Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[farmerjan]

Does any one here really realize what a "farm" is worth? I'm not being a smart a$$. It is nothing in todays world to have a farm worth 5 mil. Take just the land alone. Here in Va a 150 acre farm can sell for over a million, just for the land if it is at all cropable. I have a real estate booklet that has a farm... this is a "gentleman's farm" that is 133 acre, everything to offer to the "horse enthusiast; house barns, fancy... 1,599,000.... or 113 acres, approx 100 tillable, creek and existing well, no house or outbuilding, 675,000... or 179 acre farm, older ranch, adjoins National forest, pond and stream no listed barns or other buildings...499,000. So say the land is worth 5,000/acre. 100 acres is 500,000. Then add house, outbuildings, barns....1,000,000.
A friends' mom's farm sold just last year. 135 acres. All pasture, maybe 25 acres that is hay ground, mostly only grazing; Older farm house, smaller older barn, few cross fences, $575,000.
Then add equipment, then add cattle, and you are skirting the 5 mil mark. And 100 acres will NOT be self supporting in todays farm atmosphere. Even paid for with no mortgage. That is why so many dairies are selling out. One that I know of right now, 150 +/- acres. They have no mortgage and see the writing on the wall for the dairy industry. Worked all their life and don't want to get to where they are borrowing against it. Bad enough they have operating loans. They figure the sale of the cattle will pay off all they owe... feed, operating loans (which includes fertilizer for the crops, seed etc.), some equipment payments for upgrades, everything else; with hopefully enough to enable them to buy some beef cattle to run. That farm, as a dairy would be considered in the 2.5 mil range, just the farm. The cattle and equipment; tractors, trucks, planting and harvesting equipment puts it over 5 mil. And that's not with new "shiny" stuff. So even though it is a boon that they upped the amount that is not subjected to inheritance taxes, it still doesn't take into account what a person works their whole life for. Right now, with the prices on beef cattle being what they are TODAY, we have a value of nearly 200,000 in cattle. In 2014 when beef cattle were through the roof, and we should have sold half of what we had, just the momma cows were worth over 300,000. That's 175 adult cows, 10 registered bulls, all the calves, and yearlings. Most of our equipment is 15-30 years old except our discbine( hay mower). That costs 29,000 new.... we have a bunch of tractors. Our John Deere that is 4 wd that we bought off the estate from our friend, is worth over 40,000. Over 15 years old. It has a loader, cab, and uses fuel like you wouldn't believe... Try replacing that new....
My little farmall H is now worth alot because it is an "antique".....
The 75 acres my son bought for less than appraised value, at the price the owner was asking, was over 225,000. The house on 3 acres the following year was over 125,000. I realize that there are advantages, to the newer Allowable amounts for estates, but it is not hard to reach them on a working farm that is several hundred acres that has been acquired over the years by hard work and sacrificing. Not to mention that farms in the midwest, are figured in the "cropable acres" much more than here because we have so much "rolling land" that is only suitable for pasture. Rents out there will go for 150-300 per acre and farmers fight over getting any land that comes up because the more you have to spread the costs out over, the less it costs on a per acre basis. And they take into account what is "farmland" , and what is residential, for valuation.

I am not all for "bigger is better". But the idea of spreading your costs out over more animals/more acres, makes it easier to justify investing in a piece of equipment. You need a larger tractor to run x number of pieces of equipment. So you try to cut more acres of hay, or make more acres of silage, in order to make the cost per acre affordable.

How many of you can say that your small 5-20 acre farms will support you? Even fully paid for, are your animals self-supporting? If a farmer has to make a living from his land and his operation, not only must it be self supporting, but must make money....and to do so, it is not hard to have an operation that is worth many millions.
Add in to that so much land is now being bought and sold into little "farmettes" , so the value per acre goes up. Texas may be different, in value, but here a building "lot of 2 acres minimum" will sell for 20-35,000. Why should a farmer sell his land as a farm when he is 75 and can no longer farm it when he can sell it for development and make twice that?
It's not just the taxes, or lack of them, it is everything that goes into making a farm what it is and the value put on it. That is why young people cannot "afford " to get into farming. They can't make enough to justify the costs.... and that is government controlled as in milk prices and other things.
That is also why so many with land have gone to "corporate farming". A poultry house costs over 500,000 to put up. The company, say Tyson, puts up the Guarantees, the farmer gets funding based on this contract.....They put the broilers or the turkeys in....they supply the feed. You do the work, and you pay for things like the propane bills to heat it . All this comes out of the check the company is paying you when they come get the birds and you get a settlement. You are totally dependent on them, but they are giving you a guarantee in the contract....You are tied to them. But it will allow you to stay on that farm, know you are getting a paycheck. If you do a good job, the death losses are low, the birds grow good, they don't get sick.... you make some money. If things are not as good, you will make alot less. But you will get a check of some sort if you do the work.... like insurance of sorts. But you dance to their tune and answer to their field representative.

 

[Baymule]

Everything you are saying is true. Our 8 acres was part of an old farm that had been divided up between the heirs. Some one bought up a share or two, divided it into two 8 acre tracts, one of which is ours, each have 300 feet of road frontage and run 1086 feet deep. There are 6 places around the corner that back up to ours, each one of those is just under 2 acres. There is also a 7 1/2 acre tract. One of the heirs lives on his share, around the corner, across the road from the small tracts. There is another share next to him, then his mother lives in her house on another share. The farm got divided up so that no one got enough to do much with, unless they sold their part and took the money.

Could we make a living on our 8 acres? I'd have to get real creative to pull that off. About the best we can do is raise a lot of our food. We make money on raising pigs, but it would take a LOT of pigs to make a living.

Land here is high too. The days of cheap land are over. Even river bottom land is sold as hunting and recreational land and it is high too.

 

[Mike CHS]

I know of several people that are living off of less than 20 acres catering to the organic boutique restaurants in Franklin and also doing CSA operations but again they work their tails off. Our sheep pay for everything used on the farm for their care except for our labor so NO we could not live on what they bring in.

 

[farmerjan]

I was not picking on anyone who has a small parcel of 5-20 acres or so. That is the way it is anymore just as you said @Baymule . Getting creative would probably enable you to make enough to come out pretty even. But to make a living, with the standard of living at even 25,000 a year.... would be next to impossible. We certainly can't do it on 75 acres of the farm my son owns. If you figure that we will get about 500 per calf, per year, and that it costs us 500. per year to feed that cow, then we are trading dollars. So if we have a good year and the calves bring 750 each and it still costs 500 to feed that cow per year; That is 250 per calf , "profit". It takes 100 to make 25,000 in "profit"; which is not all profit. But just for round figures. That 75 acres will comfortably handle 35 head of cows. When I say cows, I am figuring it as a cow/calf pair because the cow will not have a calf on her for 2-3 months, and the calf will be small and mostly drinking only milk for another 2 months... so you figure your cost per cow as a "single" item and the calf gets a little of it's nutrition from the actual grazing.
That does not include that there is NO hay ground there, so all hay will be bought, so it makes the "cost of the cow" go up.....so now we are making less per calf.
Yes, the thing to do is to raise as much of your own food as you can and utilize all the ground that you have in as good a way that you can. The pigs do make you some money. But would there be enough customer base if you tripled your out put?? And would you be "using up the land" and doing damage by doing that. That is why I try to make people see that what they see as "farmers making money" is really just trying to keep up to exist. I can produce alot of my food on a couple of acres, but I am buying all the "inputs". Nothing wrong with that. As long as I am not kidding myself that I can "make money" at it. The VALUE is in the QUALITY of the food. Fresh, raised in a healthy manner, without alot of chemicals and hopefully harvested at optimal times. There is a definite value to that. For people like @Devonviolet there is no way to value it with her sensitivities. But are you willing to pay $4-5.00 a pound for green beans when you can buy a 20 oz. can of them for .89 and they are ready to eat? Many people are not. And this country is absolutely OBSESSED with cheap food. One day it will come back to bite 'em in the a$$.... both in quality and availability. If we are still around, we will be laughing all the way to the pantry to pick and choose what we WANT to eat.... not what we can afford to eat.
It is sad that the generation that had the farms, that raised a family and helped the kids go to college, or get a start in life, are now all having to be split up to satisfy those same kids that benefited from it. And how many of them don't "need" the inheritance, but want "their fair share". It's not theirs to want a share of. It is a gift of the parents... but how many only see it as what they are "entitled to".
Where would you be if you couldn't buy your hay? Or had to devote a piece of your land to producing some wheat and corn to make the chicken and hog feed? And then had a drought and the crops died? Or if you didn't have some sort of retirement??? Even if it was only social security, to help pay the bills.
I am thankful to be starting SS, and to have a very small retirement to be able to draw on when the time comes. As do so many others who have worked other jobs. Just think if you didn't have that.... as most farmers only have SS , and their land, as their nest egg.
No wonder anyone with any sense tries to talk most kids out of farming as a full time job, and to get a "REAL JOB" and just dabble in farming as a side job to enjoy.

 

[Baymule]

If I couldn't buy hay, I'd be screwed. If I had to raise the corn and wheat to feed the hogs and chickens, I'd need a lot more land and a source of water to keep it alive when the sun got hot.

If I had a large farm, I would leave it to one person, be it a child or grand child or whoever it might be that would love it like I did. The English have the estate thing figured out, leave it to the first born and keep it together.

We do raise quite a bit of what we eat, ALL of our meat and eggs. Vegetables are getting better, we have worked HARD to improve the beach sand in the garden. I built shelves in a closet to hold my canning equipment and jars of canned goods. That's good stuff.

 

[farmerjan]

If I couldn't buy hay, I'd be screwed. If I had to raise the corn and wheat to feed the hogs and chickens, I'd need a lot more land and a source of water to keep it alive when the sun got hot.

If I had a large farm, I would leave it to one person, be it a child or grand child or whoever it might be that would love it like I did. The English have the estate thing figured out, leave it to the first born and keep it together.

We do raise quite a bit of what we eat, ALL of our meat and eggs. Vegetables are getting better, we have worked HARD to improve the beach sand in the garden. I built shelves in a closet to hold my canning equipment and jars of canned goods. That's good stuff.

I tend to agree that there should be a protocol for leaving a farm intact to someone who would take care of it as it was meant to be. Not that the English way is right, although being the oldest of the oldest, I would have benefited. I see these farms around here that the parents had 4-6-8 kids....raised them up and then the kids fight in the worst ways wanting "their share". Makes me want to knock them in the head, because there are so many that are just plain greedy.

You are to be commended by improving the soil. I love to raise my own food and know that there is more than enough to do what I want to do with it. The chickens often benefit alot more towards the end of the garden season. I didn't have a garden last year and still am eating out of the freezer. Want to get at least one completely emptied. Then I need to get a better "filing" system so I know what I have. And I need to better use what I have.
I hate cooking for myself anymore. Would like to seriously consider a "room mate" who liked to clean and cook. I can supply the food ingredients, and share space. Actually need a live in person as a part-time cook/housekeeper in exchange for room and board.... I don't mind doing laundry, dishes but I just don't like to cook for one anymore. If I get into a house I am happier in, I think I will have to look for someone who really is looking for a room mate situation.... or start cooking for my son again.... or maybe providing meals for someone else on occasion, or something.

 

[Baymule]

I got plastic tubs from Walmart and organized both freezers. It really made a difference.

 

[Devonviolet]

this country is absolutely OBSESSED with cheap food. One day it will come back to bite 'em in the a$$.... both in quality and availability. If we are still around, we will be laughing all the way to the pantry to pick and choose what we WANT to eat.... not what we can afford to eat.

You make some really good points Jan. With fewer farms producing food, no wonder we have more and more food grown, in this country, that is engineered to produce greater quantity, than nutrition - i.e. modern day wheat, which produces larger wheat kernels, with a LOT LESS nutrition than ancient grains, and more allergy producing gluten. That wheat produces greater quantities, but leaves us nutritionally deficient.

@Baymule and I are on the same page, as far as the reason we bought our land, was to supplement our living and produce enough healthy food, to be at least close to self-sustaining. If worse comes to worse, we could manage to live off the grid, if we had to. So, we didn’t get into this to make a living. I can’t speak for Bay, but I suspect, that she and I would both be in deep doodoo, if our SS check stopped being deposited in our bank account once a month.

My husband is 4-1/2 years older than me, so at this stage in our lives, we just can’t do the work necessary to produce enough food, to make a decent living/profit from our little farm. We are just happy to be producing an increasing amount of our food, which we don’t have to buy at the grocery store.

As far as your comment above, one of my biggest frustrations at farmer’s market, is that people don’t want to pay for my products, what it’s worth, because they can get it a lot cheaper at Walmart.
** First, what I make costs more, because I pay more for quality ingredients.
** Second, my time is worth something, and they don’t take that into account.
** Third, did I mention QUALITY? What about non-toxic? People, for the most part, don’t care.

I called a local feed store, to see if they carried a certain brand of Non-GMO feed. The guy I talked to didn’t understand why non-GMO was so important. So, I explained that the engineers, have actually inserted Glyphosate into the DNA of the plants, so they are resistant to having Glyphosate sprayed on them to keep weeds down, the farmer doesn’t have to worry about weeds getting into their crops. So, when you eat GMO food, you are not only eating the Glyphosate, that was sprayed on the food, but you are eating the Glyphosate in the DNA. Double wammy!! He said, “I don’t worry about that. I’m only 47, so I’m not worried about getting sick from that stuff in my food.” I told him he should be worried about it, as when he gets to be my age, in my late 60’s, he’s going to WISH he had been more careful at 47, because by then he will be really sick, and could have cancer. His attitude was, well whatever.

 

[Rammy]

People dont care. They want cheap and tasty. Its conditioning. What you told him will come back to bite bim in the butt later on. Thats why Im doing a bigger garden this year with heirloom or non-GMO seeds.

 

[Baymule]

Complacency seems to be the order of the day.