Hay Farmers getting out of farming

[LHF2019]

I have many friends that are also farmers, both here and all around the US, from hobby sized to larger family owned and operated. I personally have not heard any of them say - seriously - that they wished they never got involved in farming, that the whole world is out to get them, that they were dealt a crappy hand or that they really want to quit & sell everything. Sure they/we might say something like that when we get bit, banged up etc, but typically we don't "really" mean it.

I don't know what would be considered been dealt a crappy hand but here is what I have been dealt, I'm still in the game though on a different path and would it have been different if the cards had been dealt better.....who knows.

I'm 3rd generation on dad's side on this farm and blessed to still be hanging on to it by a thread as it is still fully owned by my mom. I got to work with my dad full time on the farm for exactly one year before being diagnosed with cancer and passed away. The proposition was simple. Take it or leave it. No succession plan, non farming lawyer, in house equipment appraisal, no 3rd party oversight, in fact no training at all. Books and all under my control. There was even equipment I had never used that I now had no father guidance on. So at 19 I now had a 60 cow dairy farm, quarter million in debt, and on top of the world, because at that age we are all young and dumb. Some finer points. Dad and uncle owned syrup business, corn planter, chopper together. From beginning mom had said didn't like some of that aspect I quickly found out why and yet there was no back up plan if that arrangement didn't work. Being highly leveraged doesn't leave many options and had zero collateral. 60 cow dairy at that time was to big to do it yourself yet to small to support custom chopping activities. Milked 3 years in what at that time was the lowest milk prices ever, labor hard to find, being a tie stall I had gotten to the point where I could no longer run, barely walk, get on a tractor or climb a ladder, I decided to lease out the cows and do relief milking and do custom fieldwork. 2 years of that got tired of dealing with mom even though business that was started from scratch was growing and could prove it, it wasn't enough. Just takes one phone call...auctioned it all.

15 years later finds me back at the farm doing what I love but situation is not any better. Still no plan, renters not taking care of the farm, owners( mom and her husband) not maintaining buildings. I now use farm buildings rent free as I am doing all the upkeep. For the last 5+ years keep asking how things are setup as my wife and I grow our hay and beef business along with other future diversification plans and her answer..................................for the last 2 years there has been an impending divorce that I'm still waiting on to get resolved. The rest of the time wife and I operate the business under one big ?


To the OP as the this thread has derailed from the original question. There does not seam to be any getting out of the hay business though there are not that many to begin with. Sure would be nice though to see some of the prices realized in other areas. There are enough people just baling whatever to keep prices of small bales under $4.50/bale

 

[Hay Dude]

I don't know what would be considered been dealt a crappy hand but here is what I have been dealt, I'm still in the game though on a different path and would it have been different if the cards had been dealt better.....who knows.

I'm 3rd generation on dad's side on this farm and blessed to still be hanging on to it by a thread as it is still fully owned by my mom. I got to work with my dad full time on the farm for exactly one year before being diagnosed with cancer and passed away. The proposition was simple. Take it or leave it. No succession plan, non farming lawyer, in house equipment appraisal, no 3rd party oversight, in fact no training at all. Books and all under my control. There was even equipment I had never used that I now had no father guidance on. So at 19 I now had a 60 cow dairy farm, quarter million in debt, and on top of the world, because at that age we are all young and dumb. Some finer points. Dad and uncle owned syrup business, corn planter, chopper together. From beginning mom had said didn't like some of that aspect I quickly found out why and yet there was no back up plan if that arrangement didn't work. Being highly leveraged doesn't leave many options and had zero collateral. 60 cow dairy at that time was to big to do it yourself yet to small to support custom chopping activities. Milked 3 years in what at that time was the lowest milk prices ever, labor hard to find, being a tie stall I had gotten to the point where I could no longer run, barely walk, get on a tractor or climb a ladder, I decided to lease out the cows and do relief milking and do custom fieldwork. 2 years of that got tired of dealing with mom even though business that was started from scratch was growing and could prove it, it wasn't enough. Just takes one phone call...auctioned it all.

15 years later finds me back at the farm doing what I love but situation is not any better. Still no plan, renters not taking care of the farm, owners( mom and her husband) not maintaining buildings. I now use farm buildings rent free as I am doing all the upkeep. For the last 5+ years keep asking how things are setup as my wife and I grow our hay and beef business along with other future diversification plans and her answer..................................for the last 2 years there has been an impending divorce that I'm still waiting on to get resolved. The rest of the time wife and I operate the business under one big ?


To the OP as the this thread has derailed from the original question. There does not seam to be any getting out of the hay business though there are not that many to begin with. Sure would be nice though to see some of the prices realized in other areas. There are enough people just baling whatever to keep prices of small bales under $4.50/bale

Boy those are some revealing statements you made and I cant overemphasize how hard hitting your post is. The last paragraph in bold really hits home with a few of us in my area, especially with small bales and round bales. I hope your situation resolves itself in a positive way. Really sorry to hear about your dad. Lost mine in similar way.

Fair is fair. We live in a capitalist society and competition is king. With that being said, the small squares business is almost impossible with smaller/hobby guys selling a few hundred to a few thousand bales a year out of a small operation barn for, like you said, $4.50/bale.
Everyone knows the typical 1-3 horse owning crowd is themselves, usually strapped for money and pays the lowest price they can for hay. Thats 100’s of thousands of buyers across the country all flocking to the guys who make hay at a loss because its “fun”. They are not really in it for the money. They are in it for the satisfaction it gives them. Nobody can argue with them or what theyre doing.
It would be like an excavating company competing with a guy who excavates part time with a mini ex for $50/hour for fun/relaxation And the excavating business has $100/hour in overhead and salaries for employees.
Thats why I changed my business model from 100% feed hay, to 20% feed hay and 80% mushroom hay. I cant compete with the guys doing it for a hobby at $4.50/bale. What I CAN do that they cant is TONNAGE. I also found ways to use the equipment for other work- mainly mowing and some limited snow plowing.
There have been times in the past where I think I should use my CDL and drive a tractor trailer to haul my hay and haul for others to make more money that way, but trucking isnt really a much better proposition than farming right now.
With input prices (fuel & fertilizer the worst) being as high as they are, I think we are at/past the breaking point. Good feed hay bales should be selling for $12-$15/bale to make a decent living off making hay. I know I’ll be savaged for saying that, but I dont care. Why does a hay farmer, performing a valuable service, have to endure such low pay for the risks. Until the hobby guys all realize their hay is worth north of $10/bale, feed hay producers will have to keep prices UNDER cost to produce. Thats a losing proposition.

You may want to start thinking about mushroom hay. I dont know if you have the demand for it up there OR if you can drive it 5 hours across PA to where demand for it is high. I DO see trucks in the yard from VA and NY, so there are hay farmers doing it now.

I dont know if you’d be open to it, but do you have CDL and can you afford a hay truck and 50’ trailer? Can you ramp up production to make ~1000 tons of mushroom hay, dropping the costs of constant herbicide spraying and fertilizing? This will cut your overhead and allow cash flow for the trucking costs. Costs more to make quality hay, but if you are competing at $4.50, you might as well forget about it.
Maybe you can make connections locally for fertilizing with any poultry litter or even composted leaves that are available? When you buy tractor trailer, buy an old dump trailer. Pick up any kind of compost material at their farm and spread on your fields?

 

[ddbackhoe]

Fair is fair. We live in a capitalist society and competition is king. With that being said, the small squares business is almost impossible with smaller/hobby guys selling a few hundred to a few thousand bales a year out of a small operation barn for $4.50/bale.
Everyone knows the typical 1-3 horse owning crowd is usually strapped for money and pays the lowest price they can. Thats 100’s of thousands of buyers all flocking to the guys who make hay at a loss because its “fun”. They are not really in it for the money. They are in it for the satisfaction it gives them. Nobody can argue with them or what theyre doing.

If 4.50/bale is so cheap why do we bother to grow it? Just buy from them and ship. The decision there comes into what profit level is acceptable? For me its not just the 1-3 horse crowd thats wants a deal, they all do. The small buyer wants you to reserve stock and store it for free all winter, interrupt what youre doing so they can pop in and pick up 10 or 20 bales. The bigger buyer wants you to load and haul at the same price as off the field because they deserve a discount for quantity. This combined with escalating costs has me perplexed at what our future holds.
Comparing what used to be to today cant really be done. Originally, the farm was tamed with a couple teams of horses and lots of sweat. Horses were expensive but not like a new tractor. Insurance, there was not any, you prayed for good times. The good times got better with a family meal, even better when friends and neighbors came. Nobody was invested in instantaneous news/weather or gps/remote controlling of equipment. Somehow, they managed to survive and even put a little away for a rainy day.
We have a small operation, only 250 acres. The property was placed into a trust for the kids (mine and brothers) and their kids to use and enjoy. Thankfully my other jobs and investments can help with that. I am in process of turning over my interest in the family’s other business to my son and daughter. One nephew and I are gonna concentrate on propping up the farm for their future.

 

[MossRoad]

And you think that's ok? Apparently, those who are dealt a decent hand don't give a damn about that 14%. Have you ever been homeless and lived in the streets? There are people with jobs but have to live in their cars because hey can't afford the rent to live in places close enough to their place of work. To my mind, farmers who have to work hard just to keep their farms from going under have not been dealt a decent hand. Living from hand to mouth is not a decent way of life. The country is deep in debt with $45 trillion in unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare). Is that your idea of a decent hand?

Don't lecture people on poverty. I live in South Bend, IN. We had a 45% vacant housing rate. My mother and several siblings taught in the public school systems. My father lost his job 3 times when I was young. My wife and I do our part on the volunteering side. One of our children does social work as a career. And I now make below-average wages for our state for the past 4 years. So I'm fairly familiar with "poverty."

When you look at the statistics, on average, farmers make more than non-farmers in the U.S. That's a fact. Small farms struggle. That's also a fact. Pretty much any small business (farming is a business, and most farms are considered small businesses) has to grow, sell out, or fail. That's also a fact.

Many farmers, especially small ones, struggle with giving up the sentimentality of the family business. Sometimes, yes sometimes, you have to come to the realization that what you are doing is NOT in your or your family's best interests. So you either have to adapt, take out 2nd employment, find a niche, sell, or fail.

Let's face it. Small farming is tough. Adapt or get left behind.

I do not buy into the "who's going to feed us?" if small farms go out of business argument, because large farms are growing. We just had news this week that a 100 acre greenhouse (think about that, 100 acres under a roof) is coming to town to grow tomatoes and strawberries. They're going next door to an already established greenhouse that grows salad greens indoors.

Several of the local large farms (thousands of acres farms) now have signs in their fields that they are part of a huge investment group. So even the big farms are adapting and partnering up.

It seems like you're expectation of a decent hand is to be given something. My parents gave me food, shelter, clothing, and an education through 12th grade. (they also gave me love and encouragement). They let me live with them rent free until I finished college. I worked a full-time job and two part time jobs while going to college. So did my future wife. We made what we have by hard work and good fortune (finding jobs and having good health) despite "only" being given food and shelter and a loving family.

So the only decent hand I was dealt was intelligent loving parents that were able to feed and cloth me until I was an adult. Everything else, we got on our own.

 

[Hay Dude]

If 4.50/bale is so cheap why do we bother to grow it? Just buy from them and ship. The decision there comes into what profit level is acceptable? For me its not just the 1-3 horse crowd thats wants a deal, they all do. The small buyer wants you to reserve stock and store it for free all winter, interrupt what youre doing so they can pop in and pick up 10 or 20 bales. The bigger buyer wants you to load and haul at the same price as off the field because they deserve a discount for quantity. This combined with escalating costs has me perplexed at what our future holds.
Comparing what used to be to today cant really be done. Originally, the farm was tamed with a couple teams of horses and lots of sweat. Horses were expensive but not like a new tractor. Insurance, there was not any, you prayed for good times. The good times got better with a family meal, even better when friends and neighbors came. Nobody was invested in instantaneous news/weather or gps/remote controlling of equipment. Somehow, they managed to survive and even put a little away for a rainy day.
We have a small operation, only 250 acres. The property was placed into a trust for the kids (mine and brothers) and their kids to use and enjoy. Thankfully my other jobs and investments can help with that. I am in process of turning over my interest in the family’s other business to my son and daughter. One nephew and I are gonna concentrate on propping up the farm for their future.

Good question and the answer in my area is hay brokers. I used to sell to one. He’d come pick it up and write me a check for $4/bale and I was DONE.
Thats quite popular in my area.
Today, I make maybe 100 tons of feed hay and decided a long time ago to stop “advertising” selling hay. Sell for real good price and make delivery a “value added” service, delivering round or cube size 1000 pound bales directly to their feeder by tractor or truck delivery. I tell customers to arrange at least 24 hours in advance for delivery. No more “pick up at the barn”. It takes away the opportunity to add delivery cost to the hay-which is another way to add value/price to it.
Train your customers, dont let them train you. I have a few 10 year customers who pay me a fair price and thats all I want.
Anyone starts heckling, I dont do business with them.

 

[MossRoad]

……Teach a man to fish…….

“give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”​

My dad was same. I am doing same with my kids.

Or, as my wife would say:

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll be gone for the entire weekend."

 

[ddbackhoe]

If 4.50/bale is so cheap why do we bother to grow it? Just buy from them and ship. The decision there comes into what profit level is acceptable? For me its not just the 1-3 horse crowd thats wants a deal, they all do. The small buyer wants you to reserve stock and store it for free all winter, interrupt what youre doing so they can pop in and pick up 10 or 20 bales. The bigger buyer wants you to load and haul at the same price as off the field because they deserve a discount for quantity. This combined with escalating costs has me perplexed at what our future holds.
Comparing what used to be to today cant really be done. Originally, the farm was tamed with a couple teams of horses and lots of sweat. Horses were expensive but not like a new tractor. Insurance, there was not any, you prayed for good times. The good times got better with a family meal, even better when friends and neighbors came. Nobody was invested in instantaneous news/weather or gps/remote controlling of equipment. Somehow, they managed to survive and even put a little away for a rainy day.
We have a small operation, only 250 acres. The property was placed into a trust for the kids (mine and brothers) and their kids to use and enjoy. Thankfully my other jobs and investments can help with that. I am in process of turning over my interest in the family’s other business to my son and daughter. One nephew and I are gonna concentrate on propping up the farm for their future.

I almost forgot a huge difference. 100 years ago, if you decided to clear 5, 50 or 100 acres you didnt need a storm water management plan and a grading plan and a soil conservation plan and……adding thousands of dollars in engineering fees, permits and inspections. The insurance companies weren’t lobbying the politicians for more control to protect them from losses.

 

[Hay Dude]

With the 2015 WOTUS laws looking like they will return, I could lose valuable crop lands.
If you read the laws, they say “navigable” waterways, not intermittent puddles

 

[sea2summit]

Good question and the answer in my area is hay brokers. I used to sell to one. He’d come pick it up and write me a check for $4/bale and I was DONE.
Thats quite popular in my area.
Today, I make maybe 100 tons of feed hay and decided a long time ago to stop “advertising” selling hay. Sell for real good price and make delivery a “value added” service, delivering round or cube size 1000 pound bales directly to their feeder by tractor or truck delivery. I tell customers to arrange at least 24 hours in advance for delivery. No more “pick up at the barn”. It takes away the opportunity to add delivery cost to the hay-which is another way to add value/price to it.
Train your customers, dont let them train you. I have a few 10 year customers who pay me a fair price and thats all I want.
Anyone starts heckling, I dont do business with them.

What's the typical minimum tonnage and quality a broker would consider? I'm getting enough land owners wanting me to cut I can't store, let alone market it, so loading it on a truck sounds great to me.

 

[sea2summit]

I almost forgot a huge difference. 100 years ago, if you decided to clear 5, 50 or 100 acres you didnt need a storm water management plan and a grading plan and a soil conservation plan and……adding thousands of dollars in engineering fees, permits and inspections. The insurance companies weren’t lobbying the politicians for more control to protect them from losses.

And the soil probably had enough in it to support growing for the first several years without a lot of added nutrients.