The increase of land prices has been benificial also. If bought 20-50 yrs ago. Not buying it today!

Yes I get what you are saying It was a life style A way to raise a family have plenty to eat and a little extra to buy a few things to have a better more comfortable life Now the idea of farming 60 to 100 acres and supporting a family is not possible And even if a large farming operation is owned by a family group it is and must be done as a business Progress is not always better

Most of the farm families I worked with for 38 years were smaller farms by the standards even for those years. The main reason that many 160 acre 60 cow dairy farms could not stay in business is not that they were not profitable, it was they could not earn enough income over cost to raise a family in the more modern economic times. They could not save money for retirement, have cost effective health insurance or care and or put monies away for children to get higher educations etc. Many of those farmers now make more money renting their crop acres to larger farmers then they did milking cows. All this came too late to help raise their families. Another aspect as banks merged and took on larger clients many would not extend loans or work with farmers that were wanting to borrow say less then 250K or in some cases 500k. Most small farmers did not have the leverage to take on those size of loans. Grand kids are benefiting much more from smaller farm ownership today than most owners and their children did. Manly here state the higher quality of life on these smaller farms. Having worked with hundreds of these farm families it was not always a better way of life. Especially with the children who were in school and not able to participate in many activities and even in a state like WI kids from working farms were in a minority and thus being able to participate was difficult.

Bryce

My great-gramp[a used to plant and work fields of corn all spring and summer so that he could raise enough to feed the horses and mules so that he could do it all over again next year.