Sad day for this farmer

[ovrszd]

I don't think it matters where you are located, land will sell for more to develop than farm.

 

[smstonypoint]

Pretty much guaranteed these days that if you are close to a major university (Ann Arbor, Columbus, etc.) your land has more value as residential than it does farming. I saw that in the Madison area. Those professors get paid a lot!

And rightly so.

Steve

 

[DrRod]

Sorry, but professors don't get paid a lot. The real money is in publishing and consulting. If there is anyone highly paid in the university community it is top administrators and the contractors bringing government contracts to the school. Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and dozens of small companies have a presence on large campuses to foster joint research and development contracts.

 

[Turbys_1700]

I don't know beef prices as I type this. Back years ago we had 3 small herds on 3 different farms. Pop has approximately 25 brood cows on each farm. We sold in the neighborhood 75 calves a year. At that time we tried to sell them at 400# where the price was 1 dollar per pound. Yearly annual income was $30K per year. Back then building lots around here we're in the 10K per acre range. Now it's double that. One farm was 100 acres, another 70, and another #70. Doesn't take long to realize farming will never compete to development whether it's residential or commercial.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Dairy farmers really hurting.

That was a very low price that farm sold for in Culpeper. Some real estate investor will make a killing out of their expense..

 

[Bird]

Sorry, but professors don't get paid a lot.

But the football coach is another matter.

 

[ovrszd]

But the football coach is another matter.

That's a whole new thread.

 

[DrRod]

But the football coach is another matter.

Good point. And don't forget the basketball coach.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I heard once that humans are the only species that drink milk as adults. I certainly can't think of any others?

Never had barn cats, have you? I grew up milking cows, and the barn cats would line up at milking time for their milk.

Adult lactose tolerance in humans is a mutation that has only evolved twice, once in Northern Europe and once in East Africa, both times in just the last few thousand years. If your family is from Denmark there is almost no chance you are lactose intolerant, but if your family is from Italy it's about 50/50.

 

[ovrszd]

Never had barn cats, have you? I grew up milking cows, and the barn cats would line up at milking time for their milk.

Adult lactose tolerance in humans is a mutation that has only evolved twice, once in Northern Europe and once in East Africa, both times in just the last few thousand years. If your family is from Denmark there is almost no chance you are lactose intolerant, but if your family is from Italy it's about 50/50.

As a kid would squirt the milk in their mouths as I "pumped" it. My dog will drink milk if I give it to him too. But neither go around looking for a donor cat/dog to nurse on a regular basis.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

As a kid would squirt the milk in their mouths as I "pumped" it. My dog will drink milk if I give it to him too. But neither go around looking for a donor cat/dog to nurse on a regular basis.

My dad would squirt us....

 

[kevin37b]

Good point. And don't forget the basketball coach.

And all of the maintenance people , 4 of them in crewcab trucks riding around doing nothing . This is the U of I campus in Champaign Il .

 

[CADplans]

Dairy farmers really hurting.

That was a very low price that farm sold for in Culpeper. Some real estate investor will make a killing out of their expense..

Nope, no developer can ever touch it,, the land was put in a conservation program.
I had that program offered to me,, there are organizations that actually offer BIG $$$$ to you to put your land in the program.
After your land is in,, it is locked FOREVER,, no homes, only farming, and hunting, etc,,,

That guy probably made a bundle on the land,, back then,, I hope he invested the money wisely.
That is why the $1.3 million farm sold for $770,000,,,

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Nope, no developer can ever touch it,, the land was put in a conservation program.
I had that program offered to me,, there are organizations that actually offer BIG $$$$ to you to put your land in the program.
After your land is in,, it is locked FOREVER,, no homes, only farming, and hunting, etc,,,

That guy probably made a bundle on the land,, back then,, I hope he invested the money wisely.
That is why the $1.3 million farm sold for $770,000,,,

Thanks for the update on the low sale price. Conservation programs are nice, but in the end you get one shot to get it right. Maybe someone else will farm it then.

 

[LouNY]

Those conservation plans are a pure ripoff for the farmer.
You will get a low price for the development rights and maybe a write off on some tax, then the local taxes will keep going up till the farmer is taxed out of the property with taxes higher
then the value of any crops that can be grown. Then if you look closer the bunch that bought it has the right to sell or transfer those development rights to some other property that they deem suitable and then can sell it for development. A lot of property in this area has had the development rights sold or given away to so called conservation groups. How they came up with a $1.3 million value can be an interesting exercise in numbers lying, it sure couldn't be done by calculating the value of any crops that could be grown, it had to be the full sale value of the property and then to pay $770,000 if it couldn't be developed, bull. It would not be economically farmed for that price, sooner or later it will be sub divided into some 20-60 acre lots at a minimum and sold for that that much or more per lot.
Also for the people carrying on about the subsidies check and see what "farms" got those, the smaller what I would consider family farms (a farm owned and operated by mostly family members with not more hires help then family) did not get hardly any of that tax payer money.

 

[Dadnatron]

I have to say, I disagree with a lot of what is being stated on this thread.

"Everyone loves the old life", my Grandpa used to say, "But, that damned old life was hard."

Our HUMAN and AMERICAN society changes all the time. In 100yrs we changed from an almost total agrarian society to almost totally Urban. Some farmers grew and expanded, some tried to stay the same and survived, some others died out. But the constant is change.

The problem with prices and farming (for everything for that matter) is .gov subsidies. All subsidies are bad, because they artificially alter how we view the product and hence the 'work' involved in the product. Be that farming, steel, coal, and/or solar. When the product's price does not adequately reflect the work involved, problems will ALWAYS occur.

Cutting subsidies would be painful for a short time, but it is the only hope that we, as a free society, have in a future. We are $20T in debt and that will come home to roost. People who think those corporate farms would thrive in a 'free market' world are mistaken. They can only survive in THIS SUBSIDIZED world. Artificially low rate loans, subsidized steel, subsidized healthcare, subsidized everything. Without .gov controlling everything, those corporations would bust up.

Smart farmers are changing... they aren't trying to compete on commodity type crops. There is no one in the world who can grow corn/soybeans as well as an Iowa/Illinois/Indiana farmer. It just isn't going to happen. So those smaller farmers are looking at what people are actually BUYING rather than 'what I've always grown'. They are producing peppers, peas, and hops. They are binding together in co-ops once again. Beef producers are moving to low stress, smaller framed cattle which can be grazed via high density rotational grazing. They feed very little, calve in May and June, have >95% fertility, and produce truly grassfed beef.

It is the farmers who are unwilling to change who cannot compete. It has always been the same. Boat-wrights died out when steel ships came into being. Buggy Whip manufacturers disappeared with automobiles. Taxis with Uber.

Milk prices have been artificially subsidized for the population to keep the masses quiet. It is a well understood fact that if you feed and distract the populace, they will remain placid. But... that cannot go on forever.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

How does a small farm stay competitive?

Falling milk prices sour a way of life for Culpeper dairy farmer | Cse | starexponent.com

Dairy farmers are getting destroyed because of over production and the fact that they didn't participate in the monster rise in price of grains a few years ago that put new, reliable equipment under the feet of grain farmers. I imagine the only way to weather this downturn is diversify if possible, and expense it out against income.

 

[teejk]

Dairy farmers are getting destroyed because of over production and the fact that they didn't participate in the monster rise in price of grains a few years ago that put new, reliable equipment under the feet of grain farmers. I imagine the only way to weather this downturn is diversify if possible, and expense it out against income.

It's basic economics at work isn't? I look around here and see the "mega-parlors" growing (automated milking systems) and the nearby cheese factories growing as well (closer to the source = less trucking costs). I know we have some nostalgic fondness for the family farmer (perhaps artificially extended via price supports) but we live in a global economy now. The small farmer needs to adapt to that. Those around here that continue on the family farm will not be caught without a computer as they check market prices etc. frequently.

 

[Bird]

"Everyone loves the old life", my Grandpa used to say, "But, that damned old life was hard."

I have a lot of fond memories of the "old life", but your Grandpa was absolutely right, and no way I'd want to go back to having to milk a cow at 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., go to the outhouse instead of an indoor bathroom, bathe in a washtub in the middle of the kitchen floor, feed and water hogs, chickens, cow, horse, etc. every day regardless of the weather or how you feel (no such thing as being too sick to do it; it had to be done). And literally work from sunup to sundown. We never ate supper before dark, because, as Dad said, you can work outside as long as it's light enough to see. No TV, of course, but we'd have been too tired to watch it anyway.:laughing: We got our first TV when I was 14.

Yes, there were good times, riding horses, hunting, fishing, etc. but overall it was a pretty hard life.

 

[ovrszd]

Everyone in this conversation that makes their living farming without outside income speak up?