Do you make money farming crops? (need to be educa

Crops:

wheat, break even if fed as silage
soybeans, slight loss if fed as silage but I need these for crop rotation
grass hay, round baled, break even

beef cows, profitable, $100+/- profit per head

horses, profitable, $100 +/- profit per head

timothy hay, very profitable, $350 profit +/-per acre

alfalfa hay, profitable, $250 profit +/- per acre

It takes scale to make these margins profitable and access to markets. I spend as many hours marketing, researching, managing, and planning as I do actual working. Like most farmers I hate book work, would rather run a tractor. What I found I noticed in the mid 90's that my available income was dropping and made some serious business decisions. For me that meant I had to learn exactly what my costs were and deal with the fact I can rarely control price only costs. I spent money on attorney's and accountants. Best investment I ever made. Learned I can't back ground calves, raise corn, or sell rolled hay. Sold a lot of equipment by eliminating enterprises and bought good equipment for what was left.

Tobacco was alsways good to me but it's artificially supported by production controls and I despise working in it. That was a lesson I got from my CPA, my most limiting resource was time, profit per hour was lower in tobacco even though it cleared $2000 an acre. Got out 3 years ago and never looked back.

Actually the CRP program is alive and well. I do not beleive you can sign up NEW acreage at this time but there are 100s of thousands of acres currently in the program.

Anybody planting set aside acres is cheating the government and the taxpayers and deserves a little jail time.

Again, CRP is about the enviornment, not about agriculture. It's too bad so many Americans are so far removed from agriculture that they have no concept of what is going on any more. I'm not mad at you or the original poster - just saddened that people can be so misinformed.

--->Paul

"The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) provides technical and financial assistance to eligible farmers and ranchers to address soil, water, and related natural resource concerns on their lands in an environmentally beneficial and cost-effective manner. The program provides assistance to farmers and ranchers in complying with Federal, State, and tribal environmental laws, and encourages environmental enhancement. The program is funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). CRP is administered by the Farm Service Agency, with NRCS providing technical land eligibility determinations, Environmental Benefit Index Scoring, and conservation planning.

The Conservation Reserve Program reduces soil erosion, protects the Nation's ability to produce food and fiber, reduces sedimentation in streams and lakes, improves water quality, establishes wildlife habitat, and enhances forest and wetland resources. It encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filterstrips, or riparian buffers. Farmers receive an annual rental payment for the term of the multi-year contract. Cost sharing is provided to establish the vegetative cover practices."

Most of the people I know that are involved are retired farmers that like the steady cash flow as opposed to the headaches and book keeping involved with share cropping. The main expense is keeping the fields looking somewhat clean. Even that is minimal if you planted a prairi grass that you can burn in early spring. I remember when the program first opened my brothers made a pretty good profit combining grass seed, beat the h*ll out of the combines in some of the fields but it paid much better then any row crop.

I grew up in the 70's and early 80's, when most farmers were undergoing rampant expansion. My father chose not to participate in that expansion. At the time that bothered me, in hindsight I am glad he didn't participate.

Some people don't want career politicians deciding their fate. While others believe that if the government pulled out right now (i.e. eliminate ALL ag. subsidies) that farmers would disappear in a few years. You will find both sentiments inside and outside of the agricultural communities. Granted, many city dwellers don't understand the issues well enough to have an opinion.

Personally, I think people will still need to eat; so some how, some way, someone will be raising that food. Granted it may all be as employees of large contract corporations. You already see much of this with companies such as Perdue in the poultry industry. IMHO, if subsidies were eliminated we would see that concept take hold in virtually all of farming. Whether that is a bad thing or not is a subject of some debate, but many feel it is bad.

The only people I see truly making a living in the midwest farming in the traditional sense (crops/livestock) are those farming a very large amount (typically 2000+ acres). Most farms smaller than that are subsidized with off farm work. One trend I do see in Illinois is that the number of vinyeards/wineries has grown a lot in the past few years. Many of those vineyard owners were farming in a more traditional sense a few years ago on a limited number of acres. I believe some people are trying similar "niche" marketing for other crops. I even saw one group who was trying to promote tourism by offering tours of smaller farms.

I have a B.S. in agri-business economics, but I certainly don't have the answers. There are two sides to this argument and no one seems to know who is right. I do have an opinion, but this is really not the place for it. In the end I think it comes down more to one's own personal political leanings than anything else.

http://www.tuftsprimarysource.org/issues/20/12/vegans.suck.html

The situation is really sad. I grow a few things for my own use, but I'm in awe of a small farmer that can make it on their own.

The plight of the family farmer has been on the decline for quite some time. This is due to a variety reasons - technology, corporate farms, stipends, other job oppurtunities, global markets, etc. ad naseum.

For me I run a 20 acre U-Pick operation at a financial loss each yr. My 30 acres of pine trees just grow and one day I hope to get a fair return off of them. If my labor is free then I make a profit. It has been my experience that I cannot even give this food away - come pick it and it is free. Many, many lazy folks in the world today, they want the food only if me and my sons pick it, clean it and deliver it.

Farming is as much an art as it is a science. In the past folks were closer to the land and the natural cycles of their area. The economy was local and they grew what would sell locally, they could use for the family and the livestock. Not the same today but niche markets exist for those that can capitalize on it i.e. strawberries, bok-choy, etc.

I do the U-Pick for two main reasons -

1) stress relief from my day job (Sr. IT); when working the dirt you can see the results of your efforts. It is very gratifying to see a nice stand of corn and also very HUMBLING when the rain drowns out all you have planted. Plowing for me is the most fun and most fullfilling.

2) Heritage and Responsibility; my sons are being taught the agricultural heritage of our great nation and they are active participant in my efforts. As to the responsibility they earn their allowance by assisting. As their skills progress they are learning valuable life skills that will serve them later in life i.e. honest work for honest day's pay, critical thinking, finance mgmt, planning to name a few.

This yr. I tried a CO-OP which was marginally successful. Witnessed how incredibly lazy some people are - some folks paid co-op prices but never came to pick their food thus I had a surplus.

I also did some share cropping for some of the older folks in the area (this was both enlightening and maddening at the same time). I learned a great deal about myself, my boys tenacity and also farming according to the signs.

On the other hand, most of these folks are VERY SET in their ways - one gal was on me all summer about culivating from the tractor seart vs. hand hoeing her garden that had rows of 600 ft. long. All that said I will continue my efforts and not expect to get rich. My reward and payment is that there is nothing better than summer sweet corn in the dead of winter!!

FWIW

Shep, that is very well said!! There are so many lazy people in the world that it makes me sick.

I'm glad my folks taught me the value of work.

Interesting thoughts on how labor costs, land use, city folks' noses, and enviornmental laws add into that.

Real interesting that a former editor of Successful Farming would go that route, considering the magazine is perhaps the number one pusher of large farms getting bigger or geting out of the way these days....

--->Paul