Need some advice on starting farming

[RedNeckRacin]

My opinion is dont quit your day job. Hobby farming and making a living at farming are completely different. I have no idea how the large guys sleep at night knowing that they owe hundreds of thousands of dollars and might not make their loan payments. I'm not much older than you, but alot of my neighbors are barely eeking out a living. They put in alot more hours than I do and I work a full time job and hobby farm some hay.(about 120 acres-ish) I can't say that I enjoy spending money on equipment when I could be making investments for my future, but ah well. Also, if you have no mechanical ability don't even attempt this. Farm equipment breaks, period. If you can't look at something and figure out how to take it apart, fix it, and put it back together, save yourself the painful lesson.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, just realistic. The advice about treating it as a business rings true. That includes insurance and most likely hiring an accountant because you most likely won't have time to manage your books if your making a serious go at it. It may be easier if someone can give you a hand from time to time though. Lots of hours spent alone riding around in circles on the tractor eating dust and singing to yourself. (atleast I do to amuse myself a bit)

 

[BuckeyeBoy11]

First off thanks for all the advice and information about farming. This really has opened my eyes to a very risky type of life. Here is what I'm getting out of this:
1. Do my marketing research to find a niche in the market
2. Expect to keep a 40hr/week job because I may not even break even
3. If I do start, start small and begin farming for a local farmer.

Here is some more info on my situation:
The farm has around 200 acres of the 500 tillable that is creek bottoms and can produce over 175 bushels/acre. We currently rent the farmland for $200/ acre. I was thinking of farming on an adjusted rent with my dad so if I had a good year I would be paying over $150 an acre but if bad it would be near $100. That way I could build up some profits to continue to farm. We do have around 140 acres of extra tillable ground that is in CRP, that is really helping the family's income but won't be able to be farmed for another 10 years. Most of the neighbors are raising black angus, so I was going to think about doing that. Since others suggesting that I do specialty grass raised meats, I have thought about goats or lambs. The pasture could be row cropped but only about 40 acres, the 100 acres is split up and some borders the tillable. I have an 1988 JD 2350 to do farm chores.

 

[creekbend]

My suggestion is to go to your local Feed or Hardware Store where Farmers spend time. You can learn quite a lot by listening, watching, and asking questions. Most Farmers will be glad to give advice.

 

[IndyIan]

Have you heard of Joel Salatin? Polyface, Inc.
You could even do an internship there to see if his farming philosophy works for you. It can get you out of trying to produce a commodity against the agribusinesses and making money with hard work and planning without much capital. There are a few farms around me that produce heritage free range pork that are doing well on not alot of land.
I know I would like keep renting out as much land as I could at 200/acre so going into specialty livestock helps with that.
Also I would start now, once you get older and have things like a mortgage or kids, the amount of risk you can take and free time you have gets pretty small.

 

[IndyIan]

Have you heard of Joel Salatin? Polyface, Inc.
You could even do an internship there to see if his farming philosophy works for you. It can get you out of trying to produce a commodity against the agribusinesses and making money with hard work and planning without much capital. There are a few farms around me that produce heritage free range pork that are doing well on not alot of land.
I know I would like keep renting out as much land as I could at 200/acre so going into specialty livestock helps with that.
Also I would start now, once you get older and have things like a mortgage or kids, the amount of risk you can take and free time you have gets pretty small.

 

[High Brook Hills]

IF you do cows and plan to run them through auction think about breeds and stages of growth first.

Black cows will bring slightly less than registered Angus. Registered Angus will cost you more to buy into.

There is also the possibility of raising stock from weaning until weight for feed lots. You would have cows on the property for most of the year and have the winter or other season to rest. This path means you do not have to have bulls and cows and you do not worry about the loss of calving.

You can also raise a specialty breed and sell to individuals or raise and sell meat to a restaurant, individuals, retailer, butcher shop, etc.

FWIW Angus has some great marketing going on. Our grass fed Herefords taste just as good as our similarly raised Angus. The Galloway and Highland are light years ahead in flavor!!!!

 

[Ross71]

My advice is that if you want to farm, hire yourself out and LEARN about farming from the best operator you can get to take you on. Save your money and learn all you can for at least the next 3 full seasons. Remember, you need to learn not just about what goes on in the dirt, but what goes on in the office as well.

Grouse

Buckeye: This is very, very good advice. Work for nothing if you have to. If your heart is really to farm, do whatever it takes to gain some knowledge and experience at someone else's risk.

Best of luck, Ross

 

[The Famous Grouse]

First off thanks for all the advice and information about farming. This really has opened my eyes to a very risky type of life. Here is what I'm getting out of this:
1. Do my marketing research to find a niche in the market
2. Expect to keep a 40hr/week job because I may not even break even
3. If I do start, start small and begin farming for a local farmer.

Here is some more info on my situation:
The farm has around 200 acres of the 500 tillable that is creek bottoms and can produce over 175 bushels/acre. We currently rent the farmland for $200/ acre. I was thinking of farming on an adjusted rent with my dad so if I had a good year I would be paying over $150 an acre but if bad it would be near $100. That way I could build up some profits to continue to farm. We do have around 140 acres of extra tillable ground that is in CRP, that is really helping the family's income but won't be able to be farmed for another 10 years. Most of the neighbors are raising black angus, so I was going to think about doing that. Since others suggesting that I do specialty grass raised meats, I have thought about goats or lambs. The pasture could be row cropped but only about 40 acres, the 100 acres is split up and some borders the tillable. I have an 1988 JD 2350 to do farm chores.

I'll give it to you straight. IMO, you don't have anything near the land quality and type to profitably raise row crops at a 10 year average price. Sorry, but even if you took over all the tillable land and got 175 corn on all of it, you can't even afford the payments on must-own used equipment and hiring out the spraying and harvesting.


One thought: Cash rents vary wildly from area to area, but to me $200/acre is a little low if you really have 175 bu/ac average land. I think you should have a market analysis done and see if you are under-charging on rent. It's very easy to let this slide and I totally get that raising rent is a sensitive issue in farm country, but you have to look after your own interests.

I think you need to take the long view and learn more and I repeat my advice to start working for the best operator you can find.

Also, understand that there are MANY different kinds of farming rather than just cash cropping. A couple of stories for you.

I have a good friend of our family who has a cattle rearing operation. What makest his interesting is that he doesn't actually own the cattle. He is simply providing the building, labor, and feed. He uses his own hay ground and grain crops for feed, which instead of selling on the open market, he gets a near-retail price for. Essentially, he's charging money for his labor, feed, and farm assets in exchange for rearing cattle. He has no market risk in the price of cattle, he gets paid a set fee per pound of weight gain + he gets reatil price for his hay and feed. They do very well with this operation, so well in fact that he's built a second operation for his son. They rotate feeder cattle in put about 500 - 900 pounds on them, and then the company trucks them out to a finishing lot.

At a trade show, I met another farmer. This guy is from Belgium. They take farming seriously in Europe and this guy is a college-educated farmer with a masters degree in dairy rearing and operations. The problem in Belgium is that land and farms NEVER go up for sale. It simply does not ever happen. They are carefully held by familys for centuries. So he found himself out in the cold because his two older brothers were chosen to run the family dairy operation and he was basically just hired labor.

So there he was surfing the interweb one night and he found that you can actually buy a whole farm in America. Dairy heard and everything. He couldn't beleive it. So he flew over to Wisconsin and looked at some farms, but more improtantly some local dairymen felt sorry for him and took them under their wing and showd him the holy grail: Their ledgers and animal records! This guy copied all this stuff and used it to build a business case for making money as a specialist milk provider to the cheese industry. He got his father to co-sign a loan for him (in Belgium), came over here, bought an operation in Wisconsin, and then started building up a heard of cattle, the breed I've never heard of. Now he's got 300+ head and he's getting about 3x the price per pound for his milk because it all goes to speciality cheese makers, not to common bulk milk operations. He's loving it here and living the dream, he can't believe how "lucky" he is. I talked to his nighbor, a 40+ year dairyman and 4th generation to run his spread, and that farmer says "Lucky my @ss, that guy is the smartest **** dairyman I've ever seen and he knows more about dairy cattle than a lot of vets do."

I'm telling you this to illustrate that there are many different business models in farming. The good operator finds the business model that works for what he has and then exploits it.

Grouse

 

[BuckeyeBoy11]

Ok well thanks for all the input. I guess some of the local farms are getting 250-300 an acre on corn and over 70 in spots for soybeans. Didn't know that but I guess that is the potential. With bushels of over 250 on corn could I do this as hobby farming. Keep a full time that I could make over 30,000 and try to hobby farm on the tillable. Could I just find a special niche on the pasture ground and keep the tillable in conventions.

 

[OldMcDonald]

Buckeye, I will not comment on the corn, because I do not know US costs and returns. One thing I will say though is that I am absolutely opposed to any land being kept in permanent cultivation. History (as in millenia) shows us that this has led to the collapse of large areas of land in many countries. I favour four years crop then four years grass. It does mean you need fences - and that applies to your existing grassland too. Cattle are easier to keep in than sheep, goats or pigs.

Why go for a niche market? You have to be able to sell locally and easily. I ran up to 400 Herefords, a breed I am not particularly fond of, in Australia because that is what everybody else (except a near neighbour) had for tens of miles around about, and every saleyard had Hereford buyers attending every sale. The neighbour had to sell his cattle privately to a slaughterhouse to get a reasonable price. That meant he had to fatten everything whereas the rest of us could sell young stock at any stage of growth. Might be best to go with Angus as your neighbours do.

I still say go for it, keeping your day job. That way you can quit at any time. Note particularly that nobody has posted saying that they tried to do what you want to do and failed. I did it with a family land base of just two acres. You can do it too.