Any farmers here who care to explain why you grow corn or soybeans?
I have been doing some research and have come up with these numbers. (Illinois 2003)
Corn: Average yield is 168 bushels per acre.
Average cost to produce a bushel is $2.42.
Commodities market price for December Corn is 206.25 (cents per bushel)=$2.06
That is a loss of 36¢ per bushel. >:(
Soybeans: Average yield is 48 bushels per acre.
Average cost to produce a bushel is $6.94.
Commodities market price for November Corn is 571.25 (cents per bushel)=$5.71
That is a loss of $1.23 per bushel. >:(
These are USDA and U of Illinois numbers.
Obviously these are not valid numbers. I've verified the yield numbers on other sites, the cost of production cannot be verified so that is suspect. The commodites market number are what they are.
Is there something else am I overlooking? Do you make it up with volume? ;D
-Doug
The production costs are probably right. But, the way they figure it out is operating costs and overhead costs. Operating costs must be paid, but, some of the overhead costs are not necessarilly out of pocket expenses.
For example, you don't go out and buy new land or new equipment every year just to have a crop. In many instances, land has been passed down from generation to generation and there is no purchase price involved. Not all farmers have crop insurance. Some might not use all the insecticide, etc.
That's about all I can figure out.
It's probably the years with the low yields that saves their hides. The more they grow the higher the maintenance on the equipment and the more labor envolved. If they have a really good year they might go out of business. ;D
Farmen & Loggen is similar. Ifen you wants to make a million dollars at either. ... starts with 2 million :o :D :)
You guys forgot the main source of income on the two crops-Farm Bill. The profit for farming for most farmers is the government checks, it is sad to say. >:( Why do you think they plant more every year and fight over the farmland that is available. ???
Farmerdoug
Boy Howdy, Doug,
I used to work with that kind of stuff as a Farm Mgnt. Specialist with the Univ. of Mo. You gotta understand how those Ivory tower economists think. They figure everyone is using new equipment and paying themselves the same level of salary that they recieve, for example.
I worked with a recordkeeping program and saw the actual expenses and reciepts from many grain and livestock operations in Mo. It was amazing how much they varied and often it wasn't the operator that did everything like the university reccomended that made the most income.
Also, they are reporting averages that they came up with. When working with averages, it pays to remember that you can drown in a creek that averages only 6 inches deep ;)
Doug,
Land and Equipment are the two largest expenses that are put into the think tanks that THINK they know it all. Our land has been in the family for 4 generations. Thus, no land expense. My Great Grandfather bought this 500 acres with the $500 he won in the Worlds Fair in Chicago with a prize sheep.
When my grandfather was farming he bought new equipment and paying it off was TOP priority. In 5 years he had it paid for and was debt free.
Last year our corn yeild was just over 200 bushels an acre on corn and 45 bushels on beans. Depending on when you sell your grain makes a big difference in what you make. Some farmers HAVE to sell it to get another crop in the ground next year. Others hold onto it and sell when its high.
When my Grandfather died he had 7 years of grain in storage. 7 years? I think there is a biblical reference to that but will have to do some more reading. Anyway, he studied the WOLRD weather and became extreamly knowledgable about the WORLD grain market. Knowing what is going on in all those countries that are buying our grain can tell you a lot about when to sell your grain.
My dad has been renting out the farm on a 50/50 share and has NEVER lost money, even in a bad year. This year may be the lowest profit year because of the drought but he will still make money.
Now, for those government checks some folks want to mention. The program is part of a Federal Conservation Recovery Program that pay for land to be "Set Aside" or placed in CRP. That land has to be planted with a certain cover crop and maintained. The program is designed to increase habitat for wildlife such as quail, pheasant, turkey etc. This program helps to increase overall revenues in many states from sports hunters. A major portion of the funding for that program comes from within those activities through fees and hunting licenses etc.
Is it free money to the farmer? NO. The cover crop has to be planted, which means the land has to be tilled and prepared, then seeded, then cut according to the schedule for enhanced habitat. It comes out about even as far as profit goes, at least in our case. So, put a corn or bean crop in the ground and make XX amount or put part of the land into CRP and enhance the wildlife and make XX amount.
CRP is not something that you can just do if you want. You have to apply and then depending on availabliity you might get to put a SMALL percentage of land into the program.
Now, as far as subsidised programs for other types of farming, like dairy cattle etc, I have no clue. I just know that corn and bean farming is NOT a subsidized operation.
Kirk,
I was not referring to the CRP. I think that is a step in the right direction for farming and conservation. I was referring to the LDP(loan defiecnity(sp) payments). that is were the government makes up the difference in the prices for the main grain crops.
Farmerdoug
I know the local farmer didn't make much on his corn last year. He cut it in the middle of November. Of course it was all diseased, then dumped it all out in the field in January. They grow soyabeans here and harvest them late too, there is a local dryer. I don't think they make much. As far as I and many others can tell, they are only play farming. The land purchase didn't cost them much, since they leased it for $1/acre for three years and during that time they had a woods contractor cut over 400 acres of their woods they never paid for, but used to purchase the farm. This was all sanctioned by government. ::)
Corn and soybean farming is heavily subsidized Kirk, not sure how you can make that statement.There are direct payments based on "corn base" and indirect payments, like the no sales tax to farmers on farm equipment. Much of the ground here in the nw corner of Ill. is classified highly erodable, so lots of crp acres.It is nothing like what you describe where your at. Mostly huge weed patches owned by non resident Chicagoans that come here to hunt a few times a year.The conservation programs are screwed up because they cater to the wildlife and hunting crowd. The turkey and whitetail numbers here are incredible, and they are tough on the timber crop of the future as the mast and seedlings get hammered by them. Every january you will see the deer herding up on the hillsides in the evenings here and you can count 30, 50 even 60 or more in groups, and this after the generous hunting seasons are over..... On the subsidies... If all payments to farmers were eliminated, how many would still farm?
one grows corn/soybeans because one lives in the corn/soybean desert & the govt pays well.
Now don't be calling this farm welfare cause these guys actually work.
Mind you, this is different from corporate welfare.
But farming is a way of life.... so we have to save family farms.
Course, no one saved family loggers. Guess logging isn't a way of life.
1 those Arsenio Hall things
A frightening visit to the FSA site (Farm Services Agency) will get one all riled up. There is so much competition for this agency to 'give' money away to anyone and everyone they can think of, it isn't funny.
I read where Illinois has the highest subsidy percentage, followed by Nebraska, Kansas, and Minnesota. Maybe Iowa was in there too. But other than the relative differences, I didn't put too much stock in the numbers, as it was a sight of enviros trying to steer that subsidy money over to them, rather than let the farmers have it.
But I think some farmers who have stayed out of debt (like Kirks family's history) probably don't qualify for as much of the support as those who have not managed well, and get regular 'support'. I recall a neighbor getting fighting mad that his other neighbor signed up once for some 'hay relief' dollars one year. This guy was mad because that neighbor wasn't a 'regular' in the handouts, and shouldn't be dipping into their share of the money (the guy who was mad was a regular in the subsidy program, and he acted like that he had dibs on that money on an annual basis).
Something know one has brought up is that a large number of the farmers have the wife working in town and they use this money to keep there head above water.
At Rufus, Oregon, they have an old timers show every year. The equipment dealers bring some of there B I G equipment to show. This year they had a Case IH combine, list price $380,000. They (the farmer) sell there wheat for under $3.00 a bushel, how do they pay for this combine?
They have a rich uncle ::)
same way corn /soybean desert guys do , govt check.
Most of the Farm Bill goes towards Food Stamps for the Welfair program. LDP payments are just part of the Farm Bill. My dad plants corn and soybeans to feed his moos. Even if it goes for feed he still gets a LDP check. Call it welfair if you want but is helps to pay the bills.
With fuel and fertilizer prices soaring many farmers will be in serious trouble. The first to go will be the ones that drive in new trucks and equipment every year. My dad drives around in his 77 Chevy half ton truck. The newest tractor on the farm is a 1983 Foad TW30. The combine he bought last winter cost him $10.5k for the Gleaner F2 with corn and bean heads. My dad did not get the farm handed to him for free. He payed his parents with interest for the farm. Borrowed money to buy more land and now has it all payed off.
This country runs on 2 things. 1 is cheap energy and 2 is cheap food. The goverment floods the markets with foreign dairy, grain, and cattle imports to keep the price low and then handouts LDP payments to keep there own farmers alive, doesn't make sence does it??
Jason
If the govt. would stay way away from agriculture, it would suit me just fine. They have price supports on dairy products, but it is so low it rarly makes a difference. They made some kind of trade agreement that was harmful to dairy farmers so they came up with a 'milk loss' program to make it up to the dairy producers. So far this year we got $11 ::)
The dairy industry has pretty much given up on the govt. doing anything beneficial for dairymen. We have our own program financed through milk check deductions. It is used to create export markets, promote milk products especially in schools, and it also pays to retire some herds. All financed by the dairy producers to help themselves.
Today I got a letter in the mail with a form to fill out to have contributions deducted from our milkcheck. It would go to help the 300+ dairymen who were effected by the hurricane.
If you ever want to get me really pithed, just suggest that dairymen are on the goverment dole ;)
Most dairy imports I see here are some cheeses. But, in my opinion they can't compete with Canadian made cheeses. There are some ice cream products imported, but they again are hardly competing. They're just there for choice. In my province we have milk marketing boards with strict quotas. At every dairy farm the milk is tested by a delivery truck and if it's not up to specs the farmer has to pay for the whole truckload of contaminated milk. I think in Maine the government buys the surplus milk.
Jason, my father had to buy all his farmland too, plus take on my grandfather's debt for the family farm. He never got no free $500,000 new entrant subsidy nor $1/acre leases that the government gives to immigrated farmers. The immigrant farmer down the road basically got a free farm with all the subsidies, farmed it for 3 years (if that's what ya call it) and now doesn't even farm. He sold off all his farm equipment and rents the land and his wife started an immigration business with ACOA (government subsidy). Just sitten back milking the cash cow. The general population wouldn't know this, nor would they care because it doesn't affect them directly. ::)
QuoteThe general population wouldn't know this, nor would they care because it doesn't affect them directly.
It does, they have just become complacent. They don't acknowledge where the money originates. Perhaps many don't call attention to it for fear of losing their own "cash cow".
Horselogger, I understand the tax free releif we get for farm related purchase but that is normal business. I pay no tax on the Cost of Goods to manufacture our fire equipment because it is for resale.
As far as any other subsidies, I can proudly say, WE DONT GET THEM. I am not familiar with LDP payments and when I asked my Dad about them he said you have to be apply for them and he would never ask for a handout, so I guess there are some programs out there that would put money in our pocket but not something he has ever done.
I understand totally the what the CRP program is doing in some areas of the state. For us, since we are so remote, if thats possible in Illinois, it has helped immensly. We are finally seeing LOTS of quail and pheasant in our area. Had we not had CRP land I doubt we would have ever seen their return. We dont have the Chicago problem here, other than ME ;D But that dont count! We simply came home.! In other parts it has created a nightmare for farmers buecause it has become STRICTLY for hunting. Those deer can wipe out a bunch of corn and there are no programs paying farmers for that, other than maybe being able to get Free landowner permits and nusience tags to take them out.
I guess since our family has never partaken in those handout programs I am really in the dark on who gets them and how but by staying out of debt and living within your means I belive anyone can survice in this world, including the small family farm.
We started selling eggs a few weeks ago. WOW. Had no idea so many people wanted farm fresh eggs. We subsidise our feed bill from egg sales! We now are eating FREE EGGS!
Kirk your lucky the eggs return a profit to offset the feed. Up here the feed for a small chicken egg farm would put you under before it took off. It seems you have to go big. For the small guy buying small lots of feed is costlier than the big guy buying it by the trailor load. My uncle tried turkey a few years back and if ya factored in the cost of feed those turkeys were worth $10 a pound. :D :D
I've been trying to stay out of this one, but I just can't. I have to attend a pesticide applicator's class every winter to keep up my spray liscense here at the farm. It is conducted by our county agent and his sidekicks. Every year they try to get us independent farmers signed up to the government farm programs, and every year I say no thanks. The way it is set up here, as soon as you take one dollar from them, or even some technical advice, they get their foot in the door and soon have total control of your farm. Their cronies in the ag chemical and seed companies, and the big buyers of commodity products, try to push us into corn/bean rotations, no matter the economics for the farmer. The suppliers want an outlet for their goods and the buyers want cheap grain. The land grant universities, heavily influenced by the ag chemical companies, push this as well. We just run the farm like any business and try to produce what the market wants, not what some bureaucrat in Washington D.C. thinks we should. I could never figure out why the government would subsidize growing more of a crop than the market demands, and then buying the surplus to support the price.
As for the economics of corn and beans, I can't afford to grow them. I can buy ground feed delivered to my tank for less than I can grow it and haul to the mill to be ground. My acreage is more profitable growing hay and sweet corn than corn and beans.
Kirk,
The guy renting your land is probably getting the payment.
50/50 sounds like a good deal for the land owner.
Land is rented here on 1/3 2/3 with the owner getting the 1/3. (dryland wheat/milo)
Norm and Patty cash rent thier land (corn and beans) but I don't remember the figure.
Thats what I was figuring too, Haytrader. I have a small field on my place I have cash rented out in the past, and the deal was that the farmer got the payment.
Frickman, I'm wit you on dat! I try to keep the gubmint as far away from my bidness as I can!
I raise vegetables. I have never signed up for the farm program. They have little to offer vegeable growers but their nosiness. If you raise vegtables on a piece of land then it is not acceptable for the corn/bean programs. If you are in the program you have to go by their rules or you lose your money. I sell hundreds of dozens of sweet corn a week, that is where my money comes from. My meat comes from the deer that feed in the fields all summer. If I had to raise the regular crops such as corn and beans I would quit farming. The government does not need to know everything. We rent land to a guy who does the program. It is cash rent, the rest is his problems.
Doug
The biggest farmer around here is doing close to 20,000 acres of beans, corn and wheat. I heard today he got a govt. check for about $ 1,000,000. last year. He keeps buying land , 600 acres that I know of last year. My father-in law saw them in a big field with 6 combines the other day . Tom
http://www.ewg.org/farm/
farm subsidy database.
before anyone clicks here, i gotta warn ya, the website is VERY liberal, read with discretion. the database itself is quite liberal.
Wow, some of those farms might as well be renamed into charitable donation committees ;D
Whenever my brother in law farmer gets kidded about all the government supports he just laughs and pulls off his seed cap, shows folks how nicely curved the bill is, and says, " I keep a nice curve in it for when I scoop all those checks out of the mailbox. It works great as a catcher's mit." ;D
I haven't grown any corn on here in five years but last year because I have an established corn base I had a payment direct deposited to my checking account. It was a payment related to crop loss due to weather and even though I didn't have any corn I got paid 8) This year I'm also getting a crop loss payment for hay for 03 and 04 8) I've got a meeting scheduled this week to meet with the local NRCS fella to go over some programs that the feds will pay me to enact here on the farm including some TSI work, shelter belts, nutrient management etc. If the govt wants to give me money I'm not gonna say no. I see my tax dollars being burned up all the world ::) and am more than happy to get some of them back to use here at home
The biggest farm around here is the Peters Bros. They farm 30,000 acres in a corn, wheat, soybean rotation. :o They ran five combines last year. They use only John Deere equipment. They buy two tractors and two combines a year. They own 4-5000 acres and rent the rest. Their combines run 35 foot grain platforms and 12 row corn heads. They are quite a sight to see in action when planting and harvesting. :-\ They have their own trucks tillage equipment, sprayers, etc. But they have made it hard for the smaller farmers to get land to rent and they are hard on the land. They work in the fields wet or dry, which they have to with the acres they cover. But working the fields wet leads to compaction and it is very visible in the fields they have worked for several years now. They pay top rent but I will not lease to them because the dollar means nothing if they damage the soil for the long run. ;)
As far as the support, I see no problem with it if you want to jump through their hoops but if the farm bill is cut back big time I will not shed a tear for the farmers that have come to rely on it. ::)
Farmerdoug
If you want to continue having cheap food than you better support the farmers. I will say though that those kinds of subsidies are unheard of in New Brunswick. One exception would be distaster releif where everyone as a group gets cheques and that only happens once in ten years on average. Nobody gets hay and straw subsidies, soil and conservation subsidies unheard of. They do get subsidies for land clearing here, but the cost is double compared to conventional clearing methods.
A farm became available for rent here this spring. One of those megafarm outfits met with the owner, bringing along a couple of lawyers and accountants. They were supposed to have made the statement," We intend to farm 20,000 acres, and we don't much care how we get it." That didn't set well with the owner, and they didn't get any of his land. 8) 8) This outfit set up multiple corporations, and a couple of the corporations went bankrupt recently. Do you suppose there was any transfer of assets before bankruptcy? >:( FarmerDoug has it right about the misuse of land when they force themselves into a situation where they have to get on wet land because they are farming too much DanG land. If that is what it takes to farm, I'd just druther not.
I have a small farm that I grow soybeans and corn. I think my cost last year for corn was approx $ 113.00 an acre to plant corn. My yield last year was close to 200 bushels per acre. You won't become a millionaire but you can make a living with enough acres. Remember most farmers have no house payment as they live on the farm house on the farm. Don't start on the goverment handouts, they pay because they want to control the price of grain. Try working all year growing a crop and have the goverment decide to embargo. They manipulate the price of grain for many reasons, most farmers have little or no control of what price they get. The goverment keeps food cheap to keep all us folks happy cause you get cheap food and have full belly. It keeps your mind off of all of the things going on around you. You can't blame the farmer for using the system the goverment sets up as they have no control and really no choice.
The statistics on that website are a little misleading. They are big on saying that the biggest x% gets y% of the money, which is true. However, most every landowner who share rents a piece of property gets the a share of the payments. So there are lots of landowners on there who own and rent out a few acres, and get a few dollars in government payment. They are the bulk of the folks who the enviro group complains get only a small payment. These aren't people trying to farm. On the other hand, some of the big partnerships don't sign up as one big company. They sign up as individuals, and their wives as well. That way they evade the payment limits. >:(
I raise corn, soybeans, and alfalfa and have been in the farm program for many years. As far as making money, last year I sold my beans on Feb 5 at $8.365 per bushel and I see from my notes that beans hit $10.36 on April 5. In a good year our yeilds will be 50-55 bushels and the production costs including land rent will not be much over $200 per acre. The government program on beans is essentially nothing. So you can make money if the weather cooperated and you are a good marketeer of your products. Like Bro Noble I also have a few dairy cows and got my check for about $10 for that farm program. As far as payments for corn, I don't recall much if any because the govt had to take back money from the previous year because the crop prices were above the targets. I should also note the date for the final farm program payment is the end of October each year so that your local congressmen can take credit for that money just days before each election.
I agree with SW IOWA SAWYER that our government has always had a cheap food policy and the farm program payments are only enough to allow the government to control the prices. With the latest farm bill and the new countercyclical payment formula, they have in some years advanced one half of the projected payment and then required repayment later. Trust me, the farm program payments are not a significant income source, they are only a safety net for poor crop years.
Also you cannot always believe the governments numbers on farm program payments. For example most farmers in the program take out marketing loans to avoid selling at depressed prices at harvest time and believe me those LOANS are repayed in 9 months. However the convoluted govt accounting system counts this money as farm program payments and then the repayment is just counted as general revenue just like your taxes. It is not credited back to the USDA against the program costs. Also, the USDA budget contains all the money for food stamps. If you have ever driven into Washington DC the first huge govt building you see is the USDA Headquarters. Don't ever believe they send all of their budgeted money out of that building.
All this talk about big government payments to farmers reminds me of the time one of the senate ag comittee chairmen, I think it was Stenholm of Texas, put up a bar chart of the federal budget by departments and pointed out the entire ag dept budget was only the width if the line between the Defense Dept and HUD.
Back in March of 1998, at the urging of a former Senator, I testified at one of four Federal Milk Marketing Reform Hearings in Green Bay, WI. Before I went I got a copy of the the complete proposal and it was over 800 pages and two inches thick. I drove one dark rainy night, at my own expense, and got my five minutes late in the afternoon. When it was over, they provided transcripts of all the testimony and then the USDA wrote new rules for an outdated, incomprehensible system that rewarded dairy farmers based on how far away they lived from Eau Claire, WI. They actually made some meaningful reforms in the final proposal that was submitted to a vote of all dairy farmers. In spite of the fact that some large dairy coops opposed the reform and block voted (denying their own members the right to vote individually) against the proposal, IT PASSED. However, Senator Lehey from Vermont attached an ammendment to some other bill that threw out the whole order reform that was approved by the majority of farmers in order to protect his Northeast Dairy Compact. Talk about a waste of money. It's hard to imagine how much that whole process cost the taxpayers. I was going to send my congressman a bill for my travel expenses, but it would have just a waste of more time.
Oh, by the way, my milk checks do not come from, nor are they subsidized by the government. The federal order system was actually written back in the 1930"s to protect the dairy farmers from abusive processors that took advantage of the perishible nature of the milk they produced to avoid paying a fair price. It has now evolved into a protection mechanism for the processors that are now mostly large and supposedly farmer owned coops.
Sorry if I took more than five minutes for this rant. I just hope it is worth more than the last time when I got just five and a bell sounded.
QuoteHowever, Senator Lehey from Vermont attached an ammendment to some other bill that threw out the whole order reform that was approved by the majority of farmers in order to protect his Northeast Dairy Compact. Talk about a waste of money.
>:( >:(he dosent care and neither do the ppl that voted for him. >:( >:(
thanks for putting up a fight, gary.
Time for a harvest update! Our farmer cut beans yesterday and what a learning experience it was. He is our tenant farmer but he hired out the planting and the combining this year.
A mega outfit from north of us came in and with two combines cut 100 acres of beans in 3 hrs 15 min. :o :o :o
They had 24 row heads on these beasts and lets just say it was awsome to see.
Now for the real joy! On the low land portion of the field they yeilded 89 BUSHEL per acre 8) 8) 8) 8) 8). On the top of the hill area they got 40 Bushel per acre. Overall this year we yeilded 62 bushel an acre. 8) 8) 8)
That is a record for this place. When I asked my farmer what he contributed it to since we had a drought year he said he has no explanation. The combine operator said he knew. "Go find a soy bean in that field. If you can fill the cup of you hand in 100 yards I'll by dinner. That machine is like nothing I have ever used to cut beans. It gets them all!"
WOW. I was shocked to see how efficient that cutter was. You had to really look to find a soybean on the ground.
Turns out it was cheaper for our farmer to contract the combining than for him to do it himself. With higher efficency equipment, faster equipment, and less overall fuel costs he said we come out WAY ahead from previous years. That same field two years ago, which was supposed to be a banner year yeilded 45 bushel on beans.
So what combine was he using, Kirk, to eliminate so much waste? Or did he just have new bean heads? I am very curious to know..
I think someone has to plug the holes in the neighbor's combine. They cut the oats 2 weeks ago and now I'm seeing a windrow of oat seed germinating in every swoth. I'll take a picture to post. :D :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_grain.jpg)
That is the way some wheat fields look around here. If they used a straw chopper and spreader it looks like it was planted as the new wheat carpets the field. In the spring I wonder why they even work the fields. I think that some of them could get great yields off the volunteer wheat. ::)
Farmerdoug
It.s not the color of the machine that is at fault, it is the operator. Not matter what color the machine is they are all designed to work. Usually going too DanG fast will push the grain off the sieves and right out the back.
Jason
Patty it was a Case 8010 with the new monster head that Case has.
Dads north farm got 65 bushel an acre on beans to day 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
Our renting farmer has cut half of the land we rent him and he told me he is running beween 65-70 bushels per acre. :o It is tiled ground but we had a fairly dry summer here though.
Farmerdoug
:D :D :D :D farmerdoug, if you seen these 'farmers' work you'd wonder, like anyone else around here, how they keep above board. Like a bunch of school kids without supervision. :D :D :D :D
The field up the road they were renting, they had windrowed and left some sections of unharvested potatoes. Something my father would never do, and he farmed for over 40 years. The guy that owns the land was up with the kids and wife and picken wasted taters. ;D
The last few days in this nice weather they did nothing but 'bleep' the dog all day. ::) ::)
Thanks Kirk. I hear the Case IH makes a good combine. They are popular around here , just as the JD's are. A couple years ago when price checking these two, the Case was even more pricey than the JD's. :o The dollars can make your head spin!
Congratulations on a good harvest. ;)
SD, there may be a method to their madness. It is common practice to lift and windrow all of the potatoes around. If you do not need them all you just let them lay on top of the ground and freeze. It is not a good idea to leave them in the ground as if they do not freeze then you will have volunteers next year that will carry the late blight and other diseases over from last year. So it is considered a good sanitation to leave them on the top of the ground. Although around here the deer will clean them up long before they get a chance to freeze though. :D :D
Farmerdoug
Jason, check from gov is my tax dollars.call it what you want. I call it welfare. If one cannot farm & make enough to make it maybe another vocation should be tried.
No one gave the loggers welfare when the mills shut down & I still see houses being built with wood.
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Here's my big subsidy cheque. ;D Actually, Goods and Services Tax rebate. I always figured the government concocted this tax to create more government jobs so loggers and farmers have to hire accountants to keep track of it all. Has nothing to do with the prosperity of the country, just proves that the DanG government is collecting more tax than they know what to do with. ::) On the news last night the Fed Government said they have a tax surplus and they are sending out rebates, this is in addition to these cheques, like below, we get every 4 months. ::)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Cheque.jpg)
jason, I used to feel as you do about the farm programs.....but then a light bulb went off smiley_lit_bulb in my little pea brain...."if you can't beat 'em , join em' "...so I went out and bought a farm. Now I am the one with the bill of my cap folded just right to catch all those checks as they fall out of my mailbox. :o (not really, but it made for a better story)
My point is, the government is not going to change just because I may not like what they are doing. Learning to use the system isn't always a bad thing, and now I go around with a smile on my face :) instead of a frown. >:(
I agree with Patty that it's there, so use it.
However, if it is ever going to change, and not just get worse (more and more 'payments') then those elected to office need to be responsible and change it. It's almost now like these (and other) forms of 'welfare' are just paying for (buying) votes. I have a B.I.L. who is all for getting all he can out of the Gov't no matter what it is going to cost the future citizens. He'll vote for who will pay the most. Somehow, I'd like to see some effort to get out of this downward spiral. ::)
::) ??? ::)
Those of you who know me, know that I am most conservative, and more of a libertarian than anything. The less government the better in my opinian. With that being said, one thing the government does do is keep your food prices low, very low, by subsidizing the farmers. Not all of us who farm, choose to partake in the programs, but for those that do, I have few problems with. I guess I'd rather see my tax dollars go to the farmers than to most of the programs we support.
Those that don't like the system should get out and vote...and speak there opinion...and work to change the system. I'm a tobacco farmer...and we got a tobacco buyout right before the last presidential election...because we are a huge voting block. Not saying it is right or wrong.
Yeap and I like my CRP check that came couple days ago...but really like seeing the huge increase in wildlife, starting to see a few quail now, and the soil is staying right where God put it.
Don't think there are many farmers in the cornbelt that don't take government money. If you don't it's darn near impossible to get crop insurance. Wanta borrow money for new equipment, land, improvements, or to put a crop in? The farm banks will tell you quite quick that you are not a good risk unless you are in all the farm programs...so you don't get the loan.
Swampdonkey
It looks like the contractor with the combine was paid by area not by yield >:( >:(
Ernie, it wasn't contracted. It was the farmer's machine. Its the same bunch that cut 300 acres of corn way past harvest time (so it was all diseased) last year, then dumped it all along the edge of the field in January. Here it is the middle of October almost and no soybeans and corn cut yet. ::)
I'm not against helping farmers, but I am against helping a bunch of laid back people who don't care if the crops ever get harvested and boast about not really caring about it because the government is going to send them a cheque weather they make a profitable business of it or not. ::)
Quote from: Larry on October 07, 2005, 06:24:19 PM
Don't think there are many farmers in the cornbelt that don't take government money. If you don't it's darn near impossible to get crop insurance.
They tried crop insurance here , then the first time the potato industry had troubles everyone cashed in and no one could ever afford the insurance again and their sure weren't no programs from the government to subsidize your purchasing crop insurance. (there might have been in the initial phase of the crop insurance program) You have to deal with the bank on your own. It didn't seem to matter that you delt with one bank for 30 years either. If one morning the manager of that bank woke up and decided you was a credit risk, even after making payments on time all your life, he wasn't gonna lend you any money this planting season. No ryhme no reason, today we're gonna right you off. Then you just move on to the next bank. ::)
You know there are a few things the government has done right....subsidizing electric companies to bring electricity to the rural areas, subsidizing farmers to bring cheap food to the public, building roads and bridges to increase interstate commerce, creating the post office to increase communication, building an army to defend our freedoms....
Are these programs subject to abuse, oh yea, but not everybody is out to abuse the system, just a few bad apples. In a perfect world we wouldn't need armies, and everyone would grow their own food, and create their own energy, and we could teleport around like on star trek, but this isn't a perfect world....so we make do with what we have and do the best we can with it.
Earlier in this thread there was talk about CRP. I guess the following has been around for a while (Charlie posted it in November of 2001) but for those who don't go back that far here it is again.
Here is a letter that reiterates what is going on in farming: a spoof but it makes a point about CRP.
Dear Secretary of Agriculture,
My friends Darryl and Janice over by Big Timber, Montana recently received a check for $3,980 from the government for not raising hogs. So, I would like to go into the not raising hogs business myself very soon.
What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best type of farm on which to not raise hogs and what breed of hogs is best not to raise? I want to be certain that I approach this endeavor in keeping with all government policies. I would prefer to not raise duroc-jerseys, but if that is not a good choice not to raise then I could just as easily not raise improved Chester Whites or Yorkshires.
As I see it, the hardest part of the program will be keeping an accurate Inventory of how many hogs I haven't raised. If I can get $1,000 for not raising 50 hogs, will I get $2,000 for not raising 100 hogs? I plan to start out operating on a small scale at first, holding myself down to not raising 4,000 hogs. This will give me an income of $80,000 the first year. Then I can buy a new, really cool Hummer.
Now, another thing comes to mind. The hogs I don't raise will not eat about 60,000 bushels of wheat and corn. I understand you pay farmers not to raise wheat and corn. How do I qualify for payments for not raising wheat and corn not to feed to the hogs I am not going to raise? I want to get started not feeding as soon as possible, as it seems like a good time to not to raise hogs and grain.
I am also considering the "not milking cows" business as well, since I will have lots of time on my hands not raising- hogs and grain so please send me information on that also. In view of these circumstances I understand the government will consider me totally unemployed so I plan to apply for unemployment and food stamps as well.
Be assured that your party will receive my vote in the next election.
Patriotically yours,
Furby
;D ;D ;D
(Seriously, what I learned from this is that duroc-jerseys are not cattle, they are pigs! 8) )
SwampDonkey,
I was looking at your picture of the oat field greening up after being combined, most likely what happened is that there was a lot immature developed kernals that have little weight. These do blow-out in the threshing process and will sprout.
If they are left in the grain, the weight of the grain will be less per bushel and the farmer will be docked if they sell the oats.
D_Frederick, it's possible. I know this bunch isn't the quickest to get on the field in the spring, so maybe the crop was late. When father grew grain (and had several awards for his grain) he'd sow it in late April- early May and cut it in mid-late August, not into October. ::) Here it is November with snow in the air and they've just started cutting soyabean and haven't touched the corn yet. If they're waitign for it to dry, then they have a long wait, til next June. ;D
:D :D :D
Thanks Doug, I needed a laugh!
I only wish I could get a small portion of that not raising hog $. ::)
Doug, that is a good spoof. But it is a shame he did not use a product that has some form of goverment payments. Hogs and most livestok interprises do not and never have had any form of goverment payments. There are several crops that have direct govement payments that would have made a better spoof. I guess a lot of people just like to pick on hog farmers. ::) ;D
Not so, Pigman. I worked for my local ASCS office in 1988 and counted cattle and hogs on MANY farms for feed payments. Those who know the programs and how to get them are doing fine around here and raising land rent every year.
Quote from: Kleek on November 09, 2005, 07:55:10 AM
Not so, Pigman. I worked for my local ASCS office in 1988 and counted cattle and hogs on MANY farms for feed payments. Those who know the programs and how to get them are doing fine around here and raising land rent every year.
Yow are correct Kleek, the first mistake I ever made. :o It don't matter everyone already knows that I don't know what I am talking about anyway. ;) Those payments went to livestock farmers in the few areas that were declared a drouth area by the govment. The payments only went to reimburse farmers that had already bought feed for their livestock.
That "spoof letter" has been around for a long time and it is just as much a misrepresentation of what is "going on in farming" today as it was when someone wrote it years ago. To the best of my knowledge, the government has NEVER paid ANYONE to not raise hogs, not milk cows, nor to not raise feed grains. There have been programs that REQUIRED farmers to set aside a percentage of their established base of corn, wheat, or oats to be eligible for the farm program. It was nothing more than economic blackmail when crop prices were depressed because of some other stupid government actions like trying to use food as a weapon against other countries. Most of the meager farm programs payments are nothing more than protection of our farmers from the low world prices for feed grains caused by other countries farm subsidies, particularly the EU.
Do not think that I am defending the the farm programs that our US Congress has written. I listened to a speech by a farm policy expert who , in response to a question about low prices, recited every president, secretary of agriculture, what their farm program consisted of, and how it FAILED. His point was there has never been a farm program written that was the best thing to do, nor the right thing to do. They are all political compromises that were acceptable to a wide range of interests and are probably destined to fail before the ink is dry.
So don't blame the farmers for farm program payments. In reality they are just the cheapest means the congress can devise to keep food prices low.
In this country, we enjoy the lowest cost and safest food supply of any country in the world. I have seen comparisons with EU countries and they pay about 80% more for food than we pay.
Just remember the old saying, "don't criticize a farmer with your mouth full." :)
One other thing I forgot to mention. Last week in the US Senate, during a debate on cutting the farm programs, Senator Grassley from Iowa submitted an amendment to cap farm program payments to individual farmers at $250,000. The southern senators vigorously rejected this cap to protect the large cotton plantation owners in the south. The amendment was defeated.
Also, corn prices have been around $2 per bushel since the 1930's. This fall the local bid price was down to $1.14 and even lower some places.
How would you like to try to survive on depression year prices?
The only good thing this year is most of the corn was dry enough that it went straight into the bins withoud using any of that expensive propane. There will be an enormus surplus of propane this winter but don't look for the price of that to fall to 1930's prices.
Also, when counting programs for farmers, don't forget the PA 116....property tax based upon your farm income...never knew a farmer who made money :-X
Gary,
Your post almost sounds like you take offense to that letter. It's just humor! You don't need to discredit it. You are preaching to the choir. I think almost everyone here is pro-farmer. The humor isn't against the farmer, it is against the government which is destroying the small farmer.
-Doug
Doug
You are right, I did take offence by that "spoof" letter. If you had posted it on the joke or humorous story page, I would not have objected. However you did claim "Here is a letter that reiterates whats going on in farming" and it simply is not true.
If you wish to hear a humorous farming story I can tell you a true one. Back when Earl Butz was Sec. of Ag. he was a popular speaker on the talk circuit. He just loved to tell the story about how a sheep rancher in Montanna wrote a letter to the USDA complaining about the coyotes killing his sheep. The letter was refered to the appropiate department (the USDA has a dept for literally everything) and the lady in charge of that department wrote back to the rancher about how they were working a compound that would render the male coyotes sterile. The rancher promptly wrote back "lady you misunderstand, the coyotes are eating my sheep."
:D :D :D
You are right about one thing. The joke is on us and it is called the US Congress. The problem is there are so many people in Washington, DC with their hands out that any message about not voting for a payment limitation just simply will not be heard over the shouts of "gimmie" from the influencial wealthy. You do remember the energy bill that just passed contained over $100 million in gifts to the oil companies. They really needed that. >:( >:(
Gary