Something's gotta give, but where? In the midwest, if corn came back to $3 and beans back to $8-9, you would see people hurting. In the southeast, we have been a little more insulated. Highest land I've heard of so far was a 100 Acre irrigated farm sell for $4100 an acre. Heck, our land, at that price without improvements except irrigation (240 Acres) would be worth almost a million dollars, and tack on another half million with the chicken houses. I don't understand how such an inflated price can be held, especially when you need one farm to pay for another, or when you are basing repayment plans on historical highs instead of historical averages. :? Makes it very hard to break into farming, especially if starting from scratch. Even good used early model equipment gets expensive in a hurry. Then again, my biggest complaint with leasing is why keep paying rent when you can buy. I would only advise renting or leasing only when you are questoning the capability of the land or the resources. Go talk to an ag lender about land. They hear it all, they knows what works locally, and they can help you pencil out your finances.
Think outside the box. Could you establish or join a specility market? Instead of selling to the coop, could you market your product yourself somehow? Sell organic? Maybe produce a different product? Instead of dairy cows, dairy goats? Could you add a second revenue source? Instead of selling bull calves, finish them on grass and market as grassfed beef? If you have a good calf rearing program, could you handle custon growing a few extra calves for local daries? Sell your bull calves to local 4Hers and FFA instead of at the local sale barn? Sell breeding stock? Maybe have a backyard flock of chickens that you could collect eggs to sell?Could you use buildings more effectivley? Are the buildings still good, or do they need to be remodeled or replaced? Are they worth your wile? Are there any more efficiencies that could be utilized? How about your cows? Are they productive? Do they utilize feed effectivley? Do they score well? How is the land? Is it flat, or does it roll? Is the land productive? Is it erosion prone? Is the land in permanant pastures, in cropland, or a mixture of both? How is your management style? Are you a gogetter, or do you wait and see? Are you proactive or reactive? Are you frugal or lavish? These are all questions to consider. I'm sure you know way more about your situation than I do from your post. I hope you can be sucessful as a farmer. It is a wonderful, but stressful, life. I know my post isn't necessarily related to yours, but I thought I would try to help. It takes a sharp pencil to make a farm budget. As our banker said, "don't farm harder, farm smarter." HTH
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