.........reasonable valuation.

[blackpowder]

Sounds like you've answered your own question. Finally

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Great analysis Farmaholic, so have you run the numbers for your area back when you couldn't give away land in Saskatchewan? Apparently investors and farmers ignored ROI numbers back then too, or else could have never gotten that cheap relative to rent, or were things no more affordable?

[farmaholic]

Great analysis Farmaholic, so have you run the numbers for your area back when you couldn't give away land in Saskatchewan? Apparently investors and farmers ignored ROI numbers back then too, or else could have never gotten that cheap relative to rent, or were things no more affordable?

It was always "too much" at the time of purchase.

I bought when others hung back because it was always too much.

Family wasn't super supportive but was always there to help.

The workload was heavy but got easier with bigger better machinery.

Today,.....

Have a bit more room(handle a bit more) because of adequate / surplus machinery capacity.

We'll see what comes available

[sumdumguy]

Great analysis Farmaholic, so have you run the numbers for your area back when you couldn't give away land in Saskatchewan? Apparently investors and farmers ignored ROI numbers back then too, or else could have never gotten that cheap relative to rent, or were things no more affordable?

There were quite a few years where farms around us were farmed for taxes. No one wanted to rent farmland because grain prices were too low. Some haven't experienced that warm and fuzzy feeling, where most young and some in their sixties headed to the northern rigs to make ends meet in the winter.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

There were quite a few years where farms around us were farmed for taxes. No one wanted to rent farmland because grain prices were too low. Some haven't experienced that warm and fuzzy feeling, where most young and some in their sixties headed to the northern rigs to make ends meet in the winter.

So realistically, what would have happened to someone like myself, if I'd sold out of the expensive land here, bought as much land as I could leverage into in a distressed area such as that, come back to work every winter for a few years. Could it have worked out, or were margins just that thin? Did anyone try it?

[farmaholic]

Farma ! Your figures at 3.25 are exact, for way out here !

Sf3 ! My canola never went 50 like the industry says !

At 75$/ac here it's pretty close here too.....maybe a bit too high

[sumdumguy]

So realistically, what would have happened to someone like myself, if I'd sold out of the expensive land here, bought as much land as I could leverage into in a distressed area such as that, come back to work every winter for a few years. Could it have worked out, or were margins just that thin? Did anyone try it?

Hindsight is 20-20. We all had lots of opportunity to do that. Margins thin, so thin that they were negative, no matter how you pencilled it. Lentils, peas and canaryseed saved a lot of guys around here as their markets and prices were elastic enough to compensate in short crops, but we used our own seed, no inputs to speak of and cheap land.

[parsley]

Western Canadian farmers have a farming culture that is enviable. Skilled. Homogenous thru similar goals. Generational. Home.

Money isn't the real issue. Ask Jews looking for pieces of land large enough to name it as a country; to have a home, that's a visional issue.

The world is full of cultures looking for a home to call their own. Many aren't afraid to kill for it. Others will swindle it through backroom deals. Others will sneak in & outvote you.

What is a reasonable valuation of a culture?

Pars.

[farmaholic]

Western Canadian farmers have a farming culture that is enviable. Skilled. Homogenous thru similar goals. Generational. Home.

Money isn't the real issue. Ask Jews looking for pieces of land large enough to name it as a country; to have a home, that's a visional issue.

The world is full of cultures looking for a home to call their own. Many aren't afraid to kill for it. Others will swindle it through backroom deals. Others will sneak in & outvote you.

What is a reasonable valuation of a culture?

Pars.

Likely PRICELESS Parsley!

[parsley]

Likely PRICELESS Parsley!

As long as there is a land base there is a home. No wonder China is so anxious to buy Saskatchewan land as their population explodes...

[farmaholic]

Funny thing Pars, I could be driven from this land and return two decades later and still probably drive the field boundaries/headlands with fairly good accuracy.....its is ingrained as speaking english....

Take care.

[parsley]

It's part of your DNA by now. People had to have courage to immigrate to Canada. Inner strength to survive winters and hunger and sickness and childbirth.

Land determines who you are. What you are. And I agree that it's value is priceless. pars