Is the family farm Dead?

Reading on some other threads, It seems that the opinion is that you need millions of dollars and thousands of acres to make a profit anymore.
I have seen where three farmers Incorporate to make a better profit. Like everything else now days It seems if you aren't born rich or work for a big ag corporation. you are not going into farming.

It's so much an individual thing. The key is productivity. Then expectations. I remember back to the late 1970's a farmer borrowed heavily because the son wanted to farm with new equipment. Nothing wrong with what they had and over time they could have built a nice fleet but the son wanted it in one step. Needless to say 1980 hit and interest rates soared. The new stuff was sold at auction with a loss a couple years later. That farmer never quite got back on his feet after that financially. I farm just a little over 300 acres but the the machinery is fairly dated other than the corn planter and we lack certain things but get by. The place had a lot of debt years ago but it got paid off which is why we can get by on such a low number of acres for cash cropping. Rent is way out of whack compared to productivity locally.

Good chance those three farmers in that corporation are family members. A corporation is just something for tax and legal protection. It doesn't have anything to do with size. I could incorporate.
In fact,and I don't know if this is still the case or not,but when I was milking cows,I could have had one of my kids name put on the milk check with mine,but they powers that be at the co-op told me that to put my wife's name on it,we'd have to go to the courthouse and form a legal partnership. I argued that you couldn't get more of a legal partnership than a marriage license,but they said "Sorry,that's the way it has to be.".

I say only if you are in a grain based state. Here in Massachusetts we have many family farms. Our cranberry industry is 70% family farms, 10 acres or less. We have many multi-generation farms. One local dairy is in the 13th generation, originally started in 1616. I go agree, money goes to money and the big get bigger but I don't tend to see as much of that here as I hear goes on in other areas.

The family farms have been dying out since the thirties.
65% of the people were farming back then,...barely 2% farm today.
With the land machinery and input prices of today i can't see any new guy making a go of it unless they inherit the place or have a 200 grand/year second job.

For sure you can't do a small farm without an external source of income to handle your living expenses, and hope to God the farm takes care of itself financially.

The farms I know that are actually supporting themselves the best by themselves and this includes without Gov't handouts are small farms.Two women next to where I cut hay
are apparently doing quite well growing and selling flowers.The produce folks selling at farmers markets are doing pretty well too and my meat goats are beating the dickens out of the cattle
when it comes to being profitable.

I think a "direct food" farm, meaning from farm to table will do better than a grain farm. More demand for it since there is less processing, but not everyone can grow that on a 300 to 1000 acre farm. People dont want to work now days and a farm is work.

I don't think the family farm is dead it is just different than what we remember it being. You can't raise commodities on 200 acres and expect to make it. You have to raise something that has high labor input and high value added. If you live near a big city with a farmer market raise organic vegetables. You will have to put some serious hours into it but I imagine you can make it. We all remember the small Wisconsin dairy farm. That won't work. But that same 200 acre Wisconsin family farm raising milking goats and making organic goat cheese can probably make it. It will be many hours and hard work. It won't be sitting on a tractor in a field.

If you are farming small.....DON'T Quit Your Day Job !!!!!!!


John

Just what is a family farm ? There are farms of all types and size near me . Some guys crop 2000 acres ,part time , while others grow fruit and vegetables on 50 acres or less, and make a full time living from it . My farm is a owner operation , with me as the owner. And my wife and son work with me . Dose this make my farm a "family farm" . While my buddy's farm is a limited Corp. , with his wife and son working with him, not a family farm ?
Only real problem with farming , regardless the type of farm , farm products are too cheap, and barley give the farmer his cost of production , let a lone any return on investment.
There for in many cases , only a family that has a farm pasted down to them can make things go. As they do not have to push a mortgage to pay for the real estate , and try to make a profit on what they grow be on covering their production cost, every thing is profit.
Farming is a mature industry , not a untamed frontier. Go try to start a dry goods store , or a lumber yard , or a car lot. You will be confronted with the same kind of difficulties . High capital investment , with low return. And every one thinks you must be rich if you can own your own farm , though you might often work for far less than minimum wage. Millions in assets, pockets full of lint.
The "family farm" is becoming a romantic idea, it is a business, never been anything else. Bruce

no

A couple of months ago the little newspaper that Farm Bureau sends out had an article that stated the highest growth in the Dallas area was farms of less than 100 acres.

To make money on a small scale you have to get as close to the consumer as possible; grow food instead of commodities. Too many middle men when you turn corn into cornflakes.

I started from scratch 8yrs ago and have done ok. Have 40 acres of wheat, 7 of corn, 70 of soybeans, and about 35 of hay. Started with 15 acres. Do have a full time job and the profit isn't much, definitely not enough to live off, but it is possible to make a little. It's been very slow growth and I'm lucky enough to have neighbors that will rent me equipment, or do custom work. Also was lucky enough to have some high crop priced for a couple years. Really gave me a boost. I feel I'm kind of working for the capital investment. Most of my stuff is paid for so if I did call it quits, I'd at least get a little pay day.

Most industries are mature yet we grow population like it was the year 1900. Something is going to give at some point. It used to be that automation allowed for people to go from one job to another in the same industry but now jobs are being eliminated. Automation is poised to take over fast food and basic retail so more jobs will be eliminated. The human race has a lot of the problems it has at present because a growing number of people have too much time on their hands. They have also been programed to expect more than the basics in life and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.

There are a lot of family farms out there that are incorporated. Many as LLC's.

NY 986, you win a big attaboy! Yea I saw that with my fellow students that stayed on the farm after graduation. Dad really wanted to keep the farm going and the kids demanded milking parlors and new equipment in return for staying. Every kid I knew who stayed on that basis and their dads lost their farms in the 80's. I'd say about 17 or 18 of em did that. Our area used to be a lot of 160-200 acres dairies. All but one or 2 gone. The guys that had low debt load and some money put aside and others on the outside who wanted in with backing from parents were very happy with the following "fire" sales.

Bison: 2%? Where do you get that from? With a population of 320 million people and about 3.2 million farming that's about point one percent. A full one percent would be 32 million farmers.

Right now a guy wanting to break into farming better have a family with money backing him or he better win the lottery. People are successfully making it go on "niche" farms. Either sustainable or organic.

But if you go back a lot of the families on farms years ago didn't expect much. Hard work and they didn't have the new cars and color TV's that the folks working in town had. Kids wore a lot of hand me downs and yard sale stuff. Mom did a lot of canning too. They wanted more but didn't expect more. That's why so many left the farm in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Not many families would leave suburbia with all the goodies to go and work for a lot less today. Now life for farm kids is generally better so that trend is changing. Nice equipment with heat and air, you know, heat in the WINTER and air in the SUMMER. Nice houses, sat dishes and cell phones.

Rick

As in anything, some do well while others do not. I work part time for a "farm to table" type of farmer. We sell at local farmer's markets. While we get high prices for our produce, the margin is tiny.
We planted over 3,000 onions. Then, the new Chinese maggots got into them. So, we are pulling whatever is left and selling them in bunches as spring onions.
We plant hundreds of tomato plants. The only ways to make money on tomatoes is to either be the first on the block to have them or to specialize in heirloom varieties that typically sell for more. Some times of the year, you cannot give away tomatoes.
We do well with peppers. Part of that is because we get good yields from the plants and sell at or below market pricing.
Overall, add in equipment maintenance, crop failures, seasonality, and it is a lot of hard work for not much money. Also realize that there is a good long period of time when there are no crops coming in, so there is no income.
We try to help that out with "value added" products like pickling, preserving, and canning, but there is another layer of licensing involved there as well as some really stupid regulations to comply with.
Overall, it is a meager living as long as the farm is paid for. Otherwise, work outside the farm is mandatory.

My thoughts on the matter.

The sad thing is other than the machinery splurge that farm I mentioned should have and deserved to survive. They were on pretty good soil so feed costs were handled well. Prior to the machinery binge they had low debt. A lot of operations are not so lucky on those two fronts and it is a steep disadvantage to be producing on average a couple tons less of dry matter alfalfa versus your neighbors. If it were a farm with very marginal soil and never had a handle on debt then it might be considered a mercy killing for the thing to fail. If they would have spent only what was cash was available versus financing they would have achieved nearly the same result in ten year's time.

Yeah but with these "boutique" farms, you can only have so many of them before the market is saturated.

...and anyone that tells you raising grain or cattle isn't a lot of work, then looks down their nose at you and tells you you need to be raising goats or growing organic vegetables, needs their head examined, then slapped if you ask me.

Just like most businesses, the family farm is constantly evolving. The ones that don't change are the ones dying out. If you consider the family farm as 160 acres with 3 to 6 different crops and an equal variety of livestock, run by one guy to support a family of eight people without any outside income, yeah those are long gone in most rural areas. Inheriting a farm has traditionally been the best way to break into the business and still make a profit at it. At the current time, I think most farmland prices are still too expensive to pay for themselves by farming.

Old Tanker, you need to work on your math. 32 million is 10 percent of 320 million and 3.2 million is 1 percent of 320 million. Keep practicing, you'll get it.

part/whole *100 = percent

The line about alfalfa yields should read a couple tons PER ACRE. Sorry.

Family farms aren't dead but they aren't what they used to be. Getting in to farming is getting harder each generation. However there are some types of farming that is still fairly easy to get financial help. In some areas you can get 100% financing for poultry farms and they will cash flow if you are willing to work hard and be tied down. I live off of less than 400 acres and 100 or so cows. I have older equipment and seldom buy new. That works great for me but everyone can't do that. Someone has to be able to buy new and trade every few years for the used to be available.
What worries me more about the survival of family farms is the average age of farmers. Currently the average age is about 58 years and livestock farmers are about 60. There is no incentive to farm for most young people. Unless you inherit the land and most of the equipment the startup costs are frightening. I sent both of my sons to college and neither have any desire to return to the farm. Both are making more than I ever even dreamed but they are both working FOR someone else. It seems that schools discourage the entrepreneurial spirit.

Those three farmers that Incorporated are losing together right now. I am looking to go grass based Organic, no other way I can make it to buy the farms unless quit farming and get a job again, I can pencil that out, the way I am going right now, I can't!

Fifth generation farm two miles down the road. It's not an LLC. Owns hundreds of acres. You have to go big or you won't make it. He loves new green tractors too.

BarnyardEngineering: What would you raise on 200 acres and make a living? No outside income. You have to make a living from the classic 200 acre family farmm just like it was 1960. What would you raise?

I didn't say raising grain or cattle isn't hard work but do it on 200 acres and make a living. How would you do it? I am not looking down my nose at anyone. I really want to know how to live on a small farm and make a living.

Hi JCCWI
It also helps if you farm not to have another job that might involve farming to as you could find like I have right now my custom hog feeding business tanked over night and my farm machinery shops doing the same, as A lot of older equipments leaving farms 2 pieces a week that I used to fix or the guys are quitting and have nothing to fix anymore as the older stuff just sits in the shed or yard waiting for scrap to go up.
Regards Robert

There is plenty of opportunity to make it farming but it will be a lot tougher unless diversified, livestock generates the most reliable income for the small farmer. A family could still make a living on a quarter section farm If it was the right kind of land and if they did not have to have every new gadget and new vehicles every few years, also depends on the property tax and other fixed costs.

Where there is a will, there is a way. As for the 200 acre scenario, it depends on where you are. Could be veggies, especially if marketed directly. Pumpkins can be very lucrative. Could be grass based dairy, especially if niche like goat or sheep. COuld be wine grapes. If you want something you can get a payment on from FSA, no it isn't gonna happen- but if you think outside the box, there are people doing it. I happen to know some of them. And they live in the same state you do.

No 'family farms' arenot dead.No,you dont need a bazillion acres. Yes you can farn a couple hundred(or less) acres. I do. Biggest mistake is most guys need new and big iron.A small operation can get by with old and smaller iron. Do other things to supplemant.Raise 'value added'. I raise NONgmo crops,get a dollar/bushel premium.I normally raise 80 acres of corn,last year was only 50,this year,30. but I do other things to supplement. You CAN do it!

Connie Minnie, I 100% agree with you. The only way to make it on 200 acres is with a high value crop/product that takes a lot of labor. I can't imagine how many hours of hand labor it takes to raise vegetables at a large enough volume to make a living. You have to really love what you do.

You're right and 50 years ago when I was a teen we had one TV that worked about 1/2 the time at best,free antenna,party line phone, long distance call was only when VERY necessary,
used car,used pickup,we stayed home most of the time,worked hand milking cows,separated the milk from the cream,sold the cream,fed the milk to the hogs and laying hens,new shoes were
a big deal,never eat out anywhere except at church functions etc etc.That's why people were able to make it farming then watched every penny and didn't throw any money away.But
who would live like that now? And we thought we were living pretty darn good.

NO!!!!!

Small farms can make a living. There are several things that have to fall in place for it to happen.

1) Low debt. That means land, equipment, and personal too. So your not going to be buying much "new" stuff.
2) Will either have to be in a niche market or some type of value added product to sell. Small acres of generic commodities will NOT generate enough net income to maintain a family on no matter how frugal you are.
3) Lower standard of living than the average American has. What I mean is fewer frills. Fancy cell phones, extra cars/trucks, new houses, and etc.

Then the reality of pretty much still needing an outside income source besides farming yourself, to make ends meet.

the family farm is definitely a target ,,. nuthin seems to help .it is dying .. no one in this modern day world would condone the way our family worked and was raised up ,we learned the hard way once , and .. , but back in the 60s and 70s you had to earn your way ,,, and not ask anyone for a handout ,,. and always return favors ,,all my 7 siblings are earning their way , and raised children to do the same,,. we stripped tobacco late into the cold nites ,packed roasting ear corn by the pikup load all week long when the field was ready to pik ,, cut turnip greens and shipt out truck load after load ,, pikt strawberries in the same manner ,..truk load after load , and then cucumbers would come in , then the tomatoes, which went to Austin ind . , the cantalopes followed the corn ,and turnip greens to the Louisville hay market ,. pop grew up with a guy there that had a stall , and he trusted him with his produce fortune , , potatoes were a godsend ,and a moneymaker ..,, hogs and cattle ,done good,.too,,. butit seemed that som sacrifice wa always being made ,,, and this modern ME GENERATION , Will never stand For that ..

(quoted from post at 10:19:30 06/14/16) Old Tanker, you need to work on your math. 32 million is 10 percent of 320 million and 3.2 million is 1 percent of 320 million. Keep practicing, you'll get it.

part/whole *100 = percent

Click to expand...

You are right. I was discussing this on another forum the other day and someone said that 10% of Americans were farmers. I think I still had that stuck in my head.

Rick

I grew up farming. I would have stayed and taken over but there were a lot bitter feelings with dad and his step siblings. It became apparent that life would have too much drama.

I went to college and got my teaching degree. I taught for 15 years and bought my home place. In order to get my foot in the door I worked summers, nights, and weekends for a neighbor for nothing more than a side of beef a year. I am now taking that 1000 acre farm over as there are no descendants and neither of us wants to see that family farm disappear. I worked harder than I ever thought I could for no money to prove myself to the farm's owner. My wife thought I was crazy. She now sees the value in it. My business partner still works the farm but is slowing down greatly as age takes its toll.

I don't think the work ethic is there anymore to do what I did. A while back we were at a function and one of the house reps from our state was there. She turned to me and asked what it would take to get more new farmers started. I told her that the group that need to be coming in had parents that farmed through the 80's and those kids were steered from farming. I have a cousin whose dad refused to let him come back to the family farm - he wanted better for his son. They know that the gadgets that they hold in their hands translate into gadgets for machinery but don't have the skill set to do without them. They also lack the budgeting to have a payday a couple of times a year and make that pencil out in lean months.

We use older tractors - 30 and 40 series Deeres. We have one from the 90's for planting. I have one tractor with a bank note. There's $7,000 left on it and when it's done I don't need to get anything else newer. That doesn't jive with the "trade in your year old cellphone" generation.

I am with coonie , I make a nice profit on a 15 acre patch of veggie and 5 more in pumpkins and do it myself , if it's broke I did it and if it's good I did it , no one to be mad at but me. I also do several acres of hay that helps as well.

For many years I believe the number of farmers is around 2 percent of our population, via govt definition of what a farm is. About 2/3 of a million are actually full-time farmers. Incarcerated citizens are also around 2 percent...LOL.

"you need millions of dollars and thousands of acres to make a profit anymore."

You are are 100% correct.

What we talk about on this site is hobby stuff. In reality, this is a "Yuppie" site.

In the REAL world/for REAL farmers/when things have to cash flow and pay the bills things are a LOT different.

Bob you will probably get a lot of flack for your post but you are pretty well right. There are cases, as have been stated, where someone has made it on a few acres or built their farm from scratch by working their azz off. That isn't sustainable to feed the world with the population growing. There aren't enough people willing to do the work for so little pay. There may always be a few survivalist types that will make a truck patch to feed a few but not enough to feed the masses.
Even then, where will the used equipment come from? How old is 4 or 6 row equipment? The tractors built today probably won't last 50 years and another boom in scrap prices will all but make salvage parts extinct for the older tractors today.

I agree that it's extremely difficult to get into farming, not just with the often extensive capital needs, but with the way under valued (and under paid) labor involved, and the increasing overhead of property taxes levied to support those who "can't" work or support themselves (in the extravagant manner the county can provide for them - don't get me started...). Not that one CAN'T start with a suburban lot and a hoe and grow from there, but as others have pointed out, the "lifestyle expectations" are a lot more than they ever were when "we farm kids of the 50's and 60's" grew up with old shoes, patched jeans, and if the antenna was adjusted right, a choice of 3 regional channels of news to watch and the amazing new science of weather forecasting (in black-n-white), but only after dinner and before evening chores, and some on Sunday after Church. There wasn't time to be watching TV (or texting, or checking facebook, or making forum posts) back then. There was that thing called "work ethic", which seems to be dying faster than old farmers and family farms.

No, the family farm isn't dead, yet, but on average it keeps getting older with fewer young people filling the void those dying off leave. My better half and I average 61.6, and there isn't any relative going to take over this farm when we can't go anymore. Some days that seems a lot nearer than others.

Just as important as the loss of farmers, is the loss of the knowledge of how to fix things with the 'junk' that was set aside for later (like how to pull an old hay rake from a hedgerow and make it work when the "new" one fails and you can't get parts on a holiday weekend), how each acre "works" best and for what, how to "read" the soil, and livestock, and weather for your area. Maybe some geeks will program an algorithm for all that, and computers will figure out how to extract a theoretical maximum production on a theoretical average of climate, but programming the "art" of farming isn't going to happen for a very long time. Not that it ever should.

As Wendel Berry has pointed out in many of his essays, there is far more to agriculture than just providing food and fiber to people who eat and dress - it is the very basis of culture itself, and without our collective feet firmly in the soil, we lose our "roots", our connection with the earth and living things. He (and I) and other thoughtful people are not sure we can survive such a disconnect without killing ourselves and our posterity. Machines might be able to nearly eliminate the need for human labor on farms, but they can't eliminate our need for the connection with the earth that feeds and clothes and inspires and sustains us in ways that machines can never be programmed to understand, or provide.

Or maybe that's just me, and when I and others of my era are dead, the last of the humans thinking of the earth as a partner rather than just a resource will be gone, and not missed by the growing number whose mantra is "cheaper", rather than "better", regardless of what the cost is to someone or something or some time else - just as long as it isn't costing "me, now". It's that "me, now" attitude that will never allow those holding it to become farmers. Maybe that will change when food becomes increasingly scarce, which in our global economy could happen for any number of political reasons, but if left to N America providing for itself, simply because there aren't enough people involved with producing a diversified variety of things any more. There may be more than enough corn, or soybeans, or milk, but not enough of other more labor intensive things we all too often import (because labor overseas is far cheaper).

In the past, hunger was a great motivator to work. Not likely so much anymore. I won't hypothesize further - it's too unpleasant to think about. Besides, I need to get back outside and work for my dollar an hour, gross. It's a good day if there is any 'net'.

Majority of people I know are family farms/ranches. I don't know anyone with a "hobby farm", myself included. I bought my land at actual and full market value from my mother a number of years ago, and I seem to be making the payments for it and anything I need just fine, despite years of low prices and severe drought. I will say with today's prices it would be difficult to buy land around here, but people still do it and get along. Most people have cattle, some have some quarters of corn etc. Most have families, a kid or two comes back from college and continues. Several have brand new houses built to live in. I don't buy new stuff, although I could pencil some out, I see no reason to.

Correction, "much" new stuff. I bought a new Kosch bale retriever last year. My H&S hi-cap rake was new, Haybuster, etc., spread out over a few years. Tractors, no, although decent used ones are very difficult to find, harder each time I look.