Hay Lease

[abb]

I own about 400 acres and we have always had cattle but now we are wanting to lease the land to have someone else hay it. We don't have time to take care of it and dont want cattle. Im curious as to what the ongoing pricing maybe? Are they per acre? per bale? how much? Any help would be good.
Thanks
Kyle

 

[Barry Bowen]

I am located in Maryland, and I rent my ground on a little different basis. I pay my landlords a percentage of what I can sell the hay for. I provide all the equipment, labor, and materials to grow, harvest, and market the hay, and then pay the land lord 15% of what I sell it for. Seems to work out relatively fairly, figure 45 cents on every 3.00 bale. From a producer's point of view, this lets the landlord partake in good markets, but isolates me from high fixed rents in bad markets. Also we never argue over how many acres. I simply pay on how many I sell, and the higher the price the more the landlord gets. This idea does not force the producer to sell at the cheapest time of year just to pay the rent, but to get the higher rents the landlord has to wait for his money until the hay sells at the higher price times of the year. If a landlord wants a fixed rent either per acre or per bale I have to give much lower rates than if the landlord is willing to share some risk for the higher rents. In good years the percentage has gone as high as 120 an acre, a number I would never pay on a fixed basis. The highest I will pay around here for fixed rent is 60 an acre. Just one farmer's way of doing this that works well for me and my landlords.

 

[D7E]

Before we made our own hay we did it several ways, Renting out the land per acre, Being payed per lb for the hay and the one that seemed to suit everyone best was a guy made the hay but left us 50% of the bales on the field and we stacked and sold our half our selves. particularly liked the last method as we got the hay baled in more valuable medium squares that would otherwise mean having a $45'000 baler and without the hastle of chasing farmers continously for money.
We do it ourselves now as often guys could'nt manage the acreage and hay sometimes got spoiled.

 

[Mike120]

Typical down here is "half" and most, if not all, are variations of what Barry and Kyle wrote.

 

[bill in ny]

the land we lease for hay, we pay the owner $.30 a bale.

 

[Kessler Farms]

Three of the farms I lease, I pay $20 per acre per year. The other farm I cut on shares... I get 3/4 of the hay to cut(1/4), rake(1/4), and roll(1/4) it.

 

[Duffster]

Wow you guys rent hay ground cheap.

We rented out most of our third crop only last year for $90/acre.

A full year would be in the $300 range.

 

[D7E]

Highest we could ever get for anual rent was $50 for new alfalfa/timothy leys, Another reason to hay it ourselves.
We were going to break 200 acres back to grain but the way grain prices are i think we'l keep doing a bit of hay as "Something else" for a while.

 

[sammyd]

We paid 25 an acre for just 2nd crop alfalfa.

 

[AKfish]

Wow you guys rent hay ground cheap.

We rented out most of our third crop only last year for $90/acre.

A full year would be in the $300 range.

So, 3 cutting's is the norm...? This is alfalfa ground? What is the term length of the rental agreement - 1yr, 3yr, 5yr?

AKfish

 

[Duffster]

So, 3 cutting's is the norm...? This is alfalfa ground? What is the term length of the rental agreement - 1yr, 3yr, 5yr?

AKfish

3 or 4 is the norm, some do 5.

Mostly alfalfa, the grass doesn't show up much in the later cuttings.

Lease lengths vary.

 

[AKfish]

3 or 4 is the norm, some do 5.

Mostly alfalfa, the grass doesn't show up much in the later cuttings.

Lease lengths vary.

Whew... 3,4,5 cuttings!! We're doin' good with ONE cutting - and if it's wet...

A ton to the acre is around average in this part of the state. So, when you look at the bale counter and you got 60-50lb bales to the acre; well, you can settle back and have 2 beers that night!

When I'm tryin' to figure how a guy could come out on $300/acre rent - usin' my ton/acre math - it's REALLY bad math!!

AKfish

 

[Lazy J]

We pay the same for graound rent regardless of the intended crop. On the ground we rent for hay we have 4 or 5 year leases to so can recoup the cost of seed and fertilizer.

 

[ModMech]

I don't know the exact details of the deal the previous owners had with the one neighbor, stories differ on that.

We got 104 sq bales off just under 10 Ac last October, it was DRY then WET, the opposite of what was needed for a decent crop.

Those bales sold for $6.50/b, or about $675 for the last of four cuttings in 2009. I have been told that in past years our ~10Ac was good for up to 800 bales per cutting but that was with favorable weather, fresh seeding and nitrogen all of which the neighbor does (or so we are told).

I did not ask for any money or bales from the last cutting but think that needs to be broached soon. We can only keep our ag exemption if in tillage or cattle so we need to either keep him doing it or get some cattle

We have been told that the typical local method is 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 or 50/50, where the landowner gets either about 1/3 ove the value (crop or $$) up to 50% depending. When we lived in MN the "norm" was to rent/lease land for taxes + 25% of the crop value (if any).