If you had to do it all over again..

[cottonpicken]

Would you?

[farmaholic]

Given what it has morphed into today, no. But I have a son who's interested. I have to give him the chance I had. Do I wish he would do something else? Yes. If it wasn't for his interest, I'd be out within 5 years. I'm almost 50. But it "has been" good and has it's benefits...

[TOM4CWB]

CP;

Yes. I have always been a farmer... and always will be!

Cheers!

[hobbyfrmr]

Hindsight has some value. i really do enjoy farming, but with age I am getting less interested in the weather, price risk etc.
when I started conventional farming at 18 I really thought I was doing something valuable, making a contribution to feeding the world etc. About 6 years into it prices went to shit and then I became the optimist, it's bad now but it will improve and I will appreciate the struggle. The low prices became chronic and I really learned my costs of production, didn't spend foolishly because I had no cash and the future was dismal. I followed the industry and pursued the economies of scale,did more work, built more bins, grew more grain, and turned over more money. I learned to export, that helped a little. The organic neighbors need help selling and I scoffed that bunch. I did sell for them, I learned the market and saw the paycheques.
I learned from a farm business minded organic farmer about the reward for good production vs. not good production.
Hindsight tells me I would have been better off leaving the farm, investing in myself (career, house, wife/kids) and inheriting the whole works then renting to who ever is left farming or selling it for cash. BUT, now I am lazier than ever.
I am grateful for the gains I have made and basic modest accomplishments. It has not been easy, I always took the farming a little too seriously and always was concerned with debt.
I prefer the organic farming method, I am not against conventional farming, but man, read your posts! Nothing has changed same old feed bunk full of industry bullshit all the time. I really don't see improvements. No thank you.
I thought it would have been better to have started organic 5 years before I did. This is not the case, the market was not developed enough.
I recommend he goes to work "out" for a couple of years all the while he must meet with you to work out your costs of production together. Then you make him the marketing man for half your crop.
Once he "sees what kind of margins are left for him to live on, he can decide what to do.
There is a lot of money to be made off the farm for considerably less risk.
If he has a good work ethic, I bet he would be very successful at other service type businesses. Like Hotshot stuff to Ft. McMurray, or around a city for that matter. Landscaping, water and sewer. Most of Saskatchewan little towns and cities waterworks are 110% beyond their depreciated lifetime. Buy a track hoe from Ritchie bros. or just go to pipe manufacturers and become a distributor.
I also think Freewheat has a bunch of good suggestions about direct marketing farm raised goods from bagged wheat to packaged meat.

[hobbyfrmr]

I am thankful for the fact that the farm offers me time to help my wife raising children. Money is not everything, but farm poverty is no ****ing "lifestyle" either.

[fjlip]

I wanted to farm as soon as grandparents bought a pedal John Deere when I was a year old. Then toys without number, allowed to operate machinery at 10. Later parents and grandparents working together had more land than any in the area! Long hours on 2 cylinder JD's and open station combines never took away my desire. The 4 bu quotas in 68 never sunk in, oh, was just a one off year. 60 cent wheat made no diff. I did the farm books at 16 and still wanted the life style, dreamer! Then when land investment is made you think you have to prove you can make a go of it. Farmed with siblings, parents and grandparents for years. That was high stress at times. Now only wife and I, with weekend sons help. Different stress.
Just a tiny farm by today's numbers, but averaging 45 years of boom and bust feel like a WINNER. Biggest unknown is what the next gen would face in next 40 years? How does one advise children to pursue this lifestyle with such RISK?
I feel SAD to see the empty towns/facilities/businesses/schools/churches. Less desires to for empty/dying rural spaces. Not the way I thought things would turn out.
Good luck to the aggressive YOUNG GUNS...might have land to rent/sell... you are smarter, way better equipped than we were in 1970.

[freewheat]

I would have farmed, I just would have gone with my gut at that young age, and done it differently than "everyone was saying".

And I would have bought sheep and seeded hay and grass 20 years ago.

I remember so clearly 25 years ago when I was 13, and my dad looked at me, with tears in his eyes from his bed, as he was dying of cancer, and asked me if I was going to farm.

I said yes. At 13. I said yes. I do not regret saying yes, and I am glad I did.

I just wish I would have done things differently.