According to their website it is to help/encourage small/family farms. So perhaps not the large and/or corporate farms that are doing well.
With the price of land and the low prices on corn and soybean it will be very hard for small farms to remain viable. Southwest Minnesota land is running well over 10k per acre.According to their website it is to help/encourage small/family farms. So perhaps not the large, corporate farms that are doing well.
How does Farm Aid help family farmers? - Ask Farm Aid
Ask Farm Aid discusses how Farm Aid helps Family Farmers.www.farmaid.org
I work with farmers on a daily basis. The idea of the "family farm" is antiquated. Even small farmers are worth several millions of dollars and while commodity prices are currently low, producers can insure revenue. Frankly, I see farmers that fail and it has nothing to do with size and everything to do with poor decisions.According to their website it is to help/encourage small/family farms. So perhaps not the large and/or corporate farms that are doing well.
How does Farm Aid help family farmers? - Ask Farm Aid
Ask Farm Aid discusses how Farm Aid helps Family Farmers.
Literally not true. Only about 5% of US farms are incorporated, and the vast majority of those are family corporations who own and farm the land themselves.
The farms are being owned by big farmers who own thousands and ten thousands of acres. The day of the 80 - 160 acre farm are over. When my uncles farm went up for sale after he died there were local "super farmers" who were very eager to buy the 240 acres he had. Those boys could buy the land with cash. The day of the small farmer is over.
I live in farm country. These small size farms exist all over still,,, but they are not their main revenue source. Mostly hobby farms to supplement.
Nice pivot.
I see a lot of hired hands while super farms grow bigger and small farms fade away. I also know that there were super farms and wealthy investors wanted my uncle's land, but the family found smaller farmers who would honor the land and sold to them for a lower price so it wouldn't be gobbled up by the large conglomerates.
Farmers who own "thousands of tens of thousands of acres" are just farmers and aren't "conglomerates" or "super farmers" they are farmers. They are just garden variety farmers and sometimes maybe their grandkids in a family farm operation. It's not Unilever, Cargill, Walmart or KraftHeinz buying land. Minnesota and most other ag-centric states have laws against corporate farm ownership. About 50% or less of farm land is owned by owner operators and the other half retired farmers or their heirs. Very little is owned by "investors" (who in local farmer parlance means the winning bidder who wasn't them). When a farm is sold at auction, very newly always it's purchased by a farmer ten miles away or less. 80 and 160 acre farms were antiquated two generations or more ago. Anyone farming 240 acres now is either 1.Part time (with a job in town) with a very expensive hobby, 2. A CSA making their living at farmers markets, or 3. A farmer easing into retirement renting the rest of his land to the son in law.
Couldn't agree more. Where I grew up an small farm was like 400 acres. Most were at least 1000 acres.
You prove my point that the small farmer has faded away. Only the big farmer exists and the rest of the folks are serfs. Welcome to the return of the feudal system.
Again, just so not true. You have pivoted yet again.
The average farm size in Minnesota is 388 acres, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. This is based on the 2022 Census of Agriculture. The number of farms in Minnesota has decreased in recent years, while the average farm size has increased.
McHale like!!!
What a great lineup- Have a great time!!
Farms have been getting bigger since farming began. The size of farms has never been static. Old McDonald style farming is inefficient and impractical.
I believe someone at the U of M did a good study that showed that the initial homestead type farm grants were often impossible to last on long term ... even at the time.
Yep. Since 1970 the average size of farms in the US has increased by just 26 acres.
Yeah, but that is how much of small business works. You make an okay living, but cash out on the sale of the business/land when you are done.
This statistic is skewed by the inability to factor in the large farmers who are renting acreage from families that no longer work the farm. For example, the last 15 years of my uncle's life, he could no longer work the farm and, instead, rented the acres out to another farmer.
He's still a individual farmer who owns land that is being farmed by another individual farmer. You are not helping your argument, at all.
Doesn't factor farmers who make their wife a farmer for purposes of doubling the already generous farm subsidies to circumvent the AGI limits ($900,000 per producer!).
Excellent point! Using FinnGopher's own $10,000/acre price times the average farm size of 388 acres equals $3,880,000. A lot of people that got to this country AFTER all the cheap farm land had been scooped up would not feel much sympathy for the poor farmer. And I'm not bashing farmers, I love farmers! As one of my friends that inherited farm land often says, "First world problems."
And most of those farmers still owe large $ that they borrowed to buy the land, equipment, seed, livestock, etc.
I think the mythos of farming and how it really plays out IRL ... not even close.
Very good point. Extremely complex business. You don't luck into running a successful farm. Don't get me wrong on my "first world problems" point. We all have those problems because, well, we live here!
Does it really matter what the venue is? My daughter came back from seeing Coldplay at Camp Randall, calling it the biggest dump she has ever been to. There is no way the Bank will be worse than that rickety old pile of crap.