...used tractors can cost $75,000 and a good, late model combine might bring $150,000. Of course, land prices have gone over $3,000 an acre even here in South Dakota, and cropland rents have doubled in a short few years.
Today's operators will probably ride out these crazy times, but the price of getting into agriculture — even with family assistance — is now astronomical. If you had enough money to start farming you might just as well retire [Bernie Hunhoff, "Should I Farm or Should I Retire?" South Dakota Magazine: Editor's Notebook, 2008.07.11].
Suppose you wanted to start farming from scratch. Suppose you wanted an average size farm—in South Dakota, 1380 acres, two square miles and then some. Just to buy the land, at $3000 an acre, would cost you $4.14 million. Bernie's dead right: if I had that much money on hand, I'd quit work and blog all day from my shady front porch.
And if you don't have $4.14 million in your pocket, you'll need a loan... and the only folks getting loans that big probably already own businesses and golf every Wednesday with the banker.
Ken Reitzel told us MHS seniors that the free market is supposed to be all about easy in, easy out. But can anyone who feels the call to farm, to labor in the soil and produce real food for his neighbors, have a chance of entering the ag-industrial complex?
All the more reason we need to park the giant tractors, abandon the hi-tech chemical inputs, and support small-scale (call it human scale) agriculture.
Your concept is great, but the workforce and work ethic that once built farms and worked with their hands isn't available anymore. Today's generation X Y and Z have trouble showing up for work on time and consistently, much less be dependable to pull weeds and harvest crops on a small acreage. Nice idea, wrong generation.
ReplyDeleteOh well—looks like we'd better leave the gate open for those 12 million illegal immigrants who come ready to do our work for us.
ReplyDeleteCory:
ReplyDeleteIs this a new phenomenon? How much did it cost to get into farming 20-30 years ago? I can't imagine the equipment was much less expensive, but possibly the acreage.
I've never met anyone that has gone into farming from city life. Were there mass exoduses from the cities to the farm world 50 years ago? 100? Or is our impression of a "low cost of entry" to farm land simply based on the land grab before anyone owned it?
I would posit that without major new chunks of land to exploit farming is (and should be) actually a very expensive profession.
anon:
I take offense to your generalization of generations x,y,z. Is there any real evidence to support the idea that more recent generations are lazier? Have there been studies done that conclude we are less productive?
Every generation thinks the next is full of lose.
There is a small movement underway to sell all the CRP land that is coming out, to new farmers. Farmers who could get that sub prime land at a decent price, and also who would farm the land in a way that would preserve some of the habitat developed during the CRP years.
ReplyDeleteBy the way tony, you are right to take offense to anon. The argument that the younger generation is so much more lazy and irresponsible than its predecessor, is as absurd as it is old.
Are we to believe that no one under the age of 30 is working out a Gehl? Or is assembly line work now considered another easy day at the office. Oh and for all the young solders coming back from Iraq, Anon would like to talk to you about how lazy you are. And when that's done, could you talk to Anon about just how the "older" generation got us into this mess in the first place?
Read the works of Plato sometime. It's amazing the number of times he'll complain about youth, and lament for the good ol' days.
It's an easy and time tested thing to do, but that doesn't make it right.
Good question, Tony. Homesteading days are over, so unless we dissolve a few corporations, we face a fundamental scarcity problem that all my wishing may not overcome. If success is contingent on constant expansion, land prices may keep even existing farmers from staying in the business. I would suggest that the increasing size of farms from even 20-30 years ago shows that it does cost more to enter farming now than then (but farmers, submit your perspective, please!).
ReplyDeleteThere's a combination of things we need to work on. Biodiversity beats monoculture, so we need more smaller plots fields (at least like what Charlie Johnson does). Small-scale organic farming cuts down the need for expensive petrochemical inputs (e.g. fertilizer, fuel). More diverse farm fields lead to more self-sufficient economy and locally grown foods, which cut down the need to rely on the high-energy long-distance transportation that industrial-ag monoculture depends on.
And for all that to happen, the economic door needs to be open for new operators (like Rebecca Terk) to come to South Dakota and start small-scale farming from scratch. Monsanto and the Stip brothers don't want that door to be open.
Didn't Socrates complain about the laziness and devil-may-care attitude of young people in his day?
ReplyDeleteOne may also read Elbert Hubbard's little rant about the letter to Garcia, circa 1900.
When I was young, I could be either industrious or lazy, depending on the devil's mood.
Small-scale farming would be a lot like writing, I suspect. To succeed, you'd have to want it mighty bad. That would mean long hours, rigorous discipline, and an ability to blow off setbacks that borders on insanity.
Right on, Stan and Matt, on misperceptions of youth!
ReplyDeleteFurther, Stan is right about how hard farming is. I don't foresee vast swaths of the labor force giving up their offices to become Giants in the Earth. But those who do have the gumption to challenge the soil and sun for their living don't deserve the added barriers to entry that currently favor wealthy corporations. Ban corporate farms, let farmers make it by smarts, sweat, and occasional luck, not chemicals and corporate captivity.
I love local markets. They provide products that major agri-business doesn't. If it's picked shamrock green it isn't as good. simple as that, but Local can never (and should never) replace large-scale production. But it doesn't need to since it fills an entirely separate need. The idea of casting aside modern machinery because start-up costs are high and CAH hates businesses with money is silly.
ReplyDeleteA prohibitive expense to break into farming, or many other industries, is the entire point of cooperatives, credit unions, and venture capital. If a small farm business plan can be shown to succeed there is money out there to make it happen. There is not a door being kept shut on anybody, particularly not by Monsanto (show me what they have done to block the little farmer)
Deciding human-scale farms are better is very like saying hand-made quilts are better. It is absolutely correct but doesn't change the fact that they cannot produce as much nor sell them for less. The quality of the mass production is good enough for most people who wouldn't be willing to pay the amount a hand-made quilt costs. If small farms could directly compete with modern chemistry and machinery, they wouldn't have gone away in the first place.(all the yummy chemicals and long-distance transport make it possible for me to eat my kiwis and bananas for pocket change)
Forget real individual liberty in the market; all Phaedrus the consumer wants is fancy fruit in his pocket.
ReplyDeleteThe better gauge of liberty is how many different avenues are available to us to make a living, not how many consumer products we can buy from corporations.
Phae: "There is not a door being kept shut on anybody, particularly not by Monsanto (show me what they have done to block the little farmer)."
ReplyDeleteO.K. Click and read.
CAH: While Monsanto has used heavy handed tactics in enforcing its patent right, to date it has only filed 90 lawsuits against people the its investigations have found have been violating their agreements not re-use Monsanto's product. Considering that they run about 500 investigations each year that doesn't seem all that unreasonable. And considering the 2,076,000 farms in the U.S. it could hardly be said to be holding the agricultural industry hostage to fear. They have a right to enforce their agreements.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the rest of that Vanity Fair article, there isn't anything factually wrong in the article other than the writers bias in how it is written. Monsanto screwed up in Anniston or Nitro but not criminally. They are liable to help anyone they harmed, but punitive damage wouldn't have been justified.
Phae: Get your head out of your market fundamentalism and look at what we're actually saying, not the shifting arguments you want to make. You said, "Show me what they [Monsanto] have done to block the little farmer. I (actually Erin) showed you. Monsanto uses all sorts of tactics to keep small independent operators making it on their own. You just proved it: if a local farmer filed 90 lawsuits and conducted 500 investigations against his neighbors (and barged into a neighbor's business in broad daylight to threaten him), we'd call that farmer a first-class jerk. But when it's Monsanto, a corporation, you would have us bow down and worship the all-holy paragon of market virtue.
ReplyDeleteCorey:
ReplyDeleteI have very mixed feelings about Monsanto. While on one hand they are very heavy handed and use their "monopoly" to coerce farmers into a technological lock-in, on the other the technological innovations they have brought to agriculture have dramatically increased food production. In terms of furthering a specialized economy, I tend to feel that the good they have done somewhat outweighs the bad.
The real problem that we are dancing around here is the inadequacy of our current economic system to balance technological merit with our market economy. The whole concept of patenting an organism is ridiculous. The technology exists in nature, we're just extracting part of it and reusing it.
I think a dramatic restructuring of the IP system will handle this problem (5 year patents anyone? Eliminate corporation owned patents?).
If making Monsanto sound virtuous is how I came across, it wasn't intended. I don't worship big business any more than small business; but they shouldn't be demonized either. I only said they are justified: The neighbor harassing and suing everyone in town he has a beef with is a jerk even if his complaints are justified. So is Monsanto by the way they persecute farmers instead of looking the other way at the farmer's dishonesty. Monsanto doesn't need to make that demand a part of doing business with them but they do because they don't want to lose a penny. It's greed. (of course signing onto the agreement fully intending to ignore it on the part of the farmer is greed too but for some reason nobody demonizes the thieving farmer) Being a jerk about patent infringement and breach of contract is not the same as targeting and blocking small independent farmers' success. Unless you are saying all small independent farmers must use and then replant Monsanto seed in order to be profitable.
ReplyDeleteHere was my main point: The number of farmers that get scrutinized is infinitesimal in the scheme of things so the 99.9% of the rest of those "small independent farmers" are not being obstructed at all.
I'm not saying "Monsanto is Great!" I'm just saying that what Erin showed me doesn't have a wide enough impact to prove corporate ag business is oppressing the small guy.
This diverges from the original topic, but I cannot hold back.
ReplyDeleteThe notion of patenting an organism has always struck me as bizarre and perverse. Let us contemplate the slippery slope.
If a corporation decides to patent my DNA, does that mean I will have to pay them a royalty for the privilege of continuing to occupy the physical body I currently inhabit?
Laugh now. Cry later. Maybe I had better hire a patent attorney and beat them to it.
Patents for individuals, not for corporations? Interesting! Perhaps intellectual property can only belong to entities with intellect... and corporations do not have intellect. And 5-year patents... hmm, might that spur economic activity, as companies would have to act fast to capitalize instead of being able to sit on patents?
ReplyDeleteBut I'm with Stan: keep your patent lawyers away from my DNA!