Posted on 06/27/2018 1:14:02 AM PDT by gattaca
The false god must be fed. Will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?
“The country (weather, blight, etc.) has a bad year - they can get a good price for their crop, but they hardly have any crop to sell. Then in good years, everybody has all sorts of product to sell but they can't get a good price.”
Of course, when I was growing up he was borrowing money at 25% and mortgage rates were 20% so nobody was buying a new home either. He held on though through the lean Carter years (and the lean periods before that) and did okay in the end.
Started his first home at the age of 23 in 1941. Then the war interrupted that project - but his dad (also a builder) finished it for him. Lots of ups and downs from 1945 to 1983.
My dad drove me insane over gardening while growing up. You can keep it.
I could if I had to, at least on a small scale.
My grandfather was a successful farmer and cattleman.
Millions of blue collar too and some just can’t find work at all because, like tools and aftermarket auto parts, they’ve been replaced by imports.
A farm can be a terrible trap. Major holdings, 24/7 life and death responsibilities for typically large families, insufficient income to meet basic needs, lack of viable options, and worse. Sometimes a life insurance policy is the only way forward.
My highest income was in the 80’s.
This is why that stupid Farm Aid that geriatric Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Cougar Mellencamp never resonated with me. The real reason family farms are dying is because the children of the owners of the farms don’t want to take it over. They want to move off the farm and do something more with their lives. What usually happens is the farm is then sold to a conglomerate. And screw Young and others who want them to stay on the farm. Idiots.
Farmers here. Imports may play a role but the expenses continue to escalate and farm prices are not keeping pace. New varieties produce more than ever but you have to have rain or irrigation. Seed costs (cotton) up and up, chemicals up and up, equipment almost untouchable, land doubled since we began farming, and fuel costs up. For huge operations I cannot imagine what they have to borrow and pay in interest every year just to operate. We are a dying breed. It is just my husband farming less acres than most, no hired help and I am the helper. He is very conservative and we have been blessed in many ways. Some years we do really well and some it is lean. We can survive and have a life outside of farming with church, friends, family and each other. Still there is stress and we THINK we see more and more crop insurance fraud from people who are so huge you would think they didn’t need to cheat. Are they greedy or are they so highly leveraged they can’t risk a mediocre return?
“God himself brought every seedling up to new life”
Thank you for saying that. This is why farming/gardening is rewarding and it keeps us close to God and trusting Him for all our needs. It has been a great way to raise our children. Perhaps too many farmers are not connected to God and that certainly brings despair no matter what your profession.
Not to mention farm equipment is super expensive.
First, cause of death reporting is very loose if not imprecise in the US. Second, the Occupational Groups are overly broad, especially in this category. Third, assumptions about common or significant stressors related to occupation ... are just that, assumptions. To focus Farming or Farmers using data a cluster that includes non-farmers, as well as non-farm owners or operators, is grossly misleading. Some think that association with a certain family from Arkansas may have a higher correlation..
Markets are not working properly when the majority that are profitable are not the majority of producers and those that are never in need and always most profitable are the middlemen.
When have you ever heard about the giant agro-business middlemen being in financial distress, no matter what is happening on the farms? (Like Cargill & ADM and others like them).
When the SHTF people who know how to farm will be worth their weight in gold.
We need the obligatory Goebbels' pic here.
May we guess that you don’t really market that much farm produce?
Farming is a tough business. Back in 1951 we lost our wheat crop a day before harvesting due to a hail storm.
Took a bank loan and replanted. Then the drought hit and nothing came up the next year. That is when dad left the farm and went into construction work.
Dad made monthly payments for those bank loans for years.
Then in 1957, he came into some money and tried cattle, something he had experience with. Within two years we were destitute poor. Back to construction work again.
Many family farmers have to take out loans every year; many are hanging on by their fingernails. Business wise many farms are a bust. What keeps many farmers hanging on is not valid business decisions but the desire to keep the farm in the family- sentimental reasons, attachment to the land. Many of the farms have been in the family for a very long time, there is a lot of pressure to hang on. I can understand there would be a lot of stress in doing that. There are ranchers in the same spot. Everything has to work out just right weather wise and market wise for them to have a profitable year. That is not realistic business wise so hard to justify for loans, hard to stay in business.
What bothers me is farms and ranches are our food source. They are going out of business every day a lot of land goes out of production and is developed meaning it will never be back in production and few are concerned. Many of the lefties actually want ranchers out of business, they are vegetarians and want everyone else to be. They seem to have no concern about ordinary farmers either, their idea is the small organic farms will replace the “old” farmers. The small organic farmers plainly say they cannot do that, cannot make the numbers work to replace ordinary farming but no one said lefties are smart.
I hope people wake up before we have a food crisis. We have burdened ranchers and farmers with a lot of environmental and other regulations that are hard for them to deal with. I don’t know what the answer is; a different mindset about the people that feed us would be helpful.
Many years ago our leadership in this country determined we really needed food so many government programs were put in place to help support farmers and ranchers who have to deal so much with mother nature. The left and even many conservatives don’t understand the reasoning behind some of the programs and see it as ranching and farming welfare- but those programs/land leases. ETC. are the reason our agriculture system feeds not only us but is able to feed many people in other countries as well.
In many cases the children do want to continue, but do not want to deal with the issues of regulation, the loony left with all their causes...
I know many ranch and farm kids that grow up watching the stress of dealing with the government- that is what many want to avoid, not the farming and ranching itself. Knowing if a certain critter is found on your land your business may be restricted or closed down. Knowing if someone from the government you have to meet with is having a bad day they can make you have a bad year or several. That kind of thing takes a real toll.
Farmers and ranchers don’t have it easy. Then again, there aren’t too many small businesses that are located on “Easy Street”. I’m not disrespecting them, I am just saying that they aren’t the only ones that have seen tough times and a changing market. However, I do NOT like the massive Farm Bills that are essentially welfare or paying farmers to NOT grow crops.
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