Farm Chatter

 Senator Booker (NJ) brought up a legislative action (basically for this session only)....to grant out of some government 'free deal'.....where farms that came up on the market would be procured by the government and 'handed' out to black farmers (new farmers, I assume, but he wasn't clear on this).  Odds of passing in the 2020 session?  ZERO.  Odds in 2021?  ZERO.  

But this brings up this entire topic of farms, expectations, costs, and misunderstandings.

First, farms don't readily come up daily for sale.  In most cases, one of two things occurred....a bankruptcy, or a farm family generation coming to an end.  

Top states with farm bankruptcies?  Georgia, California, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, Penn, and Kansas.

Bottom states with farm bankruptcies?  Wyoming, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and all of the New England states.

What makes a farm bankruptcy?  It tends to go down three paths: (1) stupid loans with banks that have crazy interest rates, (2) repeat drought years (farmers don't survive 3 consecutive years of drought), (3) simply bad luck that repeats (buying equipment that fails in the field and consumes valuable time on repairs).  

Handing a start-up farm over to a brand new farmer?  Even if the land deal was 'free'....then comes the reality of equipment/vehicles required.  To reach a basic start-up level with purely a cattle operation (say 150 to 300 head)...you need to figure $100,000 required.  

If this were a crop-production property, then you'd step up to the next level and figure $150k to $200k (maybe less, if you went to entirely used equipment, but then you'd take the risk of breakdowns and time consumed on repairs).

For a real 500 acre situation, with multiple ways of production/profit, you might be talking about $300k to $500k of equipment.

The tool shed?  Go and assume that $5k of tools and equipment will be required.

The harsh reality of going into Wisconsin, Nebraska or Minnesota for farming?  No one relishes getting up at 5:30 on a January morning, and having 12 hours of outdoor activities on the must-do list.  

No one wants to go and spend three hours with a cow trying to deliver a calf in a barn stall with the temperature near 30 degrees F.  

No one wants to go spend six hours to repair a piece of equipment that is essential for daily operations....in a cold damp shed.

Dealing with modern tractors that require a computer system to diagnose the maintenance issue, and a $300 visit by an official mechanic for the tractor company?  

No one understands the comradery of a farmer....where he hangs out for 45 minutes each Tuesday with five other farmers at the local grill....sipping coffee and eating 400 calorie donuts....while getting dismal updates from his associates about their woes.  Each pats the other on the back, and they exit the grill....to find some patience, understanding, and willpower to overcome the negatives in front of them.

No one wants to go and add up the number of hours wasted as such-and-such repair part isn't available locally, and the farm supply store is talking about four days to get such a part, or suggesting you drive 400 miles to the Ozarks (the mystery parts dealer who has a warehouse of parts but no sign on the front of the building, who wants cash for the deal) to get your part.

No one wants to go and replace an entire fence line for their beef cattle operation....that is 4,000 feet long and over 30 years old (rusting to a great extent).  They know for a two-man effort, this could consume ten work days minimum.  But they know that Marvin (the favorite bull), and his associate Wendy (that wild cow you bought last year)....are plotting up a storm to bring the fence down and escape the big woods.

No one wants to think about peer pressure to not work on Sundays (the Lords day), and they simply tell the ministers and neighbors that the Lord isn't working miracles on their farm.  So they work the 7th day.

No one enjoys cattle round-up situations where two-percent of their 300 cows are a bit crazed, and fully capable of stomping you into the ground. 

To say that things since 1920....have improved drastically on farms across the nation...misses several key points.  

For every improvement, we invented a new way of making farming miserable.  

For each man-hour we cut on production or operations, we added another hour somewhere else.  The repair manuals?  When you can find them (the tractor folks would prefer you not have such information in your hands)....you tend to shake your head because there's 42 procedures required over a 3-hour job, to replace one single item on the tractor.  

To be a farmer today, you need to be 50-percent engineer, 50-percent repairman, 50-percent animal expert, 50-percent financial wizard, 50-percent weatherman, 50-percent historian, and 50-percent animal healer.  

For each piece of new and modern technology, we invented a path to engineers and higher cost for what ought to be a simple piece of working equipment.

Farmers now sit there at 5:30 AM....watching for 'Weatherman-Dan' from Channel 19 to stage the next three days.  A light shower here, a 98-temperature reading for tomorrow, or a week of showers coming up?  They all flip and rotate the farm calendar and taskings.  

A farmer might be in shock to making 180-percent of his profit expectations for three years straight....taking the wife off to Aruba for five days in the spring, or buying a $40k new pick-up.  The same guy tends to get into severe depression when he achieve two consecutive years of 60-percent of his profit expectation.

For some reason, I don't think Booker has ever spent a single day on a farm, and these idiots advising him....probably haven't done so either.