What do you believe are the core values of farming and agriculture?

Question

What are, in your opinion, the core values of farming and agriculture, are are they present in farming today?

Answer 1

The core values of agriculture are a love for the land and pride in providing food for people.  It sure isn't profit.  These values are rapidly disappearing due to the mechanization of farming caused by a decline in the rural workforce and the necessity to reduce the costs of production.  

The biggest problem a farmer faces is the lack of consistant income.  He will at best make a profit 3 years out of 4 and the profit from those three years will not sustain him thru the bad year.

The farmer is also faced with a lack of understanding by the consuming public as to the actual service he provides.  Normally corporate farming is associated with reduced production but is more profitable because of the scale of the operations.

Answer 2

1. To feed the planet

2. To make a profit

Answer 3

In the past the goals of a farmer or rancher were to make a living and provide for their family first. To make a profit to insure against the uncertainties of the future. Then to amass enough land to insure them income in their old age and give their children a start in life the more the better. Also teaching the skills they needed to live were high on everyone’s goals and still should but are sadly missing.

Borrowing money was a very risky thing to do before we had laws regulating lending. As you were often putting everything you owned at the whim of the lender should you not be able to fully repay the loan. There have always bee n very good and very bad bankers. But without law to regulate them a banker could change over night from good to bad over a bad night at the poker table.

Husbandry of their resources are a given in that situation if one has the knowledge and capital to do it. The people that left the old world for the new often were just societies excess baggage. So they didn't bring these hard learned skills with them but had to learn them again or be taught them by someone that did know them. As few as 90 years ago my grandfather was the first person in the county to terrace fields on a newly opened area of land on a farm he never intended to go back to when he studied chemistry and German in college.  I was sill maintaing those terraces in the while in college in the 60's.

For the last 60 or 70 years most farmer's goals for their children have changed. Get them a good enough education they they don't need to spend half their life or more in debt to make enough to meet the same goals a person with a college degree has 90 day after they go to work.

This is going to run rather long to point out the change in farming. It takes nearly a half million dollars worth of machinery and control by owning or renting 2 to 10 million dollars worth of land to make a living with the government being more of a problem not ashamed to  take a large bite in taxes any time we have real good year and make it big and no longer letting us average out of the last 7 years that lost money 5 to 2. Years ago when over half the people in the US had farm back ground. Congress realized the problems and put in a farm program that like social security was supposed to be a safety net.

When I started farming in the 70’s  farmer could make it with 300 to 400 acres, 30 cent fuel, fertilizer at $40 dollars  ton, a 50 pound bag of seed costing 3 to 5 dollars for a 50 pound bag, tractors that cost $12,000 and land the cost $800 and acre or less. Over time it was adjusted up a little. But not to meet the needs of a farmer that farms 3,000 to 10,000 acres of land with $200,000 dollar tractors burning $50 worth of fuel and hour pulling a $30,000 planting seed that cost $200 dollars for a 45 pound bag and putting down nitrogen that cost $500 a ton to make cotton that is selling for 60¢ a pound at the high end of its trading range just like it has been between 30¢ and 70¢ all my life except for one brief run to a dollar a pound for a couple of days in 1978. It's hard to make money raising crops for the same prices while costs have gone out of sight. The only way we can is by getting bigger and bigger and growing higher and higher yields.

We all fear another time like the 80's for our children When interest went to 21% when we had to renew loans we made at 7%.  My son saw me go though that and wants no part of it.

Cotton is a little misleading this year as it is the only crop that isn't trading near all time high prices. Wheat is twice what it usual is and was 3 times it's low 4.00 price at home for a few minutes before harvest. Corn is being bought right now for $6.74 and soy beans $14.35. That's about 3 times their normal prices.

But those aren't the prices at harvest. Wheat was off nearly a third of the $12 high to $8 when the truck rolled into the elevator. At home most people has made a contract with the buyer to sell them their wheat much earlier in the year. Most farmers locked in the price on their wheat this this year between $5.25 and $7.60. Very few of us waited for the best prices. Almost no one ever does. I expect corn and bean farmers mostly did the same.

This years crop may not be very profitable in spite of the high prices due to the very high cost of fuel, and fertilizer. Herbicides have tripled in price as well.

So I like my father saw my son got a college education as well a some very good jobs to teach him how to work in high school. I saw he had a good enough computer to lear on and got him stated and he did the rest. He learned to administer Unix systems on his own and paid he way through college that way. I did the same with printing at that age.

Now I am retired and my goals are to improve the soil and persevere it and treat it as an investment more or less. Rather than take a fixed amount I take a share of the crop and pay a share of the cost the fellow and I agree on. In the past it has paid one or two precent over what the same money make in safe investment. So far it does better that paying about 8%. We don't have enough to cover our needs in retirement but they do pay more than social security bu a lot. And the land appreciates in value and is one of the better hedges against inflation I have found. My father left it to us in better shape then when he got it. I will leave it to my son better yet.

My son is doing considerably better than me. He made his first investment in real estate last month and is on track to retire at 50.

I hope never has to go back an scrub out a living from the dirt but if he has to he can. I never was going back when I left for collage but I spent most of my life there.

Across the river in Texas my mothers family still runs the ranch my great grand parents settled in 1871 my great grandmother was young bride of 25 married 2 years and lived until 1952. My grandmother was 90 when she sold her cattle herd. In the early 80's and lived to be 104. The place still supports to families and isn't run much different now than it 120 year ago. My cousin 2 years younger than me just took over the ranch when her dad died. Here husband and son work the ranch and she works in town. Their worth a lot but they made it by not spending money on much at all. At least they live in town insted of going to town twice a year as my grandmother grew up doing.

We expect a lot more from life than our parents and they more than theirs. But too many seem unwilling to work for it.

Gordon

Answer 4

to provide people with food and clothing.  people who grow up on farms know the importance of farming and they learn things that others dont learn until later in life, things that will help them be successful