Don’t Buy A Farm Unless You Understand A few Things

[3Ts]

The land behind me just sold this last year to a rancher who is moving away from the city since the city has moved in around him. He is well off, but he didn't make his money from ranching. He made it from providing services to farmers and ranchers.

Another family bought 150 acres of land where 1/3 floods and 2/3 is hilly. One of the sons expected to make a 6 figure income and retire early to the farm. That didn't happen, it appears they have a caretaker and only visit it on occasion.

 

[5030]

Must be I did!
None of the farmers that I know are drunk any time they are working which is most of the time.

in my case, not drunk but certainly not 100% sober and as far as not knowing about auto steer and Green Star, I work part time for the farmer down the road and I'm usually running a large JD tracked machine, planting in the spring and I know full well how to program the coordinates and operate the on board electronics. I fondly remember one year when he was planting and was half cocked and not paying attention to the auto steer / Green Star and the GPS dropped the coordinates and the tractor and planter veered off to the left and wound up in the ditch. He laughed his butt off about it. Went and grabbed a dozer and pulled it back out. Watched the corn in that field grow all year with a decided lean to the left.

Like the one guy up the road a piece. Back when I was working, I'd swing by the barn every morning about 7am and grab a coffee and both him and his hired hands would be sitting at the table in the main barn drinking coffee and the 'creamer' was Captain Morgan, spiced rum.

Around here we seem to have professional drinkers and the one bar up town usually has a fight going on in the parking lot at night. farmers around here like to do 2 things, farm and brawl. One reason why I don't consume alcohol and I never frequent the local watering hole either.

99% of the time they are all great people but that 1% of the time, they can be nasty to deal with.

Guy (farmer) down the road died in his sleep last Saturday and we were all joking about how he probably went to bed loaded. In fact, I never saw him without at least a whistle pop in his hand or an aluminum can and none of it was a soft drink either. same age as me...71.

 

[5030]

The land behind me just sold this last year to a rancher who is moving away from the city since the city has moved in around him. He is well off, but he didn't make his money from ranching. He made it from providing services to farmers and ranchers.

Another family bought 150 acres of land where 1/3 floods and 2/3 is hilly. One of the sons expected to make a 6 figure income and retire early to the farm. That didn't happen, it appears they have a caretaker and only visit it on occasion.

Wife and I looked pretty hard at Texas ranches back when we tended a cattle herd. Problem with Texas is, the land don't produce like it does here so you need about 3 times the acreage to support a herd of beef cattle than you do here. Why we didn't pursue it further. Now that we sold off all the cattle and are 'empty nesters' as in no stock, moving to Texas would work. Problem is, we own quite a bit of acreage here and in today's wacko market, I'm hesitant about selling it off and all the ground isn't contiguous to the farm, plus it's all in PA 116 so if I sold it to a non farmer, all the back RE taxes would become due and payable. We own remote tracts away from the farm but still workable, just have to run down the road with the equipment. I bet I put more on road miles on the tractors than I do on my car or pickup truck. Why I'm going to radials on the tractors instead of bias tires. Radials wear better on hard surfaces like asphalt.

 

[PuffyC]

The land behind me just sold this last year to a rancher who is moving away from the city since the city has moved in around him. He is well off, but he didn't make his money from ranching. He made it from providing services to farmers and ranchers.

Reminds me of the stories about the gold rush where the people who really made cash were the ones selling supplies to the miners, not the ones breaking their backs panning for gold. Great lesson there if you're the entrepreneurial type.

 

[ovrszd]

The land behind me just sold this last year to a rancher who is moving away from the city since the city has moved in around him. He is well off, but he didn't make his money from ranching. He made it from providing services to farmers and ranchers.

Another family bought 150 acres of land where 1/3 floods and 2/3 is hilly. One of the sons expected to make a 6 figure income and retire early to the farm. That didn't happen, it appears they have a caretaker and only visit it on occasion.

Small tracts of land around here (50-100 acres) are being bought up by city people to hunt on. We also have a considerable amount of foreign money being invested in our County. The average price per acre here is behind the national average. That attracts buyers that have no intention of farming.

 

[rademamj1]

If your a succesful farmer today. You are someone who knows the Local, State and US tax code better than the IRS does. So I would think knowing tax codes is a critical skill to the success of a farmer today.

 

[ovrszd]

If your a succesful farmer today. You are someone who knows the Local, State and US tax code better than the IRS does. So I would think knowing tax codes is a critical skill to the success of a farmer today.

As is with any business owner.

Watched my friend and his Son's buy 125,000 gallons of Diesel fuel earlier this week. They had a very profitable year and were offsetting profits with expenses to minimize tax debt.

Anyone not doing this, whether business taxes or personal taxes, is foolish.

 

[Diggin It]

I'm reasonable certain no one will know after I've bought the farm.

 

[TheMan419]

Basically if God wants you to be a success you will and if he doesn’t you won’t. We spent $350k building the “farm”. And made $14k in sales this month (month #13 of farming)

This was made breeding dogs .

There are ten thousand ways to make money when you have the room. I don’t accept the idea that you can’t make incredible money doing “farming”.

We have several acres of blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries and plant other crops. These are a long term investment, except for strawberries which fruited 8 weeks after planting. Thank you, God.

Freezing them to manufacture wine.

We need to make over $100 k per year and we are definitely not as frugal as we ought to be.

I have HVAC services to augment income. Full time farming would take several years to produce enough income.

When you see things coming together it’s encouraging, but only God can make anything gain, no matter what direction you go in life.

I’ve been injured plenty this year…dislocated shoulder, shoulder pain, tore some muscle in rib cage, etc etc etc. I have a large family that helps a lot.

It’s not always fun but sure can be rewarding. Why the hEll am I doing this? I have no idea really. Why does the ant build its nest?

So if I am not a successful farmer....

 

[Diggin It]

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^^^^^^