What do you farm, where do you farm, how many acres do you farm, what equipment do you use, whats your net?

Question

What's your breakeven? Do you use crop insurance? What kind of financing can you get from your bank? Are you expanding, if so how? By renting or buying?

Answer 1

What do we farm?  Corn, cotton, soybeans, bermudagrass hay, beef cattle.  Personal vegetable garden, horses, eggs.

Where?  Southeast

How many acres?  varies from 700-900

Equipment?  Depends on what equipment used by those we lease to.  Some land is leased out, other is contracted out.  We have a NewHolland tractor, various brands of implements (plows, rakes, harrows, etc.).  Not extremely large equipment, but larger than would be used by an individual for a personal garden.

Net? After taking out for salaries, re-investment, etc., $0.  We try to put everything back into the farm... not really a true reflection of "net" but I'd rather not go there.

Breakeaven?  We HAVE to make enough to pay the mortgages, and that's not much, relatively speaking.  If we didn't produce any income at all we have enough liquid assets we could go that route to keep the land, but we've never had a year we didn't make ANYTHING.... also not really a true reflection of "breakeven" for an accountant, but then again, don't want to go there.  Finances aren't something we typically discuss in public.

Crop insurance?  Nope.  Again, diversity.

Financing?  Local bank, typically annual term notes where we don't have to make monthly payments but total balance is due at the year's end.  Owner financing (our preference), and terms vary widely.

Expanding? Renting? Buying?  Not really expanding, but we're always buying and selling.  Never rent, but love to purchase from owners directly and set up owner financing.  Often allows us to purchase for less than typical purchase price, but original owner actually makes more on the sale long-term.

Answer 2

Tyler D, If you were a farmer you would know that you would never ask another farmer these questions. While it is true that farmers often talk at Dairy Queen or their favorite place to get a cup of coffee, if you joined them you would not hear these things discussed. To find the answers to these type of questions, try looking on the net for government statistics.

Answer 3

I farm beef cattle. Particularly Black Angus/ Hereford mix or "Black Baldies" I farm here at my house in Alabama. We only have 20 acres, but it's not too bad. I use a John Deere tractor with stuff like Tillers and Plows and stuff. Our net's not all too good, considering that beef cattle ain't sellin too good because of the drought. But, really, that's all I know. We grow corn and tomatoes and squash and stuff too, but not on a comercial scale. It's just enough to have something to do during the summer.

Answer 4

why do you want to know?

Answer 5

You should know this before starting

Answer 6

We farm cattle, grass/alfalfa hay and meat goats on 800 acres.

Answer 7

What do you farm

Meat goats, meat rabbits, and soon some chickens, large garden, and small orchard, also going to offer some plants for sale.

Where do you farm,

The Pacific Northwest, about 7 miles from the ocean.

How many acres do you farm

40

What equipment do you use

Old John Deere tractors, from the 1930's, a bulldozer from I think the 1970's, Draft horses, varrious impliments pulled by tractor, or horse, and of course all the hand tools.

Whats your net?

Being conservative, we figure $50K next year, which should double in 1-2 more years.

What's your breakeven?

Since we will not purchase ANYTHING, unless we can buy it free and clear (exception is the mortgage) we have almost no overhead.

Do you use crop insurance?

HaHaHaHaHa!  Ummm....no.  We use diversification as "insurance."

What kind of financing can you get from your bank?

We have not gotten financing for anything, except the original mortgage.  No bills, no kidding.

Are you expanding, if so how?

Yes, we will be expanding by leaps and bounds, adding three, to possibly four more types of livestock.  Sheep and chickens for sure.  Beef for our own use for sure.  Possibly pigs.

New things I'll be selling: eggs, fruits, vegtables, some berries, apples, some of my crafts,  plant/tree/shrub starts, lamb, lessons (classes), books, small custom barns/chicken houses/dog houses/rabbit hutches/sheds.  Not to mention my husband is probably going to be doing diesel conversions on certain autos, to help drivers boost their millage from 20-25, up to 50-75 (depending on auto).

By renting or buying?

Buying of course.  It's one of the surest ways to gather actual wealth for your family.

Yeild?

Nearly impossible to answer.  In April I'll make a lot of money selling asparagus.  In October I'll make money selling goats and lambs to my Muslim customers.  I expect vegtable starts will sell very well in May.  Craft items will do well around Christmas, and on Valentines day.  Eggs should sell well all year.  Classes will sell out no matter what month (just not too close to Christmas).

Never put your eggs in one basket...fables we all learned as children.  Yet how many farmers actually diversify?  Not many.  So they suckle at the Governments teet, and collect subsidies, and crop loss insurance.....all paid for with tax payer dollars.  

I prefer independance, and pride.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years