farm work

well i like all the ideas that were said in my last post i was wondering of ways to get a job on a farm and i was wondering if mn or wi had the program were you work for a retiring farmer to keep his farm running. thank you for any info
-nick

Manitowoc County WI does. Look up UW Extension - Manitowoc. The problem is, (in most cases) the young guy can't afford to buy the old guy out.

I saw that happening a few years ago, but it failed. The younger people did not seem to stay with it, or could not make the mortgage payments.

Most just seem to be selling out to BTO

Start looking around your area. Talk to older owners that need help. Be willing to work long hours for low pay. Look for men that are receptive to letting you run a few head of your own livestock or farming a few rented acres with theirs. Those are the men that are going to assimilate you into their business if you work hard and prove yourself worthy. I've got a paying ranch that somebody can have someday. BUT the are going to have to earn it. It took me a lifetime to put it together. I'm not going to just give it to some young kid to pi** away.

The big IF is it possible to even have enough cash, to live week to week, someone somewhere, is going to have to give the person, a wage to even get started, sounds outrageous, What are they going to use for daily cash? There is only one way, and that would be, the land and all, would need to be in loan fashion, and what would that be, It is not yesterday. This is new world, policies, The old man up the road, is a pipedream,

If I remember correctly www.countrysidemag.com/
used to talk about such a program where those that want to retire were hooked up with those wanting to start out. Another option is traveling as a farm-sitter for those that want to take a vacation and need someone to manage the farm/animals while they are gone. There was an article about a woman that did such and she would haul her own travel trailer around and that is what she stayed in.

Why get mixed up in any kind of program? Get any kind of job, save up a little money, rent a few acres of pasture, buy a cow or two, whatever you can afford, keep working and reinvesting your calf money and work money and expand accordingly. You will be surprised where you will be in five years time if you are diligent. If you want to achieve anything and build something for yourself and family in this life you have to start early and work late.

Daily cash? You have to learn to stay home and do without. Do you think I got where I am stopping at the gas station for a soda every day?

Great idea!

A smart man never makes the same mistake twice. A truly wise man learns from the mistakes of others and never makes it the 1st time.

Get with an experienced farmer and learn from him. Be up front and tell him your going to earn your way to your own farm.

You may get lucky and he'll owner finance his place to you,

I knew a guy that would have loved to find some young man to be his muscle and kept farming. He could never find the right person and ended up selling out.

Well.......you could look for a job on a local farm, but if you don't have a farm background, you may have trouble finding one and if you do, you're probably gonna be the low man on the pole. Farmed.....full-time.........for almost 50 years; I can't think of a single instance around 'here' where a farm laborer/tractor driver, etc ever became a 'farmer'/had his own operation. I'd suggest you're MUCH better off to get an education, get a job and put a few dollars back each year 'til you can rent a few acres and go from there.

Nick I admire a guy that wants to farm. However reality steps in and makes it a very long shot for you to do it. Most older farmers have so many assets that are tied up in land and equipment that just make ONE families living. So they usually can't afford to pay you and still live themselves. So farming is usually a family business that is passed down or married into.

Then to make it even tougher the average farm size is getting larger. So if a county had 1500 farmers now it will only need 1250 ten years from now. SO a young guy trying to start without family help is just about the same as hitting the lotto.

Farming is a poor return on capitol investment type of business. The average over time is 3-4% real profit. So it takes a lot of assets to provide a income to support a family. My sons would have to go together to buy all my assets if I required market value on them. They would be lucky to ever pay them off. In my case the assets would end up back to my kids so it is stupid to sell mine and make the kids buy them back.

I don't think your are going to find a non-relative to give you a break on the cost of farming today. Most farmers have children or relatives waiting in the wings for the assets. Especially with land values what they are today.

Think about how hard some one today would fight over several million dollars??? I have 360 acres of ground and all of the equipment to farm it plus feed 800-1000 head of steers. Then I also have 100 brood cows. On paper the value of that is several million dollars. Most years I only clear 40-50k. Now that I have it paid for that is not bad but many of those years I had payments that where more than the net income on the farm. So I had to work off the farm for the family living expenses. Plus we lived cheap/ The cost of living is much higher today. Just today's health insurance cost is more than we spent on all other things when the family was all here.

So in todays world I would say get the best education you can. College is just about a must if you want more than $10-$15 dollars an hour job. If you want to farm some then get that education in an agricultural related field. After you have worked a few years then you maybe able to start farming a little on the side and work your way up. The values of land I think will be cheaper in the future but I am not sure that wages will be as good as today's are. Plus the public debt is going to cause high taxes regardless who gets elected now or in the future. So your net income may never be enough to start farming more than a few acres.

This is the legacy my generation is leaving our kids and grand kids. They will be lucky to have our standard of living. It looks like they may not get that high. First time since this country was settled this is gong to happen.

You'll never make it trying to be a 'conventional'
farmer.The farmers I know that have started up
and made a profit all mostly sell direct to the customers they raise produce,fruit,pastured poultry and livestock.Depends on where you live whether this will work,which is mostly on the East or West coast where people actually care about how their food is raised and whats in it and are willing to pay a premium for what they want.These farmers have a profit margin 'regular' farmers can only dream of but they have to work hands on not sit in an air condition tractor.

The return on investment on Ag degrees isn't that great,you still need experience to go with it. If you get a degree still count on working for low wages and long hours to get that experience. A lot of guys my age were able to get into farming only with the support of their wife and her good off-farm job to keep them going as a family until the farm enterprise started making some head way. One of the graduates 3 or 4 years ahead of me at Michigan State married a CPA, he described his farming efforts has his wife's tax deduction. I have a degree in Animal/Dairy Science from Michigan State University the rude economic fact is upon graduation I was worth more as a mechanic than herd help for a dairy. I downshifted and took a Dairy job working 60-80 hours a week for what I used to earn in 40. After about a year of this I noticed that any of my peers either were married before they started working for a dairy OR married someone associated with a herd they were working at. The epitome of this occurred when I was interviewing for a job in Southern Michigan, the farmer's last name happened to be the same as mine (Baker) but I knew if they were related it had to be more than 4 or 5 generations apart, their daughter was about my age and during the interview she happened to be milking, and a statement something like "that was our daughter do you like her?" was made, my flight instinct kicked in and I didn't take the job, just felt it might be a lot of stress on a relationship for there to be expectations that we should start seeing each other or even if we did find out we liked each other to have a girlfriend's dad also be my boss. I went back to mechanic work until I was able to get an appointment to the Air Force Officer Training School and earn a commission, I become an Aircraft & Munitions Maintenance officer. Take this all with a grain of salt maybe the problem is I should of been in an Ag engineering program and geared my vocation more towards work in the implement or ag construction industries.

Actually I see many people "make it" as traditional farmers - and the best one's don't have their daddy footing bill.

(quoted from post at 08:38:22 08/14/12) Nick I admire a guy that wants to farm. However reality steps in and makes it a very long shot for you to do it. Most older farmers have so many assets that are tied up in land and equipment that just make ONE families living. So they usually can't afford to pay you and still live themselves. So farming is usually a family business that is passed down or married into.

Then to make it even tougher the average farm size is getting larger. So if a county had 1500 farmers now it will only need 1250 ten years from now. SO a young guy trying to start without family help is just about the same as hitting the lotto.

Farming is a poor return on capitol investment type of business. The average over time is 3-4% real profit. So it takes a lot of assets to provide a income to support a family. My sons would have to go together to buy all my assets if I required market value on them. They would be lucky to ever pay them off. In my case the assets would end up back to my kids so it is stupid to sell mine and make the kids buy them back.

I don't think your are going to find a non-relative to give you a break on the cost of farming today. Most farmers have children or relatives waiting in the wings for the assets. Especially with land values what they are today.

Think about how hard some one today would fight over several million dollars??? I have 360 acres of ground and all of the equipment to farm it plus feed 800-1000 head of steers. Then I also have 100 brood cows. On paper the value of that is several million dollars. Most years I only clear 40-50k. Now that I have it paid for that is not bad but many of those years I had payments that where more than the net income on the farm. So I had to work off the farm for the family living expenses. Plus we lived cheap/ The cost of living is much higher today. Just today's health insurance cost is more than we spent on all other things when the family was all here.

So in todays world I would say get the best education you can. College is just about a must if you want more than $10-$15 dollars an hour job. If you want to farm some then get that education in an agricultural related field. After you have worked a few years then you maybe able to start farming a little on the side and work your way up. The values of land I think will be cheaper in the future but I am not sure that wages will be as good as today's are. Plus the public debt is going to cause high taxes regardless who gets elected now or in the future. So your net income may never be enough to start farming more than a few acres.

This is the legacy my generation is leaving our kids and grand kids. They will be lucky to have our standard of living. It looks like they may not get that high. First time since this country was settled this is gong to happen.

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'm with you on the above.
To make it in farming you got to work long hrs and have an off farm job to boot. You got to live poor and take high risks.
I don't know if it is still possible to start farming from scratch and be successfull with the high prices of today.I sure as "ell couldn't do it today(altough i would prob die trying).
I own a 1800 acre bison ranch(started from scratch 30 yrs ago) and none of my own kids won't be able (let alone even willing) to take it over.Being employed,All 4 of them make twice the money and half the hrs i do .Hard work seems a "sin" today.

It's truly a diff world out there.

I hate to burst your bubble, but JD seller has hit it right on every point.

It is nearly impossible to get into farming on any scale today unless you win the lotto or are lucky enough to have relatives that farm and can hand it down to you for substantially less than fair market value.

I spent the best part of my younger life chasing the same dream as you. Working for some farmer for near minimum wage in hopes of getting something in addition to bad wages. It wasn't until I was about 25 that I landed a good paying off farm job that enabled me to save money. Now I hobby farm and enjoy it.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, FSA has a program that lists young farmers that want to work into an operation and the opposite category; farmers that are looking for this young farmer. Very,very few farmers looking. You can use this resource as a beginning but likely better results if you start beating the bushes for something yourself. However lighting could strike. Recommend asking family and friends for leads. Personally believe a better chance working into a dairy which needs help rather than an outfit solely cash cropping . It wouldn't be the avenue I'd choose, too tied down and long hours. Rather get a off-farm job and slug it out until I could afford to start on my own.

JDSeller.......everything you say is correct. Everything is exactly correct. Sad deal really. Somewhere along the way we (or someone) will ahve to figure out how to correct this.

Using your example of losing 250 farmers per county every ten years.........this equates to there being NO (ZERO) farmers 50 years from now. (You do the math) 50 years is not very long especially when we consider our current age.

We HAVE to find a way to let the young people grow our future food, or there will be no food.
Everyone needs to think about this.

The basis for the situation you describe is simple, "low commodity prices". We made it with $1.50 corn and $4.00 milk and 18 cent hogs and 50cent feeder calves. There never was enough left over to support anymore families. We all experienced this.

We "old guys" have a hard time fathoming $8.00 corn and $16.00 beans. If, and only if, this is sustainable, then we should be able to afford to include our children in our operations. THis is assuming that "agribusiness" will not gouge/rape the farmer for his input needs. It is time for ALL of us to think about this.

Just to see if you really like farm work you could try to get a job with some of the contract combining crews.

Sorta like joining the circus.

If that works out you could do it for a few years until you could borrow enough to try it for yourself.

Only takes a coupla million $

a lot of good points on here so far.

i just started farming last year by buying my way into it with an off farm job (really off the farm). if you aren't born into it or marry into it it gets real spendy real quick.

to save up enough cash to get into requires changing how you live everyday ... some one said something about staying home and going with out .. I put about $1000 / month into a savings account for buying farm land / equipment. You have to have an education and a good job to do that.

i have looked into the state / federal programs and they have some very specific requirements in education, supporting documentation, and if you can be classified into disadvantaged group of people.

-paul

Not to worry, the free market will take care of it. If nobody is interested in farming, why is prime farm land selling for 8 grand an acre?

The way its turning out is kind of sad, but its the same reality as in most other businesses. That is, the BTO's will keep getting bigger, just like department store, supermarkets, and so many other things. Its "economy of scale"- bigger and bigger equipment makes it possible for farmers to farm more ground, and big equipment is far less money in the long run than hiring labor- especially when most people are not fond of hard work anymore, and you can't get good people for seasonal work.

Its too bad that farming has priced itself out of the reach of someone wanting to get started, but there will always be people to grow our food- remember, BTO's have kids, too!

It is possible to get started in farming today. But it takes a miracle and someone's help.
Here's what I did/happened to me if it helps. (granted I'm not really a farmer, just a side income hobby guy)
Step 1: loved it enough to have passion about it. Got a degree to be a H.S. ag teacher.
Step 2: Used what little bit of summer I have free from ag teacher duties to work on any ag type job I could find.
Step 3: Started my own side business cutting and selling firewood as a way to develop an old line of machinery (This is where the help of others starts in. A retired widow in our church allowed me to park equip. at her old dairy and clean all the deadwood out of their timbered pasture) Did that for 10 years now.
Step 4: started haying the little 5 acre backyard lots that the real farmer's wouldn't mess with (there's a reason they don't mess with them, very inefficient and low produciing) Been doing that for 5 years now. Have worked up to 80 acres.
Step 5: Sadly the widow that had been helping us get started passed on. Her son's asked if we'd rent the farm house. Now we have the opp. to raise some livestock (have access to a feedlot that I can't make pencil). Raise feeder and butcher hogs for local people. Not very large but every opportunity helps.
Step 6: Any profit I have has been dumped back into expansion and this year I finally have enough equipment that I was able to rent 20 acres of irrigated ground for grain production.
Newest piece of equip. is a 9 foot heston swather from the early 80's. Most of my stuff is from the mid 60's or older. Most of it was purchased as "for parts or restore" locally and then I spent any spare moments/evenings fixxing it up so it's somewhat reliable.
It is possible, it's almost not worth what it does to your family (stress, work load, etc.) Of course it's priceless what it does for your family (boys play in the creek all summer, get to help with the baby piglets, oldest is 10 and got to rake some hay with supervision this summer)
At the moment I hardly ever work less than 80 hours a week between my job and hobby farm. The "farm" made $4,000 last year as profit, might double that next year if the expansion of the hog herd and wheat ground goes well (that's at age 36).
In 13 years as a high school ag teacher I've had 3 students who were able to get into production agriculture. 2 did it growing up on 20 acre hobby farms. 1 got a Ranch Management degree and then fell into a good option that he was able to work into a shared ownership on. The other took out a loan, bought some late 70's haying equipment and started a custom haying company. Last I'd heard he was farming around 600 acres for other people. 3rd one is working in town at whatever he can find and slowly expanding his herd on the parents place (he'll be 5th generation on the same place)

What separates those who do make it and those who don't make it has very little to do with "conventional" vs "unconventional". It more to do with being a good businessman vs poor business skills. My son started his own farming operation just 5 years ago. He had the opportunity to partner with me, or to do it on his own. He decided to do it on his own. He does "conventional crops" (ie corn, soybeans, wheat, all no till, plus hay) and raises beef cattle. He has a degree in marketing and is very savvy towards modern business.

I did let him borrow some equipment early on, and we co-own a couple pieces of hay equipment, but he's done it his way. In the same time frame, I've watched a couple of Johnny's friends make a try and fail. There's money to be made, and by the same token, money to be lost in this economy.

There are people who don't understand how to thrive in todays market. They tend to doubt it can be done. In their case, they're right. Then there are folks who know it CAN be done. They're doing it successfully. I tend to dismiss the opinions of those who don't understand how to function in todays world.

Oh....and Johnny and me BOTH do most of our work in "air conditioned cabs". It's utter foolishness NOT to take advantage of the technology available now days, from the most basic to the most advanced.

(quoted from post at 11:18:25 08/14/12) JDSeller.......everything you say is correct. Everything is exactly correct. Sad deal really. Somewhere along the way we (or someone) will ahve to figure out how to correct this.

Using your example of losing 250 farmers per county every ten years.........[b:8b81767485]this equates to there being NO (ZERO) farmers 50 years from now. (You do the math) 50 years is not very long especially when we consider our current age.[/b:8b81767485]We HAVE to find a way to let the young people grow our future food, or there will be no food.
Everyone needs to think about this.

The basis for the situation you describe is simple, "low commodity prices". We made it with $1.50 corn and $4.00 milk and 18 cent hogs and 50cent feeder calves. There never was enough left over to support anymore families. We all experienced this.

We "old guys" have a hard time fathoming $8.00 corn and $16.00 beans. If, and only if, this is sustainable, then we should be able to afford to include our children in our operations. THis is assuming that "agribusiness" will not gouge/rape the farmer for his input needs. It is time for ALL of us to think about this.

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f the US stays on its current path and do nothing about the nnalert threath,50 yrs from now there's gonna be no white farmers left anyway,..so why worry :wink:

I typed a long reply refuting your different statements, but after reviewing it, it was too confrontational, so I'll just say that I disagree with almost everything you've said.....this from a retired/full-time 'regular' farmer.

Never make it being a conventional farmer? Wow. What planet are you from?

Considering the average age of farmers in the USA is around 65 years old it doesn't look like too many young fellows are able to get into farming and the only ones I know that have done it are from farming families that have given them backup
even if not directly which is fine but to start out stone cold with nothing would be very tough,many of those in it for a long time will go bankrupt in this crazy grain market before its over.

I don't know where you live and farm but the situation is not that bleak where I come from, take jobs for starters, a college education is a far cry from a silver bullet, all of the young men I know who are willing to work hard and go offshore or work on land rigs make more money than their college educated peers. There is a chronic nationwide shortage of welders and industrial electricians, trade schools and industrial education in the school system has been largely shut down over the last 20 years or so and this has resulted in people that are unprepared to support themselves. Ask any College Professor who will tell the truth and he or she will tell you that at least half of their students have no business attending college and are spinning their wheels wasting their parents and tax payers money. I started Farming from scratch and own my house, land and equipment free and clear, my oldest son also started from scratch a few years ago and he has cattle and land with very little debt, he has planted 65 acres of pecan trees in the last 2 years and one day the odds are good that those trees alone will pay for the land every time they make a crop, he can graze the land 9 months per year and or cut hay in the lanes at the same time.

LAA: I am in North-east Iowa. There are not any little pastures to rent in my area. What little pasture is still in grass will rent for $150 acre and have 3-4 guys fighting over it. That pasture will sell for $5-7K per acre. The good farm ground will rent for close to $500 per acre and sell for 10K plus(Top I have seen for farming is $14900 per acre) There are just about zero small tracts here that will sell cheap enough to buy and farm.

There is a 28 acre farmlet with only 12 acres of sandy ground for sale close to me. Smaller 30 year old ranch house that needs siding and windows plus furnace. One metal shed. Asking price??? $295,000. There are three guys bidding on it right now. So far they are 45K over the listed price. They are having their own little silent auction. They all are in their 50s and have sold larger farms and want to park some money. So do you want to try and pay for a 300K property with 12 acres of sandy soil???

There is a neighbor that is going to help his boy start farming this next crop year. He is only going to have him pay $300 an acre rent. The son owns ZERO equipment and the father has rented the farm for 10 years and has very little equipment left himself. I think the both guys are going to loose their butts. Rent+inputs+fuel+equipment rent/payment= Zero profit.

As for the off farm jobs. Around here there a few high paying jobs in Cedar Rapids or Dubuque. To get them you are going to need a college degree and some experience. The regular blue collar type job around here max out at $15-17 and hour. You are talking about Oil rig jobs. We don't have those type around here. Also you have higher value crops per acre in the pecan trees you are talking about.

Pasture land in my area is about 3-4 thousand per acre, at the current calf prices and low interest rates you can still pay for it in 10 years or so, faster if you have a good job which my son is fortunate to have. It will be a real shame if people get priced out of farming in your area, I know it is some of the most fertile and productive farmland in the world.

Thank you for taking the time to reply alot of good advice after high school im going to be a senior i plan on working on a custom combine crew. and im going to save like crazy and slowly build a farm hopefuly. i think i will work on starting a small heard and finding a farmer that will let me work to keep a heard on some land maybe if thats possible. i am not planning to go into full time right away or i dont know if i will ever be able to but i will try my hardest you cant fail if you have not tried thank you for all the replies i really apreciate it.
-nick

It falls back to the simple fact that some people perceive things as wrong or impossible when they themselves can't do it or can't understand it. That doesn't mean it's wrong/impossible....It just means they can't understand what others have no problem understanding. Call it being stuck in their outdated ways.

It takes a sharp mind and a lot of ambition to get started in farming now days, not at all unlike it does in ANY business venture. Not everyone has that sharp mind. They fill the ranks of the doubters.

(quoted from post at 02:00:18 08/15/12) LAA: I am in North-east Iowa. There are not any little pastures to rent in my area. What little pasture is still in grass will rent for $150 acre and have 3-4 guys fighting over it. That pasture will sell for $5-7K per acre. The good farm ground will rent for close to $500 per acre and sell for 10K plus(Top I have seen for farming is $14900 per acre) There are just about zero small tracts here that will sell cheap enough to buy and farm.

There is a 28 acre farmlet with only 12 acres of sandy ground for sale close to me. Smaller 30 year old ranch house that needs siding and windows plus furnace. One metal shed. Asking price??? $295,000. There are three guys bidding on it right now. So far they are 45K over the listed price. They are having their own little silent auction. They all are in their 50s and have sold larger farms and want to park some money. So do you want to try and pay for a 300K property with 12 acres of sandy soil???

There is a neighbor that is going to help his boy start farming this next crop year. He is only going to have him pay $300 an acre rent. The son owns ZERO equipment and the father has rented the farm for 10 years and has very little equipment left himself. I think the both guys are going to loose their butts. Rent+inputs+fuel+equipment rent/payment= Zero profit.

As for the off farm jobs. Around here there a few high paying jobs in Cedar Rapids or Dubuque. To get them you are going to need a college degree and some experience. The regular blue collar type job around here max out at $15-17 and hour. You are talking about Oil rig jobs. We don't have those type around here. Also you have higher value crops per acre in the pecan trees you are talking about.

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LOL JD, we have a woman here trying to sell 30 acres with an older mobile home on it and one small out building. About 15 acres are tillable, 10 that can be pastured, about an acre and half for the home site and 3 and 1/2 in water on a small pond......asking price 280,000. She has had no offers. Soil in sandy loam with rocks. Some fields around here yield more rocks per acre than crop.

A friend who was a small town boy always wanted to farm. He started by buying a homestead with a usable barn and 2 other buildings. He also had his own on farm tire service. He would work a full day and farm at night. His wife had the diary operation. They rented crop land. Now he's farming 1500 or so acres, crops only. It has taken him about 20 years to get to this point.

Rick