Suitcase farmers and dealing with them?

Do any of you know what I mean? Sometimes called armchair quaterbacks, backseat drivers, false prophets and a few other terms! The guy that buys up some land, knows nothing about farming. Has no equipment, no real plan just going to make a lot of money!!! Never works out good for the locals who he has do his work (or him). Almost never from the area and does not understand local customs. I hate dealing with them, share your stories.

The person/company with the money (the dog) wags the tail(people working for the person with the money),not the other way around.Its like working for a company that gets bought out where you
work its the new owner's way or the hiway.

Buy up all the land they can in another state so they don't have to deal with the consequences, and then lease it out to wind turbine companies.

(quoted from post at 07:54:53 05/08/19) Do any of you know what I mean? Sometimes called armchair quaterbacks, backseat drivers, false prophets and a few other terms! The guy that buys up some land, knows nothing about farming. Has no equipment, no real plan just going to make a lot of money!!! Never works out good for the locals who he has do his work (or him). Almost never from the area and does not understand local customs. I hate dealing with them, share your stories.

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Keep hearing about this stuff. Just don't see it. We had one guy here who thought that he was going to make a killing (before land prices went crazy) buying land and renting it out. He priced rents in some of the highest areas of the country and tried getting that much per acre here :lol: ! So he bought some equipment and started farming it himself. Except MR moneybags hired some good help to get him started. He don't bother anyone and before the commodity price collapse seemed to be making money. Built a nice machine shed. Keeps a camper in it too. Come on "vacation" 4 times a year to plant and harvest. Spends money in the local area. IIRC he has a tractor, chisel plow with muncher. Corn and bean planters and a CaseIH combine with a corn and bean heads. Tandem axle grain truck and a couple of grin bins. He's been operating 12 years or so. I don't see a problem. If he wasn't doing a corn bean rotation on it someone else would. He has irrigation on it now.

So my question is what's the problem? Most likely it gives him something to talk about with his city friends at dinner parties.

Rick

I rent land from a similar person, altho he is local. Thinks I'm getting rich farming his 12 acres and keeps asking for more to get "his share". Never considers equipment costs or inputs. This will be my last year working with him. Last year he wanted me to put up his hay, he wanted 2/3 me 1/3, I pay everything including fertilizer. Lol. No way. So then he whined til he found someone to put it up for him for free. Now he is even worse because the other guy is "SO nice". Next year they can have each other.

Seen a good number of them here,, lots of what i call weekend wannabe farmers,, 3-10 acres,, I get a kick out of most of those,, but one story does come to mind,, in 1977 I worked for the local Ford tractor dealer,, around 78 or so we had ordered in a new FW-60 a guy came in said he wanted two more just like it,, but had been talking direct to Stieger and had a price already, they had cut him a deal on a order of three so we did not get the sale, I asked him that first day what he was doing with them, he told me in a very smug attitude that he was from Iowa and was here to show us dumb Wyoming people how to really farm, I then asked where he had bought land at,, when he told me where it was about 50 miles south of me in a area that had always been pasture and for a very good reason, its about 500' higher than where I am (over 5000ft), winter grains do not work there as they winter kill, I knew this from having farm ground close to where his place was and I told him to only grow spring crops, of course he said I did not have a clue what I was talking about and if I came down for a tour he would show me how the big boys do it. I wished him good luck and never again wasted a word of advice on him,, the first year he had crop he had to sell on of the big 4x4's off to pay his fuel and custom combining bills. the next year which was his third being on the place as the first year they tore up over 3000 acres of ground for fall planting he again had to sell a 4x4 for bills but that year he had no money for the bank loans so by spring he was foreclosed on,, by them,, they bank got back about 25% of the money he owed them selling all of the equipment at auction I was told,, it was over 20 years before they got the ground sold as no one wanted to give what was against it,, at the auction I did tell him to his face I was sure impressed how he showed us dumb Wyoming farmers how to do it,, he had zero comment and just walked away with his head down, I hate to see anyone lose like that and he was just one who lost big time on his venture, he never did pay the COOP for the fuel for part of the first and the second year he ran,, I have no idea how much the bank lost but heard it was bad.

Guys the thing of it is if you don't want these people coming in when old Tom, Dick or Harry retires and wants to sell so they can move to FL all you have to do is step up and pay the asking price. Problem solved. Just get with the biggest shyster realtor in your area and have them call to let you know when anything hits the market and buy! Or if they died get with the family at the funeral and make a fair offer :twisted: .

It's not your land. You have no right to it nor have any say about it if someone else buys it. So if it bothers you that much you buy it.

The only way you have a say is if you buy it so that the land stays in the hands of a local owner.

Rick

The Indians probably had the same problems with the European newcomers.

I wouldn't worry about the small guys moving into farming, they will be too small to survive unless they have plenty of off-farm income to support their hobby-farm. I suspect farming is about to become much larger and more industrialized. There will a lot more changes in farming in the next twenty years than there has been in the last fifty years.

Around here the suitcase farmers are either investor groups or millionaires who made their money off farm. They are very progressive, coming in with aggressive tiling to make the land more productive. Everyone around here is very tight lipped about what rents are going for so I don't know what they get for rent but they do try to make every acre productive. The downside is some conservation practices are not being followed meaning no-till, terraces and grassed waterways. One large hog outfit has Japanese investors helping them buy land to raise corn for their own feed mill. This outfit has the land custom farmed. They must have a lot of money to spend because they are pattern tilling every acre of every farm. Laying down tens of thousands of feet of drain tile takes some deep pockets to finance. This is done a year or two after the land is purchased for $8000 to $12000 dollars per acre. They are buying quarter sections and half sections at a time and usually it is the good land, not the junk. These buyers are in constant contact with realtors and can get land bought before the general public knows it is for sale. The local farmer in this area doesn't have a ghost of a chance of competing against this kind of money.

Corn is a commodity that can easily be purchased almost anywhere.

The hog farm might be buying land to insure they have enough acres to meet their present and future manure disposal requirements. Nearby land that is within a reasonable (low cost) hauling distance from the barns might be more valuable than the corn produced on that land.

I can relate.

Once upon a time, my wife owned an undivided half of a quarter section of farm ground here in Nebraska. Two of her cousins, a gal in New York and a guy in California, each owned an undivided quarter. I got stuck with managing it.

The gal in New York was OK. She just floated along and took what came her way. The guy in California was the opposite. He thought that just because he owned an interest in a few acres of farm ground in Nebraska that he should have a steady stream of income from it. He was a big PITA over it.

We finally sold it to get rid of the hassle. Everyone was agreeable, but this guy was so flaky I actually flew to California to get his signature where it was necessary on some documents in the process of finalizing the sale, rather then depending on mailing him the documents, him signing them, and mailing them back.

He died young a couple of years later, and the gal in New York and her husband eventually filed bankruptcy when a restaurant they owned failed.

Poetic justice?

As RR lund said if I wanted to make the payments I would buy it!!!

(quoted from post at 10:51:35 05/08/19) Guys the thing of it is if you don't want these people coming in when old Tom, Dick or Harry retires and wants to sell so they can move to FL all you have to do is step up and pay the asking price. Problem solved. Just get with the biggest shyster realtor in your area and have them call to let you know when anything hits the market and buy! Or if they died get with the family at the funeral and make a fair offer :twisted: .

The only way you have a say is if you buy it so that the land stays in the hands of a local owner.

Rick

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Winner ^^^.

Local yokos are always b!tching about "Citiots" (seems it's always "city" people who buy land in the country) buying land and what they do on that land and how stupid they are, and how they don't know how things are done "around here" etc, etc.

Well if you chin-wagger local yokos are so smart and know everything about everything, why didn't you buy it?

Bunch of chin wagging old timers were b!thing at the feed store to anybody who would listen about some guy from Germany who bought up a dairy farm and 800 acres locally. Foreigner millionaire, what can he know? Probably thinks he's going to rent it back to us peasants for big bucks. What a citiot.

Well, it turned out the young guy wasn't German, he was from Belgium and he had a degree in ag managment and organic ag. He also had 5 years as a manager at a farm in Beligum.

He took the whole place all natural and now all organic, got a special-bred herd in, and now he's pumping out hundreds of gallons of high dollar organic milk and growing organic feed. He absolutly knew what he was doing and he's' expanding while the chin-wagger local yokos are doing the same ol' thing they've always done and going broke doing it.

Inbreeding is way more of a problem than "suitcase farmers".

Grouse

We had one here that wasn't too awful bad. He lived about 50-60 miles away. He showed up when they built the 2500 cow dairy over west of me so he could raise feed for them. I'll give him one thing,he never really seemed to want more ground than he needed to feed the cattle. He bought some land,but we're probably talking hundreds of acres,not thousands,then he rented a lot. He had a deal going with some of the potato growers where they were swapping some land around and he was growing alfalfa in to their rotation. He'd come in to the restaurant with his local help at noon and sit at the big table with us. Never seemed like anything but an average guy with a great sense of humor. He was one of them that used to laugh and say that according to the universities,I shouldn't even exist. He was always good natured about it when he said it though.

Eventually the dairy bought out his operation here and started raising their own feed with their own crew and he started farming corn and beans in Illinois.

(quoted from post at 09:36:39 05/08/19) The local farmer in this area doesn't have a ghost of a chance of competing against this kind of money.

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See that's the problem. You don't want to pay the price. If you had pre-approval or cash on hand that realtor would let you know the instant that land became available. The second you wanna deal it's eating up their time when they have another buyer who will pay the asking price. Lot of the time an investor/buyer will let a realtor know they are looking and are more than willing to pay fair market right now.

So it boils down to a guy had land that he can get XXXXX per acre. You expect him to sell for XX per acre, then get mad when he ignores you and does indeed sell it for XXXXX an acre. But if it were you selling that land you would do the same thing he did. And sorry. NO! I don't buy that I'd sell for less. Lot of farmers that land is their retirement. You can't afford to cut your retirement in half. But you expect old Bob down the road to cut his retirement? Money talks and BS walks.

Rick

Hasn't this already occurred? Here in California that's the norm.

(quoted from post at 17:23:39 05/08/19) The Indians probably had the same problems with the European newcomers.

I wouldn't worry about the small guys moving into farming, they will be too small to survive unless they have plenty of off-farm income to support their hobby-farm. I suspect farming is about to become much larger and more industrialized. There will a lot more changes in farming in the next twenty years than there has been in the last fifty years.

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Isn't this pretty much the case already? Here in California it sure seems to be.

Welcome to the 21st century Jocco. Where ya been ???? The world is changing, just like it changed for your great grandfather, grandfather and father. And eventually it will change for your kids and your grandkids. Been happening forever ....

(quoted from post at 10:25:46 05/08/19) Corn is a commodity that can easily be purchased almost anywhere.

The hog farm might be buying land to insure they have enough acres to meet their present and future manure disposal requirements. Nearby land that is within a reasonable (low cost) hauling distance from the barns might be more valuable than the corn produced on that land.

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This hog company does need manure land for sure. A bunch of land in far northwest Iowa is bought for manure and it goes for high dollars. This hog company has the idea they can grow their own corn for less money than purchased corn which right now isnt the case but generally might hold true. They also have a secure supply raising their own corn. Ethanol and the large feed mills soak up all of the corn raised in this area.

. As in how electricians , carpenters, brinkies, plumbers, cops, paramedics, firefighters , lawyers, physicians etc put up with suitcase versions .

I still own 1/2 of my dad's small farm in Ohio, 190 miles from me. So I rent to a long time neighbor. Not looking for the highest rent in the county, just a fair one. I want him to make money on it so I don't have to look for a new renter every other year. It's worked OK for both of us for 26 years.

(quoted from post at 18:49:18 05/08/19) I still own 1/2 of my dad's small farm in Ohio, 190 miles from me. So I rent to a long time neighbor. Not looking for the highest rent in the county, just a fair one. I want him to make money on it so I don't have to look for a new renter every other year. It's worked OK for both of us for 26 years.

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Paul. I have a decent retirement income. I let my nephew farm my place for free. He's young and getting started. Most folks just plain can't afford that.

Rick

(quoted from post at 14:04:56 05/08/19) Welcome to the 21st century Jocco. Where ya been ???? The world is changing, just like it changed for your great grandfather, grandfather and father. And eventually it will change for your kids and your grandkids. Been happening forever ....

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Crazy Horse, Jocco said nothing about it being anything new.

Yep if I spend my money and BUY a farm or anything then I am the owner,I'm going to call the shots on what is done and not done on that property.I don't know why these guys that rent places
think they have more rights and more to say about how a piece of property is handled than the owners.

(quoted from post at 07:54:53 05/08/19) Do any of you know what I mean? Sometimes called armchair quaterbacks, backseat drivers, false prophets and a few other terms! The guy that buys up some land, knows nothing about farming. Has no equipment, no real plan just going to make a lot of money!!! Never works out good for the locals who he has do his work (or him). Almost never from the area and does not understand local customs. I hate dealing with them, share your stories.

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I guess I don t understand why you deal with them if it never works out.

Everybody has to start somewhere. I am not a bank and assume your not either so just dont extend credit to folks. I enjoy meeting new people and will give advice, sometimes before its requested according to my wife. If its heeded or not doesnt really matter, after all sometimes its worth what it cost.

It's like that around where I live with horse farms. Seems like they change ownership every five to eight years. New building, new loader tractor, not much in the way of maintenance, money owed. After a while the realty signs go up.

I guess I don t understand why you deal with them if it never works out.

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1. Because if you don't someone else will, and that can't happen.
2. Because you never know, this guy might be different.

There is an old hog farm across the road from us.I had been renting the crop ground for years.It got sold about 15 years ago to an out of state investor,he flies in twice a year in his private helicopter to check his land once in the spring before a crop is put in and after harvest in the fall.Rent the ground to my nephew now that I stopped row cropping never had one problem with the man,he tell us he is going to retire to some day.

(quoted from post at 05:21:50 05/09/19) It's like that around where I live with horse farms. Seems like they change ownership every five to eight years. New building, new loader tractor, not much in the way of maintenance, money owed. After a while the realty signs go up.

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Still it for the time being their land and their money.

We had a 40 sell here late 90's. Older woman. Spent about 350,000 building a fancy house. You would see her around town every so often. She really missed theater and other classy type things. Sold about about 2 years later at a loss. I think she was just a lonely old lady with money. Folks that bought her out built a horse barn with an indoor arena. The have been there 20 years. never bother anyone. They did have the land fenced by a local outfit. Pay to have the lawn mowed and snow moved in the winter. Nice enough folks. They show up at the VFD pancake breakfasts and local charity feeds. Other than that they mind their business and everyone here does the same.

I really fail to see a problem. Where our problems here start with outsiders is the lake shore owners. They buy a lot adjacent to a farm, build a "summer home" worth 300,000K or so. Then raise holly heck cause they smell a feed lot or turkey barn that was there when they built. Or see machinery parked in a farmstead. They even complain about round bale lined up next to a field.

The other problems we have is the local farmers at each other throats over land they don't even own. Perfectly will to put the screws to long time friends and neighbors to get and extra 40.

Rick

(quoted from post at 15:51:56 05/08/19)

(quoted from post at 10:51:35 05/08/19) Guys the thing of it is if you don't want these people coming in when old Tom, Dick or Harry retires and wants to sell so they can move to FL all you have to do is step up and pay the asking price. Problem solved. Just get with the biggest shyster realtor in your area and have them call to let you know when anything hits the market and buy! Or if they died get with the family at the funeral and make a fair offer :twisted: .

The only way you have a say is if you buy it so that the land stays in the hands of a local owner.

Rick

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Winner ^^^.

Local yokos are always b!tching about "Citiots" (seems it's always "city" people who buy land in the country) buying land and what they do on that land and how stupid they are, and how they don't know how things are done "around here" etc, etc.

Well if you chin-wagger local yokos are so smart and know everything about everything, why didn't you buy it?

Bunch of chin wagging old timers were b!thing at the feed store to anybody who would listen about some guy from Germany who bought up a dairy farm and 800 acres locally. Foreigner millionaire, what can he know? Probably thinks he's going to rent it back to us peasants for big bucks. What a citiot.

Well, it turned out the young guy wasn't German, he was from Belgium and he had a degree in ag managment and organic ag. He also had 5 years as a manager at a farm in Beligum.

He took the whole place all natural and now all organic, got a special-bred herd in, and now he's pumping out hundreds of gallons of high dollar organic milk and growing organic feed. He absolutly knew what he was doing and he's' expanding while the chin-wagger local yokos are doing the same ol' thing they've always done and going broke doing it.

Inbreeding is way more of a problem than "suitcase farmers".

Grouse

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You guys not only hit the nail flush on the head, you sank it full depth with just one swat. Well said.