed with some Jersey, also looking at retro fitting a parallel parlor in the barn and building a small freestall barn for them. I raise all the young stock, heifers and feed out the steers. Any questions feel free to ask!

(quoted from post at 15:11:52 03/20/16) Some folks work hard , some folks hardly work. Rags to rags in 3 generations .

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ost times but not always.
I am third generation but had to swap countries to keep it going, this side of the pond now but my sons arnt interested so the farming ends with me.

thanks for the reply! Kenny