B.S. People lose their family farms in a few different ways, but NOT due to the “housing meltdown.”
First, they’re dumb@sses that overextended themselves and then this happens:
a. No one in the family (usually the kids) wants to farm anymore or,
b. They didn’t know enough about their market to grow and change with consumer demands and just kept doing the same-old, same-old, losing money every season for years on end.
c. Their farming in a state like CA that couldn’t care less about them.
d. There’s no mega-farm in the area to buy them up and absorb them.
I know of dozens of young couples that would LOVE to have a small farm to run. People really are returning to the land, and that’s what I’ll cash in on within the next decade. I don’t care if I sell to Hippies, as long as they have cash in hand, Baby! :)
This author was just looking for a sad-sack story to tell about a poor cow farmer and tie it to the housing melt-down. Boo-Freakin’-Hoo.
I haven’t heard of anyone losing their farm here in Wisconsin due to “the housing market.” Most farmers already have their HOUSE and LAND paid for. They may still owe on machinery, some of which starts at $500K for a used piece of equipment. But the house is sell-able, as is the land if you’re in that dire of straits.
But, that’s life in the Midwest. We’re pretty well insulated from the horrors of life on either coast, Thank God! However, the number of Liberals surrounding us makes us VERY nervous for the future of Ag in Wisconsin.
Full disclosure: I married into a farming family. We’re small ‘taters compared to most, but on our road (from one town to the next, about 15 miles) we have two dairy farms, a self-supporting prison farm, five stables, and close to a dozen farms that produce corn and soybean. My in-laws plant about 200 acres of seed or feed corn each season. The 700 acres around my “farmette” (I only own two, but I look very “land wealthy”) are either soybean or feed corn or sweet corn; it rotates.
You need to go to California and observe their dairy industry.
If you do, you’ll go back to Wisconsin and thank God that you’re farming there.
And to your point (c): No, the pols and people of California don’t care about farmers any more. They regard farmers as a problem, not an asset.
They probably were not bright in how they took on too much debt, but that’s not unusual in western farms. I’ve seen potato farms, HUGE operations, in Idaho go belly-up after only one bad season. Same deal for onions. In California, you see this same pattern in dairies that overextend themselves. There’s a huge pressure on dairies in CA to “get big or get out.” They’re often operating with very high debt loads, and they’re constantly trying to add fresh cows to increase their cash flow. Bankers in CA used to lend on the cash flow. Now, with so many local commercial banks in CA refusing to lend for any reason (because their balance sheets are a complete wreck), I can see how these farmers were indirect victims of the housing situation in that their lender used to lend to them, but refuses to do so now.
Seriously, if you ever get away from the farm for a bit, go to California and see how they dairy there. You’ll be shocked, amazed and frightened. All at the same time.