Doing what farmers love

My Sister's Father in law. Can you imagine the equipment he started out with?!

He probably walked behind a mule as a kid. I did.

My family owned a livestock business. After WWII my grandfather turned down a John Deere dealership because tractors were heavy and packed the soil. Mule business was a dead end within 15 years.

I have a large family in the farming industry.
It's amazing to hear about how they did it/ started with.

In the 40s/50 s, a good living could be made on a 160 acre piece of good ground.
Some nowadays have that in a foodplot for deer.

I do not mean this to unkind or bad in any way but to me now it really does not seem like farming , Times have changed and farmers adapt and by adapting have stayed in farming and are successful .It is reality God Bless them for the cheap food they are feeding the world with .

Well they Xork harder than most. and Gamble.

Yes we run 900 acres and feed out 300 cattle per year and are considered a small farm now sure has changed

It's great he's still out doing what he loves.farming has changed alot over the last 50 years.farmers take gamblesand rely on mother nature.but the government has stepped in the last 25 to 30 years with the farm subsidies. I have a cousin who has gotten close to 3 million dollars in that since 1995 i think is when it started and there are alot of other programs out there also.

Yep. Go farming or go to the casino.

Could make a living on much less ground here with tobacco.
Labor was the limiting factor, that's why family, friends, neighbors helped each other.

Buyout killed a way of life here .
Now, houses are the new cash crop

that is great he is still able to farm,

Yep, buy 40 acres of farm land, put a house on it and put it into CRP never to be used for real farming again, just collecting a govt check

Farming is big business. I know farmers who buy seed and fertilizer by the railcar. They're seeding 30,000 acres each spring. Three big quad tracks with 60' + air seeders. Four new combines every two years. Still buying land at 3x over appraised price.

A lot of the farmers (dads, uncles, grandads etc.) really enjoyed when family took over, expanded into larger parlors etc. as many got a chance to drive machinery they never were able to have when milking 50-80 cows. They can quit when they want to as well. The newer equipment in many ways expanded their useful contributions to the farm.

Bryce

What amazes me most with farming is how long term of a business it needs to be. Do the work today to benefit in 25, 50, 75, 100 years. Not a lot of old farmers left in my area, land is getting built up into housing.
I have cousins in NW MN that still own the original land that was settled (with a lot of additional land added) by my ancestors that came from Norway. I remember my grandpa telling stories of farming with livestock as a kid. The one story that stands out was him getting dragged by horses through a hayfield. Later when they got tractors he was messing around with his brother and the brother got ran over by the tractor. They both lived into their mid/late 80s. I'd give up a lot of stuff in life to talk to either one of them again.

most farmers today make a living farming, and get rich of the back of the taxpayers through federal farm subsidies.

That took longer than I was expecting

Yup. It's okay for everyone but the farmer.

Everything is done on a 20 year outlook of return