The issue is not production or periodic droughts.
The issue is concentration in distribution of grain.
ADM, Continental and Cargil own the global grain distribution system.
The only time there is a good price for production? When there is none.
Otherwise the slam everyone else. It is just how it is.
Government programs are a pain in the A. In most cases not helpful at all.
My family has owned/operated farms in this county since 1889. Only way to survive is stay out of the banks. Be lucky enough to have a little oil production. Have some cattle to feed surplus grain to when the bottom falls out of the market. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The years you hit, you have to buy equipment for the long haul.
Also smart to have a non-farm job to supplement.
Get past that? It is a pretty good life. Especially if the Fed Bureaucraps would leave us alone. They won’t.
Thanks for your comments.
Some farmers join together to form groups that purchase equipment together and harvest together.
That helps.
Good luck to you folks. It may not seem like it, but my appreciation for the family farm goes back to when I was a kid, living on a small 120 acre farm in Missouri.
Good people, great life, one that I want to live on.