I gave my 5 and 7 year olds the speech the other day about how one day the place is going to be there’s so they need to take care of it. I threw in the bit that I would come back to haunt them if they sold it. The oldest told me they wouldn’t sell it but when I died they were going to turn something loose to eat all the cows.

The younger ones say that, but when it comes down to it,most when reaching adult hood inherit the land and then sell it off, not wanting to continue with farming or ranching.You can grow 8 houses on an acre of land, but it takes 30-35 acres to run one cow/calf around here. Lot more instant money in that.

Just south of me where there were a few thousand acres tracks, I see 5000-8000 homes being put up as fast as they can build them and they sell the next day. Where I antelope hunt,those that inherited the land want 3-4 times what the person who was leasing the land for 30-40 years was paying..They can't get it, so they sell the land. An out of state buyer gets it for a tax write off, takes the land out of production and leases to anoutfitter that locks the land up

Remember the story about the goose that laid the golden egg?

I think of that every time the young want all the money NOW!

There would more ranches handed down if the kids could grow up, get married, and have the ranch support them.

But, sadly, the vast majority of agriculture operations won't support mom, dad, and a few kids.

That's the main reason ag operations are sold off. The kids got sent to school and got a pat on the bottom to go make their own way.... Then dad dies, and mom lives there until she passes or goes somewhere that can take care of her. Kids sell the farm.

Barry, in your neighborhood, how large a spread does it take to make a decent living?

It varies widely here.

3-400 acres seem to support a family if in the right spot with the right water and other improvements.

But, like I said, it is a wide range.

I know one guy that runs 50-70 cows on 100 ac, and cuts hay off the place.

Other places here 10 cows on a 100 ac is over grazed.

When ranching out in W. Texas S. NM, we used to joke it took a section to run a cow...

Sad part is, that it wasn't much of an exaggeration for that country.

Along with size, or acres , a lot of farmers have a job in town.

My boys work off farm in winter both drive semi truck. One has always trucked the other worked in the oil field until Trudeau killed it. They are very committed to the farm. I trucked in off season till 3 years ago.

My folks got their mortgage paid off five or six years ago. They were at it for over 40 years.


We have been here a long time......better than 100 years.

Still paying for it!


Very few "next generations" got the place free and clear up here. Probably because its relatively new country.


I hope my kids will think about staying here.


With our new farming and ranching practices we have been lowering expenses to the point that it will take fewer acres to support a family.


We have no town jobs....and are proud of that. Of course, not everyone had the chance to buy into an operation and build a 400 cow operation with out the gate grass.


We are truly lucky!

When I went on my tour of Southern Sask this fall I could not believe the farm consolidation that had taken place.


Fellow I was meeting in Golden Prairie said he was about the only family on the road to Medicine Hat.

Pretty scary.

There are some very large acre operations and some unbelievably high cash rents being paid. I would say our farm is about average in size in our area. Fortunately we have good land. Grandpa got off the train from Iowa in a good spot in 1905. Machinery costs have doubled since 2004 according to statistics. Machinery is a huge expense and a low Canadian dollar makes it worse.

I live on the farm that my ancestors came to in the 1840's. It was passed down through the generations, although I've had to buy part of the land in order to keep it together. I will pass it on to my son, but he has 3 daughters, so after that I suppose the family name will be gone. His oldest daughter seems to be very tied to the land, so hopefully she or one of her sisters will keep things going.......provided the future holds together for them.

We have 300 acres, and I've always worked off the farm either fulltime or part time. My ancestors were full time farmers, but things were much different then. I suppose I could have farmed very intensively, and made it work, something like raising a lot of produce or tobacco. These days, we rent the crop land out to a neighbor and run a small herd of beef cattle. It just takes too much investment for a young person to get started farming in this day and age, unless they have help in some form.

I'm just glad I never become a dairy farmer, as they are in a terrible fix now. If beef prices keep dropping, I may be too.

The older generation has always been skeptical of the younger's chances.

Somehow they have gotten along well.

Truer words have never been spoken.

I am skeptical because most of the younger generation expects entitlements.They have been given everything.The big worry is that is socialism and too many politicians are buying into it. I don't see it as much in kids on farms and such,but inner cities are teaming with it.
These younger ones are the voting public today and could very well effect your way of life.

If you don't believe,go try to hire some young folks to do a job

You are lucky Jim!

Figure $10k per AU to buy a ranch and then another $1500/hd for cows, add in some machinery and you'd be crowding $5 million.

Pretty sure not many young people have the collateral to go out and take on a loan like that........


My wife and mother both have well paying town jobs and good health insurance so that really helps.

Parents are debt free, my wife and I will have our house paid off this spring(took 10 years on a 30 year note), we owe a little on a tractor but that's it.



We don't have any kids, my sister(lawyer in San Francisco) doesn't have any kids, my brother and his wife(both dentists in Alaska) have a couple boys but they have never come back here to visit so I haven't met any of them.


I'm honestly not sure what's gonna happen to 'our' farm.

Forty years ago a neighbor told me, "Let's face it, neither of us would be doing what we are if our father's had not done it before us."

It's a shame to me, neither of Ned's two boys are on the farm today. That was quite an operation, feeding close, if not a thousand head of cattle, raising a lot of hogs, and maybe a thousand acres of crops.

If you like you can look up the one son, Scott Stanzel, Scott was a press sectary for George Bush.

Not to infer that Scott is not doing very well with his trade.

There's just no way you can go buy a ranch, stock it, and work it, and make it cash flow. No way.

There is absolutely no way to compete with outside money.

Outside as in non-ag money.


Oil money buys land around here, outta state money(Hollywood and rich business) buys up the scenic west side of the state.

It would be more difficult for me to stay motivated if we did not have children.

Little bit of exception around here. My father didn't grow up on a farm or didn't have any family that knew anything about ag. When he got married in the early eighties, my mother and him bought a small farm, where an old fella milked a half dozen cows. He bought a cow and a calf, and farmed whenever he could. He was always doing more,trying make more money with the farm. He started renting ag abaggers for storing silage to local farmers and that grew into a twine wrap supply business. Eventually adding cattle handling equipment, wagons, corn seed, etc.

Growing up we always helped on the farm, but it wasn't ever big enough to be the main source of income for anyone. So my parents wanted us to focus another career But as he grew our farm and our business, it made enough room for my brother and i. About five years ago my brother and I took a big step and bought a 200 acres of farm ground 5 Miles from my parents. We still rent the majority of our ground, but the land owners have been pretty good, and we've been with some for over 20 years. We focus on growing our feedlot and or cow herd. We try and make an extra buck wherever we can, selling hay, hauling cattle, little ag related excavation projects, etc our place may not be the greatest, but the three of us are getting by.

My people have been on the home place since 1862 and over the years generations have added acreage as I have recently. It appears I am the last of the line as I have no kids.

I am the only generation to work off the farm. Due to poor milk prices I turned to logging to subsidize the dairy operation and it was becoming more difficult to find good help, so I sold the cows, invested in beef, quit buying more ag equipment and hired more and more custom work. The balance sheet is looking good for now.

Whenever land comes up for sale here locally, the buyer is usually a Mennonite. The last 2 farms that have sold close to me, each went for $12,000 an acre. One of them was an especially good farm, mostly all tillable, the other one was divided up between 4 families, with several of them having sold land for big bucks back in Pennsylvania. The standard practice is for them to build a house and barn whenever they buy a tract of land, unless it has a house on it that is to their liking.

The Mennonites here usually make a living in one of three ways........they work in some form of construction, they farm, growing mostly tobacco, or they grow produce. The produce market is very big here, with one of the largest produce auctions in the country located here. There must be some good money in it, because the majority of the Mennonites grow and sell produce. But, I've never understood how that could pay for $12,000 acre land.

I do know that their farms are usually mortgaged to the hilt, unless they were lucky enough to sell land back in PA before they moved here. Some of them never pay the land off, instead just passing the debt off on down the line. For the most part, they must be a good risk for lenders, because it is very unusual to hear of one being forced to sell out. I have heard many stories about how they often go several years without making a farm payment.

Most of the successful farmers that I know either started out with their family in farming and grew bigger that way, or else they started out small, working other jobs, and grew bigger over the years. Also, tobacco has been the key to most of the really successful farmers in this area, as it has always been the one money crop they could depend on.

You are a smart and enterprising guy, Ben!

Keep up the good work!

As long as you enjoy that, you are ahead of the game.

Same here It's ruining agriculture

That all begs the question of who you are going to leave your land/estate to?

Wife and I talked about this some the other day.

She has no kids. I have two. Neither of which would know what to do with it but cash out, then squander the proceeds.

I'm seriously just considering leaving each of my kids a set amount of money, and a somewhat smaller amount to my grand kids...

Then perhaps leaving the bulk of our estate to further the values of what we find important. Perhaps an agriculture scholarship fund. Or an Ag Farm for FFA & 4H kids.

Not real sure yet.

This topic can seriously depress me.
My families farm was sold when I was 3.
My father got killed, and his step brother (who should have had no interest),
talked his mom into selling. Mom was literally left a single parent and homeless.
Enough of that.


It breaks my heart every time I see a family farm sold, and planted with fancy houses.
Have grew up on and around farms, I understand this issue. We are losing dairy producers
around here constantly. Our support business would also fail if not for the stupid hobby horse business.


I always tell my family,
If I won the Powerball, I would buy a farm
and raise hogs, cattle, and chickens.
"With enough money, I could afford to live like the poor people around here used to".

Our area is probably like most in that you can't buy land and pay for it with ag, too many recreational buyers bidding up prices. Inflation also hasn't really kept up with commodity prices, I was cleaning out some stuff a couple months ago and found receipts where my great grandfather sold his cotton off the same place back in the 20s. Ran the numbers through an inflation calculator and it was something like 10 times the price of cotton now days.

I don't think either boy will be able to make a living off the place, and really no one in the family hasn't had outside work for probably 40 years, but it turns a little bit of profit most years so should be ok as long as they don't start thinking what else they could buy with the money or figure out they could earn a higher return with a savings account.

I would live in a tool shed wearing a burlap sack for a shirt if it meant staying on the farm.


We would maybe have nicer things if we had town jobs......hard to say.



The way we figure it....if managing a farm properly is a full time job.......best be on the land full time.

Them kids look like they already have nice things Jim, like changing the oil with Dad.

Keep up the great work there on the farm.

We need more like you and that NZ gal around this country.

Geno