[tiki]

I'm not a shopper but just the week before this came out I spent the day shopping with my SIL and I told her that we'd sure be in bad shape if all of a sudden we lost goods from China because there was precious little out there that wasn't made in China. It wasn't even a political statement really, just what I could see as a fact.

I am a farmer and I know what regulation and inflation has done to the prices of our inputs. We literally spend 10Xs what we spent when we started farming and for the most part prices for our crops are actually lower. Our only saving grace is a niche crop and the new higher yielding cotton varieties and technology. We're in the process of re-mortgaging our farm...again. Thank God land prices in California and Arizona are driving speculators and people who sold their farms for obscene amounts of money our way so it will appraise well, I hope because it's April 24 and we don't have an operating loan yet, we're operating on charge accounts at this moment.

I think we're getting pretty close to the point that we will not be able to meet Americas food needs. I've always said that the time would come when farmers would be respected, that time isn't here yet but it will come. There are no young farmers out there anymore and the land is going for housing developments. In our county we have 5% of the farmers we had when we started 30 yrs ago (and 90% of them are over 60) and 50% or less of the land being farmed. We'll make it a few more years but I'd sell out to a developer in a second for the right price. Farming is too damned hard and the stress is even worse.

[Smokin' Joe]

There are no young farmers out there anymore and the land is going for housing developments. In our county we have 5% of the farmers we had when we started 30 yrs ago (and 90% of them are over 60) and 50% or less of the land being farmed.

There are some here, their grandfather or dad incorporated the farm and passed the interest on to the kids, or at least the ones interested in farming. There are a few niche farmers who are relatively recent start-ups, but for the most part, dry-land grain farming is an inherited peerage.

As you noted, costs are too high, profits too low, and there is one heck of a lot of work involved--all time sensitive and for the most part, weather dependant.

Some crops in this area (sugar beets come to mind) are grown on irrigated tracts, but most are not (Wheat, durum, sunflower, rapeseed, oats, barley, to name the prominent ones.)

The idea of five and six figure seed loans is unreal to me, but that is what it takes to operate.

We'll make it a few more years but I'd sell out to a developer in a second for the right price. Farming is too damned hard and the stress is even worse.

I can't say I blame you.