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SoonerAviator
I think owning a nice grass strip and hay farming might be a good combo. Might make enough to pay some of the property taxes on the land, lol.
NA - Farms
- Thread starter NealRomeoGolf
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One of our landlords gave me the flying bug. When I was about 4, he had my dad mark out a 2000x75' strip and bought a tri pacer, which I got to ride in a few times. My dad's one and only ride made it to about 200 agl before he demanded to go back down, but I fell in love with it and begged a ride whenever I could. The strip got trimmed down to about 1500x50 when they had a home built cub, which got sold 7or 8 years ago. Im very tempted to get an ultralight or small experimental to put out there, but I enjoy travel more than low&slow, so I doubt I'd fly it enough.
Tom-D
Taxi to Parking
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Tom-D
Go for it
Believe me, I have looked at some of these 100 acre dairy parcels under just that angle ;-) But you need someone interested to rent the land, and the reason that those parcels have been on the market for years may just be that the local demand for cropland is low.
Zeldman
Touchdown! Greaser!
Many years ago when I was just a mechanic, we had a customer that bought equipment and did the harvesting for everyone so they would not have to buy. It just didn't make sense for someone who farmed only 500 acres of cotton to buy a 100K (1980 prices) piece of equipment that only gets used maybe 7 days a year.
He would be really busy for a very short time, then he would drive a feed truck for the Farmers Co-op the rest of the time. He did very well for 6 or 7 years until he got married. Then he sold off what he had, except for what he would need, and then leased land to grow cotton on.
Last I heard, about 20 years ago, he had moved to west Texas and was working about 7,000 acres of cotton, so he must have done well.
James_Dean
Pattern Altitude
We have flirted with row crop farming for our operations, but have not been able to make a viable business plan for our scope. We sure do handle a lot of grain though.
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Greg Bockelman
Handle? Do you mean consume? Seems like you could feed all the chickens in the world forever with that much grain. LOL
Timbeck2
Final Approach
48 row planters? Wow, now I feel old. Only thing we had that could plant 48 rows at a time was a rice/wheat drill. Largest planter we had before I left was an 8 row planter which was mainly soybeans and milo. I grew up up Arkansas farming country and learned to drive a tractor as soon as my feet could reach the pedals and my first tractor was a John Deere model 70 with a hand clutch. By the time I was 19 and just before I joined the Air Force, I was driving air conditioned John Deere 4WD tractors with hydraulic fold up implements and I loved every minute of it. I did NOT like working in the rice fields in 100 heat and humidity to match spraying weeds with a back pack and dodging all the snakes in the hip deep rice plants. It was fun while it lasted and every time I go home I see tractors in the fields and the smell at harvest time is one I'll never forget.
Ted
The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
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iFlyNothing
Well while he doesn't own all the chickens in the world, it might seem close to it.
JOhnH
Touchdown! Greaser!
And on the flip side, those chickens would produce a whole lot of quality fertilizer.
James_Dean
Pattern Altitude
Throughout our system in Iowa and Ohio we have storage for approximately 15 million bushels of corn at our mills. We nominally purchase around 36mm bushels/yr and consume around 32mm for feed. The rest we merchandise as market conditions allow. Put another way, we use the corn from around 185,000 acres, or 300 square miles. Our biggest single regular supplier runs 30,000 acres in his operation.
Sounds big, but we’re pikers compared to most ethanol plants.
It seems to me the only way to do it and make it worthwhile is if you inherit a paid off farm and equipment.
I got the former not the latter so I just let someone else pay me to use it rather than buy half a million$ or more of machinery to do the job myself. I do a little bit of hay on my homestead with antique machinery I picked up for practically nothing and I enjoy it but to do it to make a living I have a hard time coming up with any plan that puts me ahead for all the hard work it would take.
Sad but I think it really is a family hand me down industry at this point.
I got the former not the latter so I just let someone else pay me to use it rather than buy half a million$ or more of machinery to do the job myself. I do a little bit of hay on my homestead with antique machinery I picked up for practically nothing and I enjoy it but to do it to make a living I have a hard time coming up with any plan that puts me ahead for all the hard work it would take.
Sad but I think it really is a family hand me down industry at this point.
cgrab
Pattern Altitude
On the farm I grew up on, all the grain was harvested by a contractor with a combine. We had the equipment to plant and to bale the hay and straw.
CJones
Final Approach
Gracious. That's a lot of storage. I see a dryer too - you must take it directly from the field?
The farmer I worked for during college was a couple of miles down from a turkey grower that we delivered to every once in a while. Not sure how many roll-up grow buildings they had, but not nearly the storage you're sporting there. They were much more strict on cleanliness and moisture of the corn than the Co-Op was which caused a few headaches when we got down to cleaning the bins.
CJones
Final Approach
If you really want to blow your mind, do some Google'ing on farming down in Brazil and Australia. They're operating on a whole 'nother level than what we're used to here in the US.
Back when my dad was farming he was one of the "big" farmers in the area because he had a 4-row cotton picker and a 12-row fold-up pull behind planter. Now guys are hauling 12-row planters around on 3-pt hitches.
Size isn't the only thing that has changed. The onboard tech for the equipment is phenomenal now. They're tracking seed placement and population at the individual row level and in some instances doing variable rate planting at the row level based on the soil conditions as observed by the row unit itself as it's rolling across the field. Hindsight being 20/20 and all...... Knowing what I know now, when I went back to school to finish up my degrees, I should have gone into Ag Tech studies - there's as much computer technology on equipment these days as there is raw structural engineering.
CJones
Final Approach
Sounds like you need an old AgCat - definitely scratch your 'low and slow' itch.
Zeldman
Touchdown! Greaser!
Tractors have changed a little since I was young.....
ChemGuy
Cleared for Takeoff
You had to mention the GD ethanol plants stealing all our feed corn.... muther effing gubment and their Iowa corn mafia making my steak cost $12/lb....
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Greg Bockelman
Out of curiosity, do you know what they do with the residual corn once the alcohol has been extracted? Seems like there should be some nutritional value left b
James_Dean
Pattern Altitude
They’re called DDGS, Dried Distillers Grains w/ Solubles. We use them between 0%-10% of our feed diets depending upon cost and quality.
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SoonerAviator
I think some research had been done into biofuels using the corn stover. Probably some kind of low grade feed stock as well.
Sinistar
En-Route
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Brad
I think a lot of land that was handed down to family members first went into rental - because it was family and they didn't want to sell but were not farmers either. That rental was often just to break even on taxes. Then over 20+yrs the land prices went from $300 or $400 per acre to $5000+ per acre. I've noticed now that many are selling and investing in REIT's (avoid thy taxman!). But the REIT requirements of the initial Eisenhower time frame must have relaxed as my folks REIT is now in giant apartment investments of some sort. That dividend really helps them with retirement vs selling and how much they would have lost due to taxes.
It goes into cattle feed too, though they can't eat solely distillers grain.
https://extension.umn.edu/beef-feed...istillers grains are a good,fall below 2 to 1.
There is an entire cottage industry of accountants and investment salesmen that live off selling 1031 exchanges of Ag land for apartment buildings.
I have never looked into it, but is there something like a REIT for Ag property ? You would think there is a market for that and if you have a couple of 100,000 acres under management, you can have qualified staff to manage it.
Shepherd
Final Approach
A friend bought 40 acres up the road a few miles.
She acquired a couple alpacas, a couple horses, half a dozen chickens.
Declared the place a sanctuary for unwanted farm animals.
Got the local, state and federal write-offs for a "farm".
She charges people to pet the animals, and goes to all the "farm" events up and down the east coast.
Modern farming is not what I remember it to be when I was a kid.
She acquired a couple alpacas, a couple horses, half a dozen chickens.
Declared the place a sanctuary for unwanted farm animals.
Got the local, state and federal write-offs for a "farm".
She charges people to pet the animals, and goes to all the "farm" events up and down the east coast.
Modern farming is not what I remember it to be when I was a kid.
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jsstevens
Got to be able to pull the new high speed planters.Tractors have changed a little since I was young.....
denverpilot
Tied Down
Our only remaining family farm is mostly leased out, the current generation didn’t want to run it, and our “cousins” who are aging live on a small portion with a few cattle and planting for themselves and a little extra to share.
It’ll be gone in a few more years. Which is fine. Tons of work and a reasonable life, but nothing that’ll make anybody a billionaire or scale to any real size.
For small farms it seems more like a lifestyle decision than a growth business decision these days. And about where you want to live. If you bust your butt you can be comfortable, like many jobs. But it’ll be a long drive to a movie theater or fancy dinner out. Vacations need someone else willing to bust their butt while you’re away.
We haven’t seen them in a long time and keep meaning to stop as we wander through KS, which we probably won’t do this year. It’d be nice to see them and the place one more time.
The South Dakota stuff was let go of two generations ago. That’s some really hard farming.
It’ll be gone in a few more years. Which is fine. Tons of work and a reasonable life, but nothing that’ll make anybody a billionaire or scale to any real size.
For small farms it seems more like a lifestyle decision than a growth business decision these days. And about where you want to live. If you bust your butt you can be comfortable, like many jobs. But it’ll be a long drive to a movie theater or fancy dinner out. Vacations need someone else willing to bust their butt while you’re away.
We haven’t seen them in a long time and keep meaning to stop as we wander through KS, which we probably won’t do this year. It’d be nice to see them and the place one more time.
The South Dakota stuff was let go of two generations ago. That’s some really hard farming.
Craig
Cleared for Takeoff
Couple of the guys I follow are running 60 row air seeders and have hp to run them at 10 mph. The Welkers are running a bit over 10,000 acres and I think it took them about 8-10 days to seed it all, running two Big Buds with air seeders.
New combine will set you back about 900k plus over 120k for a 40 foot bean or corn head. A new Deere 8 series with tracks is well over 500k. Probably running close to 100k in electronics to set up a seeder, tractor, sprayer and a combine these days. Phenomenal amount of data they can collect and run by with that stuff.
New combine will set you back about 900k plus over 120k for a 40 foot bean or corn head. A new Deere 8 series with tracks is well over 500k. Probably running close to 100k in electronics to set up a seeder, tractor, sprayer and a combine these days. Phenomenal amount of data they can collect and run by with that stuff.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
We in aviation have nothing on farmers when it comes to Avionics.
Possum
Pre-takeoff checklist
I farm cotton, peanuts, corn, wheat and soybeans. Here are some rambling thoughts about farming and land ownership. The roi on farmland here is around 5% when calculating rent or return on timber sales. Adding irrigation will increase the return significantly. We own about 1/3 of our land and lease the rest. Buying land is requires a least a 30% down payment or a pledge of other assets for the down payment. The real value of land ownership will come from [hopefully] the appreciation of the land over time. Thus you receive income from rent and expected appreciation of the land value for a potential future sale of the land. The average size of a farming operation here is about 2000 acres. You need that much to justify the equipment needed to farm. One of the biggest problems with agriculture in this country is that young people are not attracted to the small. boring rural areas where ag is centered. A kid comes out of college and despite the fact he was raised on a farm, he just can't get excited about the quiet sleepy rural life after spending four plus years in a college town pouring down Heinekens. And attracting a city girl to join him on the farm is another challenge. Many rural areas of this country don't have high speed internet. Finally, being self employed requires a person to get private health insurance. This may be a the single biggest deterrent to attracting folks to return to rural areas to farm. I spend about 20K per year on heath insurance and that is with a 10K deductible. Despite the challenges I love my work and have no regrets. Wouldn't change a thing although I wish I had more time to fly my 172.
jnmeade
Cleared for Takeoff
After THE war, a number of Allison engines went into the pulling tractors.
Yep, it's hard to get a city girl to go to a farm where she is an immigrant (the whole family wonders if she'll divorce the guy and split up the farm in a few years) and can be very hard to prove herself. Kind of like a Chinese daughter-in-law. Farm wives aren't keen on pre-nups.
On the other hand, as the young men go off to the city, an increasing number of young women are getting into all aspects of agriculture and generally doing quite well. They tend to outwork the men. They custom hire much of the heavy work done although there are plenty who find it's not hard to run an air-conditioned combine.
Going back to work on the farm after college can mean getting back into a "hired man" status with Dad, who is likely good for another 30 years. You're 25 but he orders you around like you were 15. I am 76 and there are plenty of farmers older than I, with auto-steer, hydraulics, etc. I'm still doing most of the farming by myself. Is it any wonder that not even grandkids see a future in the farm when there's little prospect of running it themselves? How many young city girls will add being the hired-man's wife to living in the country?
In addition, if you stick it out and Dad dies when you're 55, the rest of the kids (or their spouses) often want to cash-out like right now, and all of a sudden you find the equity you thought you were building up is gone because it was all promises and the will says "divide equally" even though you put all the work into building it up. "But Dad promised us....." Try to explain that to the 53 year old wife who bought into the dream.
As the neighbor buys up that 160, he sells off the house to a city slicker who wants the idyllic country life but doesn't care that your hog facility was there first, that you've been running the fan on that grain drier for 30 years, that he has to pull over to let your ripper by and that combining beans creates a lot of dust.
Yep, lots of dynamics to growing up on the farm.
On the other hand, I fly off my strip. When I have custom workers come in I watch to make d....d sure they don't drive on my runway.
Yep, it's hard to get a city girl to go to a farm where she is an immigrant (the whole family wonders if she'll divorce the guy and split up the farm in a few years) and can be very hard to prove herself. Kind of like a Chinese daughter-in-law. Farm wives aren't keen on pre-nups.
On the other hand, as the young men go off to the city, an increasing number of young women are getting into all aspects of agriculture and generally doing quite well. They tend to outwork the men. They custom hire much of the heavy work done although there are plenty who find it's not hard to run an air-conditioned combine.
Going back to work on the farm after college can mean getting back into a "hired man" status with Dad, who is likely good for another 30 years. You're 25 but he orders you around like you were 15. I am 76 and there are plenty of farmers older than I, with auto-steer, hydraulics, etc. I'm still doing most of the farming by myself. Is it any wonder that not even grandkids see a future in the farm when there's little prospect of running it themselves? How many young city girls will add being the hired-man's wife to living in the country?
In addition, if you stick it out and Dad dies when you're 55, the rest of the kids (or their spouses) often want to cash-out like right now, and all of a sudden you find the equity you thought you were building up is gone because it was all promises and the will says "divide equally" even though you put all the work into building it up. "But Dad promised us....." Try to explain that to the 53 year old wife who bought into the dream.
As the neighbor buys up that 160, he sells off the house to a city slicker who wants the idyllic country life but doesn't care that your hog facility was there first, that you've been running the fan on that grain drier for 30 years, that he has to pull over to let your ripper by and that combining beans creates a lot of dust.
Yep, lots of dynamics to growing up on the farm.
On the other hand, I fly off my strip. When I have custom workers come in I watch to make d....d sure they don't drive on my runway.
Kenny Phillips
Final Approach
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Kenny Phillips
I helped my uncle on his tiny PA farm back in the day (under 200 acres.) That made me long to be the landowner, watching someone else do the farming! The most I'd ever do is 50-100 acres of hay, to feed the cattle on my hobby farm, 'cuz 99% of it can be done sitting on the tractor. I eat a lot of beef! But the little woman is changing her mind on where she wants to live when we retire in two years, so that vision may disappear as well. If we move to the PNW I'll have to consider moisture farming.
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
I've got roughly 6 acres of hay, and about that much in pasture. Right now nothing on the pasture, but eventually some horses will end up there. I've got a local guy who cuts my hay for me on a very fair deal. Sometime in the future I'd like to do my own hay, but I'd need more than 6 acres to make it worth having my own equipment, IMO. Probably 15-20 acres to do, to make it worth my time and investment.
It seems that there is a combination of challenges for someone to get started that make it very difficult unless they get a helping hand from someone (usually family) already in the business. Who is going to rent land to you if you dont already have a track record ? Even if you can scrounge up a complement of serviceable equipment and with all the 'beginning farmer' loan programs, getting the financing for the operating capital is challenging. It's not like a kid coming out of state college with an Ag degree can just snap his fingers and start with a 1000 rented acres, a full complement of machinery and an approved line of credit. As everyone who has posted here has said, it requires a certain scale for it to make sense.
There are some who try to straddle this by driving packages for UPS and farming on the side until they realize that a few shifts of overtime every month is going to pay more than their entire part-time farm.
A story often repeated, and interestingly not limited to the US. The same playbook has been implemented on many farms the world over. One of the sons comes back to work with dad and gets f%%%ed over by his siblings the moment dad closes his eyes. Its almost like its from the bible or something.
And none of this has to happen. We got to know some farmers in northwest MN where 'dad' decided he would nip that right in the bud and spare his kids the discord he had seen so many times. As soon as his kids were out of the house, he converted the operation into a corporate entity (iirc a LLC). When one of his sons came back and started to work for him, he gave him an increasing membership interest with every year of work. At some point, he became the 'hired man' for his son. Pretty soon after that, he sold off some acres and retired to his house in Mesa, only to come back to drive the combine during harvest etc. The other kids are going to get a few acres of dirt when he dies, the business itself is with the son who put in the work.
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EdFred
Taxi to Parking
You'll have to find a droid that speaks Bocce.
Chip Sylverne
Final Approach
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
[QUOTE="Kenny Phillips, post: 2943662, member: ] The most I'd ever do is 50-100 acres of hay, to feed the cattle on my hobby farm, 'cuz 99% of it can be done sitting on the tractor.[/QUOTE]
Having just finished 50 acres of hay, that's the funniest thing I've read in quite a while...
Having just finished 50 acres of hay, that's the funniest thing I've read in quite a while...
Zeldman
Touchdown! Greaser!
I remember an old farmer when I was growing up.
McDonald was his name, first name Bo.
He had some chics there on his farm.
Swinginest chics I know....
McDonald was his name, first name Bo.
He had some chics there on his farm.
Swinginest chics I know....