Farm Problem

Didn't want to hijack the tread below on the Crapp sale.
Do you real think the base problem with farming today is too big crop surpluses?
I contend the BASE problem with farming today is not crop surpluses but crop surpluses are an outgrowth of too low prices! Prices have not kept up with inflation since WWII. Why is that? Do you suppose it could this thing we call FARM PLAN, which came into being during WWII? Given that Congress does not seem interested in solving the problem we have to do it. One way is to curtail the supply of grains, Are you willing to try that? Can you afford to stop growing (for sale) for sale for maybe 2 or 3 years? Once the surpluses (called carry over) are used up and people start getting hungry prices will come up and the government will be willing to talk to us AND listen. I suspect very few of us are in a position to stop farming for others.
What do you think?

I do not believe there is a surplus, just a distribution problem. The earth will only grow what it thinks the world needs if everybody has the food they need. Put the money spent trying to control production to getting the food to the people that are starving.

Absolutely! There are too many farmers, and they keep the market flooded, so prices are low. If the trade war continues to escalate it will only get worse, I read about 30% of our soybeans are exported, if we stop that you will see $5 beans. The only time my father ever really made any money farming was in the mid 70's when we were selling a lot of wheat to the russians, it was over $5 a bushel. He harvested a good crop, sold the farm and retired, at 67, best thing he ever did!

Will not work. Sounds just like the old NFO argument from the 70's and 80's. Problem is the farmer is just like truck owners. If the rates/prices come up then they think they need to rent more land/ buy another truck. Which adds to their debt and it becomes a vicious cycle.
If they wanted to had control of things somewhat it would have made sense to only planted 2/3 of what they were planting back when corn was 7.50 beans 15.00 and wheat 8.00 and all they did was look to plant another 80or whatever they could find even on marginal land.

Every govt in the world (except maybe 2) wants 'happy people' to support that govt.

One of the basic things to keep people happy and docile is to keep their bellies full.

Nearly every country in the world wants a growing economy. A simple way to do that is to make food cheaper, so each citizen has more money to spend on other stuff.

As such, nearly every govt in the world is going to subsidize and create an over abondance of food, and then try to make it as cheap as possible to the citizens.

We will not ever overcome that trend.

Ever.

We need to work with it.

The world has the capacity to overproduce food quite easily. But it takes about 24 months to do so.

$7 corn a few years ago told the entire globe to grow more food.......

And so here we are.

Swamped in corn, soybeans, wheat, meat, milk.

We are successful!


Really, the problem isn't that grain is too cheap.

Our inputs are too expensive. Iron costs too much - some of that is EPA related, but still, the iron and labor to make machinery costs too much.

Seed costs too much.

Fertilizer is too high priced.

Fuel, another somewhat EPA deal, costs too much.

USA produces more grain than it can use. So the price of grain depends upon foreign buyers. The exchange rate, and their wealth. We can't really change that.

Farmers tried, we were told for decades find our own use for grain, so we created ethanol, and now there is a hate fest by the citizens, tell us they support big oil more than farmers. Down with farmers, we love Exon!

So, grain prices are what they are.

We need to fix the costs.


Paul

Farmers have NEVER been able to band together and curb production, sounds good in theory.

Not to single out farmers, I bet no business would.

It is law of supply and demand, world production is way up.

Only the oil industry has made it work.

Surplus bring low prices.Doesn't make sense if prices were somehow set low that people would start producing a surplus if none already didn't exist.The problem with farming is the same as
with any other production product when too many producers are producing more of a product than is in demand prices will fall.I can't figure where many farmers got the idea they can defy
basic economic laws and everything will be fine.Many farmers apparently have an entitlement syndrome where they think they are entitled to be able to farm any way they want produce
what there isn't much of a market for but still get paid well for what they produce.Ain't the way the World works.

There is an old saying that is 100% true, but almost impossible to abide by:
"You can not produce your way out of low prices", meaning double cropping and fencerow to fencerow planting is killing prices and contributing to mounting surplus. Bob

The bigest problem I see is that you are not putting the Genie back in the bottle in terms of world wide production. We can cut production in the US but somebody will make up for it someplace else. The US has been fortunate in that the past several decades other parts of the world the powers that be could not get their act together often due to politics. Further, they have nearly all the advances made in the last few decades in terms of advances in agronomy and equipment to aid them today.

Another problem is the buying retail and selling wholesale.

Nearly all farmers sell to the commodity markets, not to the public.

It seems that whenever farm commodity prices rise, too many farmers bid up the cost of inputs to match until their profit margins are nearly the same as they were before. When commodity prices fall, input costs don't fall anywhere near as much and the less efficient producers can no longer stay afloat.

Very few farms sell directly to the public, we sell our production to meat packers, food processors and grain export companies at commodity market prices. Those companies are better positioned and are better skilled to maintain their profit margins. When their profits get squeezed, they drop their bids for farm commodities and it is the farmers that get squeezed.

Look at the farm bill, a very insubstantial portion of that is allocated to production agriculture. It is highly beneficial to the government and their social model to control the supply of food and keep it very cheap.

The problem is that we, the taxpayers, keep propping up a bad business model. Whether it's direct subsidy, emergency bailouts, or the latest and most egregious scam, crop insurance, the fact remains that US agriculture runs on a cocktail of oil and taxpayer money to produce an oversupply of cheap commodity grains. Farmers moan about those who they believe are taking advantage of the system, while at the same time being the most special of special interest groups themselves. They weep like orphans about not making money, but are the most rabid about maintaining any mechanism they can to insure that their wealth accrues over generations at taxpayer expense, since net farm income over time is almost exactly equal to the various forms of taxpayer support received by agriculture. Ethanol is a scam that's converting drinking water into automotive fuel, and one of these days, a bunch of thirsty people are gonna have something to say about that.

The problem is that we as a society have never had an honest conversation about our food, where it's coming from and how it's going to be produced. We've let the grifters get us to take our eye off the ball, and now the bill is coming due. "Fix the costs" you say, by reducing the steelworker's wages- sounds a whole lot like killing your neighbor's cow because you don't have one.

You don't like farming? Don't farm.
You can't make money raising corn and beans? Don't raise corn and beans.
You think your neighbor makes too much money working for wages? Get a job yourself.

Nobody makes you climb up on a cross to farm. Quit acting like it's the rest of the world's obligation to make it possible for you to farm.

Now that there is dang funny.

Exactly the problems we face in this country, and around the world. folks who don't want to understand.

Paul

The NFO had brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor around here. It didn't work out well at all.

Where is this "cheap" food? Ever shopped in a grocery store? Cost me $28 the other night to make myself ONE hamburger. Meat, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, mayo, rolls... That's all I bought. $28, and none of it was the top of the line stuff, all as cheap as I could find. To top it all off the meat had no flavor and it was about the worst burger I'd had in a long time. To top it all off, everything but the mayo went bad before I had need for it again, so it all went in the trash.

Congress has not, and can not ever solve the farm issues, it is a no win for farmers to go with the herd, you must differentiate.

When crop prices were high a few years back and both sides were blaming ethanol,it was because of weather problems and short crops,so ya,over production is the problem.

You know that is probably about the best description of the situation I have ever read.But you know how it goes if a farmer isn't making enough money to to keep going the
'hobby' farmer will got to town find a job that can make up the difference and pay his own bills himself to get thru the tough times.Now the 'Real' Farmer he goes to town and applies for all the Farm Welfare and Gov't handouts he can get a hold of then go down to the coffee shop and cry hard times with the other 'real' farmers and trash talk the 'hobby' farmer because he
got a job in town he must not know what he's doing farming.

The U.S. has the cheapest food supply of any country in the world . but I don't think higher groccery store
prices will solve the problem somebody is making money but it ain't the farmers

That sounds like a bad business decision! You could of gone out and had someone else cook you a burger for a lot less than $28! I also think you'r exaggerating!

(quoted from post at 16:01:37 03/19/18) That sounds like a bad business decision! You could of gone out and had someone else cook you a burger for a lot less than $28! I also think you'r exaggerating!

Click to expand...

Also a bad utilization of assets!

But hey, I buy my milk by gallon, cost me $3.50+, drink one glass and by the time I want another, it has gone bad.


:roll:

I will agree that the US farm bill is an attempt to keep the cost of food low to the consumer, and is social welfare, but it does help farmers indirectly. Because the government food stamps, or school milk programs use milk that is grown domestically , and is therefore a sale for products from the farm, that otherwise may not have been purchased.

We are lucky that farmers are not utilized and stick together.
Just imagine if they were to strike and refuse to sell their crops for less than a certain price?

But that will never happen because some one some where will sell.

We could buy from overseas, that is the problem, we are not a isolated country.

You should try putting the milk into a refrigerator.
Milk has ? best by ? dates and can last two weeks,
perhaps you need to only buy a half gallon at one
time, I don?t think you drink much milk.

LOL, I do not eat hamburger often either, but when I do, I eat it more often so that it does not go bad before it is eaten.

I have read nearly all of the post on this topic, and I wonder. Just how many of you guys have really in all honesty, made your entire living from your farm, or are you just talking out of your azz?
Corn yields are double and sometimes triple what farmers could get in the 60?s and 70?s. Holstein cows give more than double the amount of milk they could in the 70?s. Better crops that give stand and yield, corn with stacked genetics , alfalfa that regrows faster and yields more tons per acre. All of these things contribute to over production. Not just in the USA, but in every part of the world that grows wheat, beans and corn.
We have better planters and better harvesting equipment, GPS guidance systems for spraying herbicide and fertilizer, to prevent overlapping or missing areas of the field.
There were always good farmers and bad farmers. Give the good managers, better tools , and they will do a better job. And that is a big part of what is happening. Supply and demand is not brake enough to stop this runaway train.

So explain to me what is so great/noble about making all your living farming? Do you get a prize or something how much $$$ comes with the prize? I don't know of many people long term that did think your wife has an off farm job too right? Nothing wrong with that just smart really.As the old saying goes no smart farmer ever puts all his eggs in one basket including farming.
I've always wanted my hand into two or 3 things all the time in case one went bad I had something else to fall back on other than a Gov't handout.

I've read most of the replies and almost everyone agrees the problem is over production but no one has an answer to the question of how to get it under control. Except Leroy who doesn't believe there is a surplus--Hay Leroy how long does this country last if by some miracle all farmer stop selling crops?
Why can't we stop--most farmers are in debt and need the little crop money they get to service the debt. If the wife stops working what happens--you can't make because she takes care of healthcare and the food bill etc.
I didn't say anything about the Farm Plan other then it came along about the same time we began to get in trouble. Now what happens if we get rid of it? It pays a pittance which I can do without; adds regulation I can do without; Does nothing to prevent bad food from getting in the food supply, if that does happen the medical industry does something. Just what good is the Farm Plan?

My point in saying ? make your living from your farm ? doesn?t suggest that it is a noble pursuit, any more or less that a truck driver, book keeper , or any other job. I was only getting to the point of , what the heck do most of you guys really know about commercial agriculture? I don?t want to hold anyone back from chasing their dreams, buying some land or renting. But don?t try to explain to the world what is wrong with today?s prices, if your only true experience with agriculture is what you had seen your father doing 50 years ago, Or what you are doing on a farm bought and paid for, with equipment all bought and paid for from a non farm career. Because it won?t matter if the crops you grow are a success or a failure , you can still keep on doing everything the same way you want to. Because you do your farming for your entertainment, because you like to, or want to. Doing things because you like to or want to, doesn?t make doing them in that fashion any more right or just.
If you bought your farm , with money earned from the farm, then I would guess your only hard and fast rule might be , ? no sacred cows? . And if it isn?t paying, stop doing it , and try another approach. Farmers today just like yesterday are quick to adopt to equipment and technology, change is a constant. And if you stand still long enough, you will be left behind. Yes my wife does work off the farm . A educated woman , with a sharp mind , why should she be expected to say home and waste her talents, just because of my choice of vocation? Afraid I don?t see your point.
Growing crops organically is little more than a niche , and will not become mainstream again. Too much fuel consumption, labour, and yield drag. Let?s remember, all food was grown with organic techniques before WW 2 . And with no fertilizer, only manure and the aid of crop rotation, yields didn?t come close to todays , and the cost of food took near 50% of a families earnings. Now only 10% of earning go towards food, and that includes restaurant meals.

Now you're being an 'expert' on what you accuse others of by knowing about organic farming these days which obviously you know nothing.I'm not a certified organic farmer BTW but I know plenty of organic farmers and conventional ones and the organic guys tell me how good things are and the conventional guys are crying the blues about there being no money in farming.
Either way the consumer that buys the products will have the last word as always.

That's why its a lot of money to be made in direct sales farmer to consumer these days in places like where I live,I'm sure its different in sparsely populated rural areas.My farm is in
s suburban area say what you want about these folks but they are willing to shell out big $$$$ at farmers markets and similar places where farmers sell directly to consumers so the many
'middle men' are cut out.Works great for everyone consumers get top quality fresh food and the farmers get good money for their products.

Prices are determined by the most basic law of economics - Supply and Demand. Congress can't change that law.

When the most efficient producers can't make a profit the supply will go down and prices will go up.

I see it a little different crop yield per acre has gone up. Mechanical harvest or automation has played a part too.

Sorry you are so misinformed, and some what irrational. I do adhere to most all organic principles. I buy no chemical fertilizers, and grow mostly hay and grain, and I don?t spray the grain . Where organic farming fails is in not allowing farmers to treat sick animals with antibiotics, and then return them to the herd. I know I am just a young fella, talking through my hat in your eyes, but I have had my own successful dairy farm for the past 38 years. Bought and paid for my farms , from my farms, after starting out as a renter. Go ahead, tell me your credentials.

I?m starting to think about marketing my calves locally somehow as natural beef I don?t want to really use the term organic probably can?t legally anyway and after seeing how a real organic farm operates I do not want to be part of it anyway

You should direct your question to "Second World countries" where modern genetics and farming equipment are now major players in our world food chain. They are the ones who have altered world wide commodity production and prices. If US farmers cut back on production, these second world countries will step up production quickly, and WE loose.
Loren

VADAVE: Your missing the main part of the issue. The US farmers could stop all sales tomorrow and there would be crops planted all over the world to replace the US crop. There is not a production control program that would work unless you ban imports and have quotas on the domestic production. NFO tried to limit production. The second milk price jumped up farmers in the NFO just ramped up production and sold any excess under the table rather than through NFO. Soon prices where right back down.

Over production driven by cheap interest, high yields, and large equipment. Then add in the income guarantees that you can buy insurance for, an you have guys farming the insurance.

WOW! Guys keep posting! This is about the funniest posts on here in a long time!

Rick

Bruce I lost your e-mail , if you get time shoot me a message please

JD I know the Farm problem is bigger then just supply BUT what is the problem or problems? Once we identify the problems we can address solutions and I know it takes everybody working together to get it done. The problem of supply WE the Americans brought most of that on ourselves! If WE had not GIVEN the 3rd world countries advanced seed and taught advanced/improved techniques we would still be supplying them with grain/food. I look back at my family history on my father's side we were here when the British decided we were supposed to be a colony. One my forbears was a Hessian soldier. My grandfather had one of the first automobiles in the neighborhood. They never recovered fully from the Great Depression. He raised 12 ids on a farm no bigger then I have now and sent one through college. When we bought our place it was a mutual decision and the size was dictated by what I could do by myself. I realized I was getting up at 5:00 Saturday to be on the farm about the time the neighbors were getting up and going home Sunday when the neighbors were going to bed. I know not everybody is like that but these guys are. I can just barely make it self sustaining, not counting equipment. When I compare to what my Grandfather did, well he farmed pre WWII through WWII and I'm 60+ year later--what different. Prices are the same in dollar amount but everything else has inflated significantly. I'm not complaining because I got a lot of other benefits such as: No ulcers and other stress related ailments, I learned a lot about farming--there nothing like doing it to learn how. AND I had a lot of fun and hard work is fun. Unfortunately I could not have animals, think about it--how do you get them back in the pasture when your 2 hours away.
Think about this the Great Depression and WWII were major dividing points. Prior to that farmers were in the top class of citizens, after they lost out, it took awhile but to farmers are subsistence class. WHY? If we can determine why maybe we can start to make the changes to improve our lot in life.

Also think about it what we grow has as much importance as ever maybe more. So why are we living in rags and hand to mouth with our wives having to work?
What is the problem?


my grandfather raised 12 kids

Be prepared for some very pointed and technical questions as potential customers are not the ignorant bunch of goof balls people here think they are I can tell you that.And most will want to see how and where they are raised,if you're not ready to do those things just haul them to market.

3-4 years ago on this very forum folks were losing their minds because corn was $7, farmers were evil people for trying to profit from people needing to eat. The Bakers Association was testifying to the govt that farmers making a profit was a sin against all humanity, the cost of flour was going to have dead bodies stacking up because farmers were going to starve people to death.

There is no winning that game, Dave.

As bad as it is now, supply management by govt is an even worse plan. It has been tried through history, and while it seems wonderful for a short time, it will implode terribly.


We have had 4 near record harvests in a row. We, and grain buyers around the globe, are starting to expect that as normal.

Maybe it is.

Maybe 1/4 of gr worlds growing areas will have some bad weather for a change, and we will decrease corn production 5bu an acre.

That would use up a large part of our surpluses.

The world is producing more grain every year. But it is also using more grain every year as well.

China is building ethanol plants. They begrudgingly want to clean up their air some, and they want the higher protein feed an ethanol puts out. They currently grow enough corn. Predictions are in 3 years they will use up their excess corn, and start importing more and more. They already are pretty much the one big only soybean importer, from all around the globe.

Grains will flex up and down in price, as we grow less or more grains, and as people demand grain. They demand more or less grain, as their income allows them to buy costlyier foods.

It seems complicated, but it a self leveling system, and it works well. It got a little messed up in 2010 or so, as a whole bunch of things happened at the same time. Many parts of the world had poor weather 2 years in a row. china was having really good economic times, and their population was expanding its food consumption rapidly. USA was in a poor economy, making out exports seem quite cheap.

All together, in made for a very rapid and crazy grain supply spike, we didn't make much grain, parts of the world were able and willing to pay a lot extra for more grain, and world stocks got pulled down rapidly.

Grain prices in the USA skyrocketed. But the system we have worked, no one saw bare shelves in the stores, no one went hungry, no one in the USA really noticed.

Perhaps that is the problem here. We have done such a good job of creating a good, safe, plentiful food supply system, folks don't realize how bad those couple years were...... and how devistating those poor crop years -should- have been.

People don't ever look very far, or care very much, with full bellies.

Paul

Paul for the most part I agree with you. What I was trying to start was a general discussion--We, farmers, have a problem and WE need to figure just what it is and then solve it. BUT we don't look back very far and look forward even less. I think it's time to move on. You mentioned that you surplus is only 5 bu/ac. Do you think that is enough to feed our population for a year? In history before Christ and before Abraham's children became Jews the Egyptians learned that a nation had to be able to feed their people for a year. Now we put the issue on a global basis saying the weather will be good somewhere. I contend that if the Climate Change folks are right (and I don't believe in climate change) but if they ARE right then we don't store enough grain. OR the world, and the US, has a population problem.

(quoted from post at 13:01:37 03/19/18) That sounds like a bad business decision! You could of gone out and had someone else cook you a burger for a lot less than $28! I also think you'r exaggerating!

Click to expand...

Barnyard engineering made himself one hamburger for $28.00 but this morning he has the makings of five more in the fridge.

Why even think the government should have anything to do with it? Does anyone honestly believe the government ever solved anything. The primary responsibility of government is to provide for the national defense and they know how to mobilize when hostilities begin but that is about all they know even in that vital area. Now they are talking about tariffs. That has been tried before but never solved any problem only exacerbated it. When I was a teenager the government program for cotton, our main cash crop, drove us off the farm. In the 30's their solution was to plow up crops and slaughter animals.

If you want to farm great but work to get the government completely out of it so whether you make it or don't it will be by the sweat of your brow and your creativeness, not dependence on Big Brother.

The combination of different grains, and different harvest times around the globe, and using meat and milk as a giant buffer, does a very good job of buffering our food supplies and would carry us very well through several bad crop years.

Any grain 'shortage' is a projected one for 12 months from now, that is what the grain traders and importers use as a trading system. We really have a year supply of grain; prices dropped heavily yesterday because the guess is we will have even more than a year supply. Back when prices went up to $7 corn the fear was we might have less than a 12 month supply. We really are not living so much on the edge as it sounds.

Some people are working very hard to change that crop and livestock mix. Put us on just an organic plant only food source. That would eliminate a lot of the extra buffer time we have to react to bad weather. Cattle, hogs, poultry eat a lot of non-human feedstocks, and can be slaughtered faster than normal to make up for a food shortage, to get us by. You will notice in a real bad drought in the western USA beef prices get lower, as ranchers sell off cattle they can't feed. Then beef prices go up, as it rains finally and ranchers repopulate their pastures and feedlots. This is all part of the big buffering, where our food supply is very flexible and resilient with the big mix of food products with different growing conditions and regions and seasons.

What we have is pretty darn good food supply system. A lot of fools want to change it. Ack.

Now from our side, those of us who grow feed and food, we have been too successful, and the govt encourages it that way. So we would have a hard time getting off that treadmil, hard to band together and make any price changes. The govt and consumers reacted badly to that $7 corn, and that was caused by real, world events. If we tried to set our prices higher, that would be ended real quickly...... aside from the fact us farmers are pretty independent and don't band together anyhow. (I do believe vertical integration as General Mills is trying to do with 34,000 acre farm in Dakota will eventually consolidate farms production into the hands of a few giants, and then price controls will be the normal. For some reason consumers don't see that and are generally cheering such things on!)

Anyhow, as individual farmers the only thing we can do is control our costs. I think we shot ourselves in the foot with trying to lease/ rent everything, and farm 10x as much land as we used to. We no longer control our futures that way. Owning is -always- better than renting. Renting is a short term deal, it has no security, no future. I think that is on us, we failed ourselves.

Paying $300 rent for 175bu ground in these economics is silly too, as is paying $10,000 an acre. We have the big shots still doing this, and they will have an economic wreck in the future, taking us all down a notch again like the 1980s. It's a free country I don't have an answer for this, but I'm really, really mad at my CHS coop for lending one farmer $250,000,000 and then losing the money, hurting me and helping one person cause so much damage in the farm community. We need better regulations on lending, and on people avoiding their bad debt. Don't know how to fight that either. But it is clearly an issue in Ag.

The Farm Program told us we would have the Fredom to Farm years ago, and then started throwing money at us a year later? Never understood the direction it has taken since then. We need a farm program that offers support in a bad weather year, or when the govt uses food as a weapon and crashes our markets. The govt has tremendous power to change the value of our crops over night, and as such needs a safety net to fix the terrible mess they create. I would love zero govt Ag programs in this country; but when they mess with our markets, they have to have something in place. The govt does far less damage to other parts of the economy, and throws more money at them. Ag needs some protection. The current deal of crop insurance is a farce tho, it protects bankers and insurance companies, it is a subsidy to -them-, not to farmers. It also helps create the giant 89,000 acre farms that fail and walk away from their debt. It's a terrible deal, but govt doesn't listen to Ag any more, they are listening to bankers and insurance companies. We aren't even at the table. Most farmers would want some middle ground here; but non farmers want to throw out the baby with the bath water, they don't listen, they don't understand. They are so removed from Ag, even on this site, they don't get the point. We won't break through that. I don't know how?

Seed, iron, and energy are too high priced, and that is about all we can control, cut some expenses there.

If one was looking ahead and conservative and thinking about the future in the 1970s, one made it through the 1980s pretty good.

Likewise, now. The trouble is, how many do that? The govt programs and the bankers hustle everyone into the game they want to play. Now that the rules change, those that went whole hog are gonna hurt, and take all the rest of us down a notch with them.

Not planting for a year won't help. Holding grain off the market for a year won't help.

We need a fairer game to play.

Until then, cutting costs, having a conservative background, controlling the land you farm, all will get some people through in pretty good shape.

Technology is going to creep up on all of us, and that will be a game changer. All bets are off when that hits.

Paul

(quoted from post at 07:15:20 03/20/18)

(quoted from post at 13:01:37 03/19/18) That sounds like a bad business decision! You could of gone out and had someone else cook you a burger for a lot less than $28! I also think you'r exaggerating!

Click to expand...

Barnyard engineering made himself one hamburger for $28.00 but this morning he has the makings of five more in the fridge.

Click to expand...

No he did not because he did not wisely utilize the "surplus" assets he bought to make the first burger.

"To top it all off, everything but the mayo went bad before I had need for it again, so it all went in the trash."

Nixon and Carter used food as a weapon. That changed agriculture economics in the USA forever.

Many administrations used food as an economic bargaining chip, as the current one is doing right now.

As such, the govt is directly affecting the value of farmers paychecks.

We can not get away from that.

I wish we could. I really do.

I would be all for the govt getting out of Ag.

But it won't happen.

So they need to keep a safety net available, when they mess up our economics willfully.

The current insurance subsidy is a farce, but 'getting rid of govt entirely' is an even bigger farce.

Government mandates require $15,000 mufflers on tractors these days. Can we really 'get rid of Ag in farming?"

One has to find their way through with what we have to work with. If you get into farming, you -will- be working with or against the govt, that is just a given.

I wish you would join in on wanting a better farm program.

Those that want no farm program at all are only making things worse, they don't understand. That will not happen.

Paul

The number 1 thing farmers and everyone else for that matter needs to do is to stop blaming everyone else for their failures and problems.Farmers tend to blame their problems on others take no responsibilities on themselves and go right back and do the same old thing again and again that ain't working.If it ain't working you need a new business/farming model.I see a lot of farming operations that have way more expensive equipment than their operation and total gross sales can ever justify.And as you say paying to much for land rent or own that about guarantees a loss is plain crazy.And lastly taking any direction from the Gov't folks on how to farm is a guaranteed looser every time.

Well there's nothing left in my area except BTO's. From my experience the Government, the chemical companies, the seed companies, the elevators, and the equipment companies aided, abetted, and oversaw the demise of the small farmer.

Govt owns the big hammer. They can wreck Ag economy real fast, one signature. Or more slowly, with crop yield/planting reports. Or with bad farm programs as the grain bank turned out to be in the 1980s.

So I think we can blame them?

A lot of other stuff I agree, it is our own fault.

shake off all the other stuff, and the People, represented by the govt, want there to be a surplus of food available cheaply. That is a main, solid, goal. Now if we do that, encourage that, we are manipulating the markets. How can farming survive 'on its own, don't blame anyone' when our markets are being manipulated?

And so we talk out of both sides of our mouth.

People say they want to buy local and eat organically. They say that only because their life doesn't depend on it. There is whole store full of food they can fall back on, it is always stocked to the rafters.

If we -really- had no manipulation of the markets, and the govt was entirely hands off, and that suburban family -really- did live off of the local market, which means going really hungry when there is a local storm.....

Then your argument would make a whole lot of sense.

But......

Paul

The government in the 30's began their involvement in the farm when they plowed up crops and slaughtered animals to control prices. It didn't start with Nixon and Carter. I understand about the mufflers but that is the same as with cars and trucks. What I am speaking of is the misguided efforts to control farm prices. It has it's equivalent with tariffs on manufactured goods.

You say a better farm program. That is a relative term, what might mean better to you might be different with someone else and different again with the consumer. See, that is the big problem with gov't involvement they try to make one size fit all but that will never work. I was a hog farmer for 18 years but never saw a farm program designed to help me and was glad for it. Well, let me restate that. Eventually with the court approved checkoff program it did begin to hurt us small producers.

If farmers would ban together to force gov't to end farm programs the same as they do now to continue them the legislators would get the message. No, it is not those who want the gov't out of every single facet of our lives that are the problem it is the ones who want them involved in everything that has lead to the present debacle.

The ones I have talked to have no clue about how farming actually works

Maybe all true but then what? Just give up and be a victim or search for something that works? Doing what everyone else is doing is the easiest route but it is almost never the most
profitable way to go.I raise meat goats,90% of the goat meat consumed in the USA is imported so the market is wide open as supply doesn't begin to keep up with demand which is rare for any
ag product these days.Gotta keep looking.

(quoted from post at 04:15:20 03/20/18)

(quoted from post at 13:01:37 03/19/18) That sounds like a bad business decision! You could of gone out and had someone else cook you a burger for a lot less than $28! I also think you'r exaggerating!

Click to expand...

Barnyard engineering made himself one hamburger for $28.00 but this morning he has the makings of five more in the fridge.

Click to expand...

Technically, three more (1lb of meat, 4 burgers at 1/4lb each), but I don't eat burgers every day so the meat went bad, the lettuce turned brown, the tomatoes shriveled up, and the onions fermented.

...and no, I'm not exaggerating. I could show you the receipt.

Yea, that is a very popular nitche market in several urban areas of my state. If you live close enough it works well.

Paul