Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Family farm economics for the rest of us.

The property prices sound pretty good - IF you want to sell.
Cattle, and farming, are not a job for many of us - it IS a lifestyle that we love, and try our damndest to make a decent living from.
In the '50's, my dad told me that food was ~ 25 - 30 % of a family's expense.
Now, IIRC, it's ~ 12% - that "money" came right out of the producer's pockets.
Where my father-in-law raised 7 kids on 5000 acres - that would now be called a "hobby ranch" by the IRS.
Big corporations are taking over the family operations, many for tax shelters - making it next to compete by the small operations.
The big corp's save by "economy of scale" - leading to many more problems.

Do YOU want an unfeeling, ONLY for profit, corporation providing your foodstuffs - ignoring the health and welfare of the folks depending on them?
And then, making BIG bucks putting said property into some "conservancy easement" to make big .gov bucks while taking land out of production???
Here in NM, the US Govt already owns near, or over over 1/2the property - and the state owns another very substantial amount. Then they let us "lease" the property under very draconian rules - .gov knows best!
That's how they managed to burn the largest fire in New Mexico's history 1 1/2 years ago.
And are yet to make ANY considerable compensation to the aggrieved parties. Those who settled, mostly did so from frustration!

"We're from the government - we're here to help you."

The little guy gets screwed EVERY way from Sunday - mostly by .gov or .gov enabled (and financed) large corporations.

Rant over.

Cougar time?

Chit...

Hell no!

I read an article about farmers who are opening up a storefront on the farm. In many cases it was a difference makers. People are really attracted to the farm that sells it own cheese , ice cream, tomato sauce, etc.,

Just imagine having a website and selling it online, opening up a youtube channel like this kid and selling merch like hoodies and coffee cups with your farm brand

I'm sitting on a farm that was carved out of Oklahoma red dirt in the last, 1904 Oklahoma land rush.
To complete the "homestead contract", you had to show an agricultural profit within 5 years!
This red clay is tough as nails! I can't even imagine hoe the wife's great grandfather was able to scratch a living out of this place.
"Hardscrabble" takes on a whole new meaning.
Wheat couldn't have been more than pennies per bushel.
Getting enough of this dirt rolled over with horses HAD to be an exercise in futility!
Probably sowed the wheat by hand. Without nitrogen, I can't see how they could wrest more than 15 bushels per acre!

My neighbor farms several hundred acres. He plants wheat for pasture only.
His "crop" is his cattle.
He gets paid ONCE A YEAR!
Out of that, he has to plow, fertilize, sow, buy calves, buy meds to vaccinate his livestock, repair his farm equipment, build/rebuild fence, cut and bale hay, etc, etc, etc....
The man is amazing!!!!
If M. is planting wheat and he has 1/2 acre left to plant and his tractor oil change comes due. He will stop planting and send his hand back to his shop for oil and filters and change it right there on the field.
If the man ever parks a piece of equipment and says, "It's worn out!", not even the junk man wants it! LOL!!!

.....and he's been doing it since he was 12 years old!

Just imagine having a website and selling it online, opening up a youtube channel like this kid and selling merch like hoodies and coffee cups with your farm brand[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/live/r8FdpFhtsYc?si=azAdLWsUfehaCWSJ

Laura just hit 500000 subscribers

lol

Right now the Internet is flooded with farm and homestead influencers all trying to justify why their burger is $10-12/lb. They go on and on about how much better their product is or "evil/bad" others are. I don't believe in talking [bleep] on other types of ag or trying to bullshit our way to more sales.

Our goal is to sell a quality product, in a way that is obtainable for more people. But when you split up a steer by the cut, it takes slot more customers/time to pay for that animal. It takes a lot of jars of spaghetti sauce, or lbs of burger to pay the bills. The bundles are just another piece to the puzzle. Just like most businesses it all has its place.

We have to pay for the insurance every year or uncle sam gets pissy.

The cotton farm has raised 4 kids in my wife's family and our 2 kids worked spraying weeds for money for school clothes.

It is only about 300 acres.

Things have been tight over the years but no one went broke or hungry.

I started doing alfalfa for our horses and sold the rest,went from 3 acres to 16 and when it came time to take it out of field it was tough for me.

I did it because i liked the smell,color and it was honest work.

Uncle Sam had no part in the hay business and i am thinking about going again into it but with large round bales.
So i will not try to pick them up by hand.

No wonder they don’t do Farmaid concerts anymore, they’re all Fugkin rich!

We are now selling about 15% of our production off the farm. A couple of years ago we had the bright idea that if people were willing to drive 90 minutes (our customer's average drive time to the farm) to pick up fish, we would make BANK if we would just deliver.

Nope. Nothing doing. Spent about nine months marketing, developing websites, photo shoots, hired a publicist, route schedules, promotions, flyers and what not. No real business to be had. You know what DID happen? Twice as many people showed up at the farm. The publicity and "buzz" did bring people out.

Turns out, an essential part of our "product" is the farm experience. The drive into the "country", seeing where the fish are raised, farm dogs, horses in the pasture, the goats running around and the vegetable garden are why people come out. The product is nice, but it's food as recreation, just like a restaurant. We grow half an acre or so of sweet corn, plus some squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, just to give away to customers when they show up. The cheapest advertising I can buy is customer goodwill. This year we'll add a "show pond", throw in some 10 lb bass, 20 lb catfish and 40 lb barramundi for the kids to gawk at. It'll be a good time.

I've looked at goats, pigs and cows to add to our selection, but I'm not fond of the economics. Those are tough unless you can get a 20-30% premium over the going price. Then again, anyone who goes into off the farm retail has to realize that you're going to have to sell to people unlike yourselves, i.e. people who have large disposable incomes and SPEND IT. For me the nickel dropped when I was poking around at a farmer's market in San Francisco, and a farmer was there selling pints of blackberries.... for $14! My mother would have cussed him out for a thief, lol. But, there's people with money that WANT to spend the money to know where their food comes from. It's a mindset foreign to most farmers, since cost, cost, cost is drilled into us from every angle. But cost is NOT what a significant portion of the public's primary concern is.

A doable cattle operation these days is best done with enough land to harvest wintering hay/alfalfa with enough harvest to sell off plenty of the extra. Irrigation of course the bonus.

This generally leads to long hot summers working hay and longer cold winters feeding. Besides everything else.
Sure isn’t “Yellowstone”.

Moving cows, branding, shots, shipping, calving, doctoring, feeding, sorting, round ups, pump maintenance, equipment maintenance, cutting, swathing, bailing, stacking, shipping and on and on and on and who was counting hours?

Osky

that's great

there is a place down the road called Shaw Farms. They have a farmers market stand for the latter part of the summer but they also grow several acres of pumpkins. They have a few acres next to the stand where they have a corn maze, a hay ride around the farm, a petting zoo of goats, lamas, pigs, whatever.

From late September to Halloween, schools take field trips during the week and they need local police on the weekend for manage traffic.

No idea how much they bring in but they move a lot of product. Every person that goes there spends money on something.

note: just read on their website - 500 tons of pumpkins a year

Myself and I’m sure a bunch of people here second that notion 👍🏻

I order once or twice a month from this guy..

https://arrowheadbeef.com/

Started ordering when they shut down the restaurants during the pandemic, his business was heavily dependent on the commercial restaurant trade.

It worked out well, I didn’t have to fight for my beef at the local grocery and he developed a broader market.

I been ordering from him ever since, mostly his aged beef and Wagyu products.

He ships via UPS on Mondays, I get my shipments on Wednesdays.

He's pretty 'sold out' of some of his normally available products right now due to his 25% off Black Friday sale.

New jd cotton stripper will cost right at one million dollars

The company I sold years ago specialized in building and remodeling food processing facilities and the stringent requirements for those folks to sell to the public were many. How are these small operators managing the inspections, regulations, sanitary requirements and still making profit?

Osky

We found out in 1968 we had to go big or get out. We were milking cows by hand and suddenly all of the rules on milk handling changed. We didn't have the money to go big so one day we were milking cows and the next they were on their way to the sale barn. It has been "go big or get out" ever since. If you have a business you can write off your expenses. Buying land is a write off to continue your business. Now the farmers are competing against New York lawyers, leftist activists and the Chinese to own the land.

There are no young farmers trying to make it in the business. They have been priced out. if you are lucky your family is in the business and you can buy into it. That means mom and dad can move to town and you pay them to move to town and the farm is yours. If you can afford it.

kwg

Those cotton strippers are not made in the south where the cotton is, they are made in Ankeny Iowa and then shipped south.

kwg