Help save american farmlands

All the people who were in those businesses had to adapt and change when their operations became obselete or non-competitive. None of them ever spoke of a "right" or "heritage" which guaranteed that they could earn their living in a certain industry.

And, these businesses didn't all close because the farms all got bigger with less farmers, they closed because the business model no longer worked.

Also, the fanciest trucks and SUV's in my town are driven by farmers not the regular working guys in the community. I just shake my head as I'm working on my old Case tractor and I see a local farmer running to the John Deere dealer for parts in the middle of harvest driving his pearl white Chevrolet Avalanche with $4,000 pimp wheels on it.

And just to make one last point, you don't feed me. My family and I work very hard to earn money to BUY our food. And yes, a discussion for another day may well be the fact that we should all agree to pay more for our food if it would mean a reduction in our taxes.

No doubt some of these big farmers, which many are corporate owned nowdays have and are recieving big checks. Me and many others are not. So you can not lump all farmers into the same boat.

I raise 15 acres of tobacco, have 90 cows, and do custom work and sell hay to make it during the summer season. I only get paid when I sell my crop which I sold about 2/3 of it in November, and the rest sells next week. Other than what the calves bring in October that is it. I have to manage my little jag of money to live on, pay all farm bills, taxes, and keep my old junk running.

I do have the right to make a living on what I have worked all my life to pay for. No one gave me a farm or money to buy, maintain, or operate it with. I have taken a 50 cent per pound pay cut on tobacco, so you also can't tell me about adapting to meet my commitments, I have been there and am doing it.

Everything I buy fuel, fertilize, seed, baling twine, medicine,groceries and on and on is going up at a steady pace. Do I not deserve to have the price of what I sell to go up in return. That is all I ask. I do not want one nickel that I don't earn on my own. I have never applied for any help from anyone. So cry that nonsense to someone who does.

I am very consistent. I will pay more for my food in order to have food choices and I will go to hardware store vs. Walmart and maybe pay more because I do support the small guy. What I do not support is the government making the choice for me by taking my money thru taxes to prop up already wealthy farmers or other businesses.

And, yes, I must agree, I have a better truck than you. I finally had to take my old faithful '78 Chev 3/4 4WD to the scrap yard with a tear in my eye. There was just no body left. What a great workhorse. I replaced it with an '87 that is not quite as badly rusted.

And yes, the guy with the fancy truck is 3rd generation farmer who is firm in his belief that my tax money should continue to support his "right to farm" like his daddy and grandfather did.

Sadly, the same government that farmers have enjoyed being in bed with as long as all the supports were coming is now in some places wanting to encroach upon what they do with their land adjoining communities. Strange bedfellows.

Again, I have a hard time feeling sorry for a farm family who owns 180ac adjacent to a town and has watched their land value go from $300ac to $30,000ac. as developers compete to buy their farm. What always seems left out of these stories is the fact that you don't have to sell your land if you chose not to. Most mainstream media stories make it sound somehow like some evil person is taking the land away from the farmeers.

At the last several farm auctions I have attended, I have watched in awe as starving farmers bid on antique and collectable tractors, trucks and machinery and competed with each other to pay sky high prices for items needing total restoration.

And then the real revelation comes as the neighboring farmers bid outlandish amounts for the land itself.

The gov't has not done anything to help me. In fact they have seen to it that I now sell my crops for quite a bit less than I did just 4 years ago. When you city dwellers get hungry, it will be a different story. The trouble now is to many city dwellers are setting policy for the rural families of this country. We have no say in anything now days.

My bills would make your head spin. I would trade taxes with you. City dwellers with a dream of owning 40 acres are the primary reason for farm taxes going up. The gov't now wants to assess land as to what it would be worth if subdivided and houses built all over it.This increases the tax base for city dwellers to benefit from.

This tax increase along with a bad year has caused many rich farmers as you seem to think have to sell their land.

Stay in the city, as I don't want you for a neighbor.

see the problem with land going from 300/ac to $30,000/ac is that the farmer is still trying to scratch out a living on the same land, but his property taxes are going up each year driving him out of business.

Then since you only see that 180/ac as a cash deal if they were to sell it, the nearly entirety of the procedes would be a capital gain and again get taxed by the gov't like crazy. So what is this family supposed to do after selling, take their money and move to the city and do what stare at a TV?

Putting generations of work into a piece of land, just to sell it is not the american dream and I can assure you that I will have the last farm in Spencer Co. KY! When all that beautiful land around me is gone, I'll just be an island of farm land inside all those cookie cutter developments, they'll have to pry my deed from my cold dead hands

But there has been more years where it was 50 to 70.

Gary

We have pretty darn good soil in SE MN and we averaged 214 corn in '07 which is pretty respectable.

I was 40 before I got over 500.

If during a drought you still get 275 bu corn and corn is 4.00 you should be doing OK.

What else happened that you are getting out?

Something don't add up here.

Don't give up now. If 800 ain't enough land you may need to take some work at an off farm job.

I had a off farm job for 20 years as well as raising hogs and cattlee to raise my 4 daughters and put them thru college.

Hang in there.

Gary