Are there any real farmers out there???

[WEJ]

I have read most of the posts on this board and I am just wondering if there are any real farmers out there using Montana tractors. You know, the kind that grow something..... I have to admit, although I live on the family farm, I am not a farmer. Now, like most of the posts I have read, I am proud of my nice new shiny clean fancy tractor, and I do run a brush hog, and blade, and snowblower.... but back to my original question.... Are there any real farmers out there??? If so, lets hear from you.....

Bill

 

[gemini5362]

I have read most of the posts on this board and I am just wondering if there are any real farmers out there using Montana tractors. You know, the kind that grow something..... I have to admit, although I live on the family farm, I am not a farmer. Now, like most of the posts I have read, I am proud of my nice new shiny clean fancy tractor, and I do run a brush hog, and blade, and snowblower.... but back to my original question.... Are there any real farmers out there??? If so, lets hear from you.....

Bill

Real ? as opposed to Mechanical Men Farmers or Blow up Farmers or ?

 

[WEJ]

I mean "Real" as their main or only source of income, comes from the farm.... You know, the people that need to get up early tomorrow so the rest of us will have something to eat!!! (And I want to thank each and every one of them for that!!)

 

[montanaman]

I can tell you that in my area, there are very few "farmers" left and most of them have a second job so that they can afford to live and farm. I do have some tractors out there doing "commercial" duty and some tractors on large acre horse farms maintaining riding rinks and doing hay work, but I only have one Montana out there that I know is plowing. It belongs to a very well off local business owner who is just farming for the fun of it. I do know of dealers in timber areas that sell a lot of utility tractors with winches and bucket grapples that are being used for commercial use and holding up very well, but not really farming I guess.

Most of the large working farms near me seem to have some old iron working in the fields because the money is not there to replace what they can make do with. We do have one very large working farm that has their own market and they also sell food at the local market in the city. They do replace their equipment pretty often for tax reasons but are using much larger equipment in the well over 100HP range.

It seems there are also a lot of guys who can afford it buying tractors for food plots for hunting.

I would say most of my sales end up on 5 to 40 acre plots and are used for mowing, rotary cutting, backhoe work, road maint and clearing and loader work.

I have some units out there tilling small family gardens and with the question of the quality and safety of all of this imported food, I think this trend will continue to grow.

With rising energy costs, I also have a lot of tractors out there being used for fire wood gathering and processing and I think this trend will be growing too.

Ken

 

[Oleozz]

Good reply Ken from someone who's in the business and knows.
In this part of Pa most folks who farm for a living use 100+hp tractors. The popular brands are JD, MF, Case, and lots of old IH's.

 

[blueriver]

This is as real as it is for us! We have cattle, hogs, horse's, we have pasture's and hay ground... No row Crops. Plant winter grass and wheat for early spring grazing. We count on selling as many units as we can and still on the side sell Real Estate, do auctions and any odd job I can get!

The problem is MONEY!! I like money and it cost so darn much for everything we do ... fuel, insurance, feed, repairs, parts, electric, food ... EVERYTHING! So therefore, I just keep hustling!!!

I am living the american dream, our hard work has been rewarding! No Mortgage payments, no truck payments! I still want alot of things so I still work!!

 

[WEJ]

I see the same thing where I live too. Real farmers struggling to make ends meet with used and older equipment and hobby farmers with the new toys.... It seems the world is upside down.....

 

[gemini5362]

I know what you are trying to say but I take exception to your remark "real " farmers. Professional farmers to me is a much more accurate description. It makes it appear that everyone that does not farm for a living is a fake. During the depression there were a lot of hobby farmers that grew food for their families and a lot of other people. A person that prepares ground, plants seed and then harvests the crop is farming. I am quite sure that most of the people that farm for a living are doing it because that is the job that they want to do. The same as I work on computers because that is what I want to do to make a living. People who professionaly farm grow food for all of us to eat and I am very aware of how hard a job that is to do. But they could not do that without the people who work in refineries that make the fuel that runs tractors, or the people that works in factories that make those tractors, or the people that work on oil rigs to get the oil to make the fuel, or the people that work for the electric company so that they can have electricity at those farms or etc etc. The person that has a few acres and grows produce to sell at a produce stand for extra money is still a farmer and I dont think they should be slighted by saying that they are not real farmers.

 

[YanmarFever]

Im surounded by christmas tree farmers, in fact thats all the farmers for 20 miles. They all buy the smallest tractor they can find to get between the rows of trees.
We have sold many small tractors to them for the last 10 years.

No food crops around here !

 

[HayDR]

I mean "Real" as their main or only source of income, comes from the farm.... You know, the people that need to get up early tomorrow so the rest of us will have something to eat!!! (And I want to thank each and every one of them for that!!)

In 2006 there were 226,496 new tractors sold in the USA. 203,087 were less than 100 HP. AEM | Industry Trends - U.S. Ag Flash Reports -- Archive

What is a real farmer? and what is a real tractor?

Of the 100 million cattle in the USA 50% are owned by operators that have herds of 50 or less and farm 100 acres or less. If a farm produces $1,000 a year of gross receipts they are classified as a farmer. The cattle producers usually use tractors in the 40-85 PTO HP range.

Row crop farmers usually have tractors that exceed 100 HP and farm thousands of acres.

A full-time farmer is one that earns 100% of their income from a farm operation. Is a household that has one income earner earning income off the farm and the other spouse earning income off the farm and a true full time Farmer household? Who cares? The work is equally hard and rewarding for the weekender as it is for the person that farms 24/7 on thousands of acres. The size of the tractor only has to do but with the task that tractor has a capacity to do. Tractor size or brand has nothing to do with the operator being a real farmer or not.