What do you folks think about it?

That outlook is what it's always been... A rollercoaster ride.

Only now, there are less and less on the rollercoaster.

America and the world better start looking for alternative places to feed people.

If fuel prices stay put it will be a big help. It will make life a little bit easier and be interesting to see what happens to the price of fertilizer and wrap.

With the US$ skyrocketing, crop pricss are necessarily under a lot of pressure. Input prices are unlikely to fall with it, and certainly not enough to off-set it.

Same as always. For every 10 years, about 3 boom through the roof then 7 crash through the floor.

5 years ago corn was making a killing. Today it's beef. Tomorrow it will be whatever the speculators have pushed it toward. Who knows? Wheat? Beans? Switchgrass?

My guess would be oil too. After they tanked the prices and bought past their limits of cheap oil.

Those that can farm and manage, will be OK, and the ones that can't, will go under, same as always. miles

If you are selling at a loss management has nothing to do with it. The people with enough money in the bank survive and then buy the little guy out.Thats why there are less farmers all the time.Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. ED K

At present prices and averaged yields banks cannot make loans cash flow so what's taking place here is that the insurance folks are computing component cost vs max insurance payment and the farmer is going to have to come up with the difference! All farmers need is a decent price for their production but there is only so much can be done to enhance max yield so if Americans want to continue to eat on a regular basis.....they best be praying that commodity prices keep the farmer in business!! Unless component cost decrease in relation to current prices....the schitt will hit the fan!!

We still have drought in some areas, lots of land lying fallow, and haven't been planted for awhile. I live in town and have a garden that feeds me for a few months. But water costs went way up.
And I've noticed last couple years fewer local farmers at the farmers market. I keep hearing that lots of agricultural land being sold off, as farmers can't make them go at a profit. Sad. But I hope this land isn't being sold off to out of country investors.

The good managers know that the bad times are coming and save for it, the others spend like it will always be good. I have lived in farm country, worked on, and known farmers all my life and have seen this played out over and over. miles

Most every cow/calf operation around here in the 'sixties is still going on the same grass and wheat pastures, often by the offspring of the 'sixties owner.

The old time cattlemen lived by one rule..... when it's time to ship your calves, ship them.

Meanwhile, the guys buying yearlings to winter on wheat pasture have changed faces on a regular basis.

The difference is that the first is dealing in cattle, and the second is dealing in money.

I heartily disagree.

Just how many years of government interference, drought, high operating costs, disease, and environmental terrorism should a "good manager" save for?

To save for the bad times, one most first have enough to live on, from the good times, and have enough left over to build that hedge.

Maybe it's different where you live, but I have travelled extensively throughout the U.S., and have personally witnessed millions and millions of acres of land that were farmed and ranched in days gone by that lie dormant and unused now.

Must be tens of thousands of "bad managers" out there, because sooner or later something forces them out of business.

Down in Florida, Citrus is taking a pounding from disease. Crop down to about a half from say 10 years ago. That's big bucks.
Soybeans, tobacco, peanuts and truck farming are doing well.

A lot of that fallow land is put into various set-aside programs by excellent managers.

A good manager manages the investment. A farmer farms the investment.

The bad manager does "what they have always done", the good manager does what it takes to generate the best return.

Management isn't just about cash management, it's about managing inputs, crop selection, disease management, harvest timing, sales timing, hedging, customer relations, risk management, and so on.

And a lot of those places are not farmed or ranched now because they went broke for various reasons. I know the families that used to farm or ranch them.

Just curious how many that have all this "management" advice actually make their families' living in that?

That is a good question. Many farmers around here are working jobs on the side just to hold on to the farm.

Its like i tell people. If thats all it takes to make it why don't you go borrow about 3 million and jump right in. It takes x amount of fertilizer and sprays and smarts to get a crop. No management in the world makes up for selling at a loss. I have survived some hard times but then my cash input was not near as high. ED K

Amen.

In my 60+ years of being around farming, I have seen farmers start with nothing and do well over a long period of time and I have seen them start with a good farm, and equipment and go broke. And everything in between. You explain it differently than being both a good farmer and a good manager on the ones that succeed. miles

I'm not saying that they aren"t one and the same. But one cannot control weather and or price. I got lucky this year and my grain didn't have much deasease. I lost some money but not like some neighbors. You tell me how manag
ement has to do with selling wheat for for 1.50 to 2.00 dollars er bushel. ED K

That must have been some pretty bad wheat. Not management but farm practices. Maybe your land would be better off in something other than wheat. Farming has to figured for longer than a year or two. There will be good times, you just have to make it there. miles

Miles, it was a freak weather related reason for the extreme dockage.


$6-7 wheat turned into hog feed.

Beautiful crops, not poor farm practices.

but will any of this matter once we consume the urth?

My grandfather came from Germany in 1892. He bought land farmed it and and nearly lost it all in the early 30s.
My father inherited 320 acre from him in the 1950s. My father worked that land and had one and at times two outside jobs to help support the family and grow the land.
Our neighbors bought boats, cruises and other things that had no long term financial value. At the same time my dad was working all these jobs and buying land.
Today, virtually all of the neighbors are out of the farming business, working low wage jobs or retired and living on a string.
The size of my grandfathers 320 acres is well over 2000 acres and is operated by my brother. He and my father were/are good marketers of their crops and livestock and diversified into selling seed, and other revenue producing activities, etc. They understood how to make money and they don't spend it on non productive things, or land that on average cant produce enough revenue to pay for it self. But they picked up a lot of land from people that didn't understand that or let their egos run their business.
That's not to say every year profits were great, but in total, they have been very successful.
I think the prospects in agriculture are very positive for people that want to work hard and run a business. Its not so positive for those that expect the business to run itself.

Lot of truth in that Dale.

We farm some land that has been in the family for close to 100 years, back when the homesteaders first moved into this country.


My dad was always interested in cattle though and he started that side of the 'farm' on his own back in the 1970's.

That and a fairly brief stint in hogs. I don't miss those things....grin



Long story short there were an awful lot of lean years but he's in a comfortable spot now. Of course my mom and us kids pitched in and worked to make it happen as well.


The main thing I've been taught is try not to buy anything that doesn't increase your net worth.

Lots of cows but we're pretty short on snow mobiles, jet ski's and chit like that.....grin


And a vacation?!

Actually now that I'm back my folks have got to go on a couple short trips but nothing crazy.


My brother has been married for a couple years now and I still haven't met his wife and my only nephew.

In NW Iowa, the land of livestock confinements and the $20k/acre farmland there is a lot of affluence. Many farmers have become multi-millionaires through hard work, good business, and yes, government subsidies too. A government spun tax code that would confuse a spider has helped.

I'm not a farmer and this is not true of everybody of course but the small family crop and livestock farm is becoming extinct. There are very large family spreads yet and corporate farms and sprawling confinements are common place. Farmers now have to be pretty shrewd business men and there are many here judging from the looks of things.

Folks here are generally fiscally conservative though and unlike the high interest rate period of the early eighties (Carter) when many lost land and farms, most here weather normal commodity ups and downs in good order.

And Obama's fabricated economic figures aside, generally, I see many middle class and below in for more challenging times.

George, some of the big, fancy farmers around here got in trouble years back.

Not Iowa 'fancy' but they had the new equipment, built nice heated shops and were paying top dollar for land.

Then they hit a couple rough years.


Got their loans written off/reduced and still managed to keep everything.

Tough to compete against guys that are willing to go that far just to get ahead.


Same guys play the 'farm game' and have figured out how maximize everything regarding payments.

I believe in crop insurance if you have a legitimate disaster but some of the payments are lame.

Of course we run cows on public land and a lot of people don't like that. And right now the grass seems like a good deal but it wasn't always this way.

Somebody said that if Dolly Parton was a farmer, she would be flat busted too.

Crops are a crap shoot due to precip. Cattle prices great if one has some to sell.

Speaking of Dolly - She is one of my recurring nightmares. She was my mom, and I was a bottle baby.

There are about 9 grains that North Dakota produces more bushels of than any other state.Year in year out since the first ground was farmed here wheat is THE crop.You experiment and raise some others but wheat is literally the bread and butter here. We average 14 inches total percipitation per year including snow. That dictates a lot of crops. ED

You need a little rain to grow grass for the cows but I know what you mean. Feel terrible for the ranchers down in Texas that had to sell out because of the drought. And right now a rain in Texas should help the falling cattle market. I'm not up to date on drought conditions but moisture should increase demand.



As for farmers, they tie up big $$$ planting and spraying and fertilizing and(watering) a crop and one storm could take it out in a minute or two.

Of course a wildfire or wicked weather could take out a herd of cattle but that is a lot more rare.
(and try buying insurance for that)

The farmers here quit raising anything in the way of summer crops that they can't irrigate. The 1980's put a lot of dry land farmers out. Winter wheat and oats are still planted on land with no water. We get plenty of rain but not much in the hot summer. Tail water irrigation has become a big thing in the past few years because they have pumped out so much of the underground water. And too the Feds are helping pay for it. miles