How do farmers make any money?

[Eagle1]

You can’t lose money forever, but some sure as hell have tried!

As long as you losses are mostly depreciation it is not fatal. If you run actual cash flow into the red it is never a good year. Had bad years but held on until I retired, managed to pay the place off. Now is just raise my own food and try to sell enough cattle to pay the feed bills. Most years it close.

 

[MossRoad]

Salary IS an expense and fully deductible in the right business structure. My corp was held in a trust and I was just the hired hand to run the operation.

At my last employer, we were our owner's landlord. They rented office space from us.

 

[Eagle1]

At my last employer, we were our owner's landlord. They rented office space from us.

Good on you.... lot of legal ways to play the game.

 

[MossRoad]

Anyone ever been to Fair Oaks Farm over in NW Indiana?

They milk around 36,000 cows three times per day, produce over 250,000 gallons of milk per day, birth 80-100 calves per day, and use digesters to convert the manure into methane that not only powers all of their electricity needs, it powers their AG equipment, and their fleet of semi's that deliver all of that milk. They also sell electricity back to the grid. They own around 30 square miles.

They send all the heifer calves to KY and TN to graze (better grazing ground) until they're ready to be bred. Then they artificially inseminate them. A month or so before they are ready to give birth, they bring them back to Indiana. They give birth and head off to the milking barn for the rest of their life.

Each barn has about 6000 cows. They are all RFID tagged. The cows decide if they want to be milked and walk themselves to the milking parlor. If they arrive too early, a gate sends them to the back of the line. If it's been long enough, it lets them through. They step on to a slowly turning 72 stall turntable, someone closes a gate behind them, disinfects their teats, and hooks up the milker. Every cow is monitored for milk production.

There's more. It's really fascinating. If you ever get the chance to go, do it.

The last time we were there, we were on a bus with a load of Wisconsin dairy farmers. The overwhelming comment was "I'm glad I retired when I did."

 

[MossRoad]

Good on you.... lot of legal ways to play the game.

It was good on them, not us. They owned around 25-30 newspapers, TV and radio stations. Yet they physically owned no property.

 

[ning]

You and I can own one, too....

Amazon.com

so at 1/64 scale that should have over 17hp, right?

 

[edgarrian]

That's exactly what they're doing on a 1000 acre solar farm here. Sheep farmer is pretty happy. Land owners are pretty happy.

https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2024/12/03/sheep-flock-graze-in-honeysuckle-solar-farm-to-help-farmer-gunthorp/76424837007/

Wind farms were once popular. Here in Montgomery County Indiana it was nearly a done deal until there was a huge blow back. The project was booted to the disgust of several lawmakers here in the state. Soliday would be that law maker. Fast forward a few years and solar panels were on the docket. The push back was big on that as well. Fact is nobody wants there home to be surrounded by these projects. Its not farming. Its industrial sized power plants. Thats the biggest issue right now is that the they are zoned incorrectly. So if you are potential home buyer. You could be in a sticky situation. Not to mention these projects do not revitalize anything. There isn't more jobs being created. During the construction sure. But after that its a loss for creating jobs. Dual use for solar is hardly being used. Sure this guy is feeding his sheep but farmers are not planting corn, or beans between panels.

This is not a neighborly venture for farmers to pursue these projects. 30 years ago and beyond if you were going to build a hog farm building. Farmers would get the neighbors thoughts. That does not happen. I get its there property. One can do what they want most generally. But building projects that negatively effect property values is **** way to go about it

 

[MossRoad]

so at 1/64 scale that should have over 17hp, right?

 

[MossRoad]

Wind farms were once popular. Here in Montgomery County Indiana it was nearly a done deal until there was a huge blow back. The project was booted to the disgust of several lawmakers here in the state. Soliday would be that law maker. Fast forward a few years and solar panels were on the docket. The push back was big on that as well. Fact is nobody wants there home to be surrounded by these projects. Its not farming. Its industrial sized power plants. Thats the biggest issue right now is that the they are zoned incorrectly. So if you are potential home buyer. You could be in a sticky situation. Not to mention these projects do not revitalize anything. There isn't more jobs being created. During the construction sure. But after that its a loss for creating jobs. Dual use for solar is hardly being used. Sure this guy is feeding his sheep but farmers are not planting corn, or beans between panels.

This is not a neighborly venture for farmers to pursue these projects. 30 years ago and beyond if you were going to build a hog farm building. Farmers would get the neighbors thoughts. That does not happen. I get its there property. One can do what they want most generally. But building projects that negatively effect property values is **** way to go about it

I'll bet those same farmers didn't want their view spoiled by those subdivisions.

 

[OzarkChris]

You are one of the 10%.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I am under the impression that only Row Croppers (oh and Green energy, if you call that farming) get subsidized. So, if that is correct, are you saying that there are only 10% of the farmers out there that produce critters? e.g., Beef, Pork, Poultry, etc? What about feed that is other than corn or other grains, e.g., hay, alfalfa, etc? Tree Farmers? I could probably think of more.