how's the agricultural outlook in your area?

Here in PEI (eastern Canada) it's almost like watching the Titanic go down,she's already snapped,end's bobbing in the air and going down.
Thanks to supply management,dairy's holding up fairly well,so's poultry.Pork has basically dissapeared,there are a couple of producers left,but litterly only a few.Many beef procucers were waiting for the border to re-open from bse hoping for pre-bse beef prices,but it didn't happen.Border has been open for 2 years now and the price hasn't recovered what so ever.There are very few feedlots still left here in opperation.Potato's have been the driving force in the agricultural sector here for well over a century.The processors (McCain's and Cavendish) have made the potato industry strong as it was in the last couple of decades,but they can buy cheaper elsewhere and are quickly weeding out contracts.The open market (non-contracted potato's) has completely diminished in the last 5-10 years the market has become so tight.Not too many years ago,you could get as much as 5000 an acre for top land in several hundred acre sized fields,but you would be hard pressed to get over 1000-1500 an acre for the same land today.Poor land is all but un-saleable.Years ago,the small farms went out of business and the larger farms were in bidding wars for the land,but now the large farms are being reduced and the smaller ones are bing eliminated,so no-one has a use for the excess land being made available.
Is this the trend in your area,or have most sectors found a way to survive?I know dairy has had a very rough time in the US the last 18 months,maybe abit more.Seems the only expansion in these parts lately is with the wind farms.Thanks for anything to share.pd.

From 1989 to about 2003 all 13 dairy farms in my central Massachusetts town closed. Some are still hay fields, one was absorbed into a state park and the barn restored, one had a milk route till the end and the rest are houses. On the brighter side local produce and pick your fruit is fairing much better thanks to an aggressive Dept of Agriculture and private campaigns to get people to buy local, plus the mass produced contamintaed food scares that seem to pop up every year. Farmer's markets seem to be doing well too. My friend expanded his 90 acre operation to some leased and conservation land to keep with the demand.

Bad with prices down and so is demand.

Here in central NY the biggest business is-(to the surprise of many) agriculture-specifically-dairy. The price of land in, say tens years time, has roughly increased 5 fold. From maybe $1000/acre to $5000/acre. The milk factory-type farms have bid/pushed up the price. Nothing seems to be slowing them down. Building is almost constant. The smaller, well established dairies are holding their own, as any well established entity should be able to weather a down turn. There is no room for a beginner to start in.

Our problem here is just a total lack of infrastructure. Ag was kinda going away to development,but all of the factories have closed and it's a wasteland. No implement dealers in the county,no grain elevators,no nothing. Used to be a dealer and elevator in every town,a huge OreIda potato processing plant,a milk plant. All gone.

Here in Western Pennsylvania, we can't see the ground! Its under 3-4 feet of snow. Might melt some today, but i ain't seen the grass since last November! Might see it next month. Hope so, i can't get down to my barn to get any machinery out, or even walk down as the snow is still 3 ft. deep.

We have large grain operators (2000 acres or more) in our area. The little guy has no chance to grow. I have found local events happening in recent weeks to be especially discouraging. All I can do at this point is hold my own and hope there will be opportunities in the future. Long term I can't stay at my current size and survive. I think this will be a lost year for a lot of guys if the bottom end of commodity price predictions comes true. The flip side of low prices (for a few years) might chase out some of the guys who are not serious about farming. I almost miss the 1980's for the opportunities that opened for me but not enough to want to struggle like that again.

I think this area echos what most have said or are reporting, though I am not up on the specifics, statistics, numbers, prices etc., it never appears to look good no matter how optimistic one is about it.

One of the customers of the farmer I work for on the side, has close to 2000 head in their dairy operation, they put up a new and very large barn last summer/fall, about 12-15 miles north of me, seems agriculture is continuing, hard to say how smaller operations are doing.

We have some really scenic land, vistas and views around here, you can see for 50 miles in so many places, so once that land is idle or becomes available due to failing agriculture operations, there is a lot of pressure from developers, more so where I live because of its close proximity to a tri-city area.

Our own 98 acres is in contention right now because the taxes are getting ridiculous, though I am working on some relief for that, it always seems that there is some kind of impending doom lurking over all farmers, theirs or any owners of substantial land tracts as well as their financial situations.

We deal with about 500 acres, oats, corn and hay. At best you make a paycheck out of it, you create a job for yourself and a few others, but after all the overhead, fuel, repairs, maintenance, payroll for hired help it is marginal. That and sales of these goods barely makes the equipment payments on things he's bought new in the last 2 years to keep things going a little smoother, updated etc. Right now he's trying to decide what to do, because this work is detrimental to his health, there could be an auction or selling off of equipment piece by piece, all of us who help have full time jobs, he knows how that can be tough on people to do the work after work... though I can take time when needed, it's kind of sad after close to 55 years for him, potentially an end of an era around here, as some of the ag land is slated for development.

I can't say for sure what way things are going, but I really don't have much say in it anyway, I have enjoyed the work in the last few years, sometimes the hours are long, repairs/breakdowns a pain in the @ss, that never seems to change, just glad I was able to be a part of it, even if it is in its waning years. I do wonder what kind of diversification would make agriculture more lucrative, one of the farmers relatives has gotten into organic vegetables and would like to include some more product lines relative to dairy, produce, but you have to have a strong market or it just won't take, and he's already invested quite a bit into the operation, which I hope like heck does work out for him, if he is not careful it could go bad real quick.

I have taken a ton of photos, harvesting oats, doing hay, etc. though I lost some in a phone that went into the washer, something tells me, these photos will be cherished keepsakes of our agricultural times, now if I could just find some electronic tech that could retrieve that info from my phone, darned thing was not in long, I got the battery out, took it apart, dried it down and left it in rice, still no go, had a real nice shot of the 620 JD in front of several wagons of some nice small squares we put up one saturday last summer, as well as one with my friend the farmer on it, that ole 620 has been around since before I was going to school can remember it towing double wagons from the field down the state road here.

What kind of yields do you guys get up there? I know some of the better land around here will do 150bpa. I kinda wonder what the breakeven point is - 80bpa? At some point, it isn't worth the fuel, fert, seed cost to bother. This sure isn't Iowa or S. Illinois.

It varies a lot. There's ground that will grow 160 bushel dryland corn in a good year and within a stones throw there's ground that you couldn't give back to the Indians. Some of the good irrigated potato ground will probably grow 200-220 bushel corn with water.
I just can't get exited about getting started this year.Now with what's going on around this neighborhood with this drug gang posing as a medical mj support group,it's just about the last straw. They keep dragging my name through the mud at meetings when I haven't even said a d@mned thing to any of'em anyway,I'm calling an auctioneer and I'm out'a here.

Rusty, Where are you at? We're in Mercer Cty.

Here in western MN, agriculture goes on. Large farmers get bigger, small "family farmer" types are disappearing fast. The day will come when there will be just large operators (thousands of acres) and hobby farm types that farm the home place and have a good job somewhere. Dairy farms? I can think of 3. Small farrow-finish hog farms have just about gone the way of the do-do bird. No mega dairies here but we have the mega-hog barns. Main street business in our small towns are disappearing, some towns have lost their schools to consolidation, some have lost their elevators too. School enrollment is down every year. Auto and farm dealerships are going away too. "Shopping centers" are 30-50 miles away. I could go on but you must get the picture.
Brian(MN)