How do you keep your head above water

I am not a farmer. I just have 11 acers and like to play with old tractors. I have not bought any fertilizer in a few years and I was shocked when I picked some up yesterday to put on a food plot. $18 for a 50lb bag. I said no I just want the old cheap stuff and he said that is the cheap stuff. A guy posted photos yesterday on here putting on tractor trailor loads of it on carrots. How in the world can you guys afford those kind of prices. I used to think $6 a bag was high to put on the lawn. It seems to me that someone is wanting family farms to fold up with prices of fuel and fert. like they are. Don't know how you guys do it.

You"re paying $720 per ton because it is sold in small bags, instead of being in bulk. Price also depends on what mix it is, and the type of ingredients used to make that mix. It"s a fallacy to think that there is a conspiracy against small farmers. The big boys aren"t getting it much cheaper than the family farmers. Yes, this year the numbers are much different than last year, especially crop prices. Some inputs dropped last year compared to the summer before.

Well I only hobby farm and I do so 100% organic and I use manure only so I can not tell you how others do it but I do so cheaply but I also have a few 4 legged fertilizers and about 30 or so 2 legged ones as in Chickens.

Glad you said the two legged ones where chickens. Thought maybe you just moved the outhouse around on the pasture. Lol

LOL I do know a guy who works at the local sewage plant and he brings in the sludge from there and sprays it on his field. When you drive by his place you know when he sprayed

I farmed with my brother until 20 years ago when
the dairy buy out came along. Whe had the farm
paid off and would have to make some substatial
investments soon. At the time the local land grant university(Cornell) said to compete you
would need 700 to 1000 cows We could
not see that kind of debt and aggravation. After
the last two years, the average 1000 cow herd
lost $100,000,000. It will take 2 or 3 generations to get back to even. I have a few
friends still milking 700 to 2600 cows and they
all are struggling except one. He has a real good
off farm income. Who knows what the future holds. I am retired and still grow enough crops
to spin my wheels. But the trend is to bigger
and bigger. Would like to here some comments
from larger farmers on this forum
ps This is the view in Western New York

Don't laugh. I helped a man in MN make hay. The small town near him brought sludge out and injected it in his hayfields. The best stand of hay I ever saw in my life was a 10 acre section which had just been sludged and reseeded a year and a half before. Timothy and clover as high as my stomach and super leafy..... Unfortunately, the day we were going bale it into small squares the baler broke. By the time we had the backup baler ready to go, the hay had dried down too much and all you could see was those wonderful little leaves blowing away in a cloud of dust:>(!

Right about that time Cornell came to my wife's stepfather and told him that he needed to be "big" to survive. He bought into it and had to sell out a few years later.

There has been a concerted effort for years now to drive out the small family farm. Cornell has been an integral part of it. That way, eventually we'll all have to get our food from overseas or from huge conglomerates here in the U.S.

Where is the Grange when you need it?

Its all relative, if it takes $75.00 per acre worth of fertilizer on a hay field you might still be making money because the alternatives to your own hay are going to be comparatively more expensive. Inputs can get to expensive, thats when you plant something different or sell off some cows to wait it out. It ain't no fun working for nothing and not many people will do it very long.

Back in '79-'82 I worked at a W. R. Grace fertilizer plant in New Albany, IN [there's a Wal-Mart Supercenter today where the plant used to be]. I thought that, even with the Carter recession coming on, that farmers would still have to buy their fertilizer.

Wrong.

Even after the Farm Bureau fertilizer plant in Indianapolis burned, and we started bagging for FB, our business volume steadily decreased. Of course, a lot of small farmers lost their farms in the early '80's--enough so that Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp actually noticed--so I suppose that a lot of farmers still put out their crops, but with a lot less fertilizer than they'd previously used.

In '79, I worked as a "seasonal" employee from March until August, and then again from October until just before Christmas. Each year thereafter, the business sagged, and I worked fewer weeks. In 1982, I worked 6 weeks total at Grace...and yes, it WAS a union job, and I had seniority over newer workers.

But when fertilizer prices or other economic conditions drive farmers to extremes, my impression is that farmers just cut back on the amount of fertilizer they use...or they finally give up and sell out.

Good thing you didn't price it last year - it's cheap this year by comparison!

--->Paul

The banks prefer to deal with one big client than 25 small ones. When things go bad though, they go bad in a big way.

High grain prices force up fertilizer and farm rents and land prices.A lot of farmers made big bucks the last couple years.I know of a couple who bought farms for cash.

For every 25 feeder calves I raise:

5 belong to the fuel man
4 belong to the supply store
4 belong to my machinery
2 belong to my neighbor (payment for corn)
2 belong to the property tax man
2 belong to the fertilizer man
2 belong to the mechanic
1 belongs to the sales barn
1 belongs to the vet

The last 2 calves though, those 2 are all mine and mine alone. Well, unless any of the other guys' 23 calves dies, then I'll have to give them mine

Just like JMS.MN said,you paid $720 a ton. I put 19-19-19 with pelleted lime on my oats a few weeks ago for $470. Cattle prices are decent right now,so it ain't hard to make a buck.

Unfortunatetly, fertilize is part of making a crop(in whatever form you use) just like fuel, equipment, labor,insurance ect. I'm simi-retired now but farmed 3000 acres for many years, When it gets to where you can't make a profit in what ever your doing, it's time to make a change. I can remember when we thought $160.00 was high for fert.
good luck

We milk 100 cows in a stall barn and raise 150 head of steers. We have no problems making money. Most of our equipment isnt more than 12 years old. 500 acres of work land to.