Friday Cocktail plus the news of the week.

[TSIPP]

If you want to play you need to pay and the farm doesn’t pay for itself!

[furrowtickler]

US, China deal ... or re-deal from 2020//youtu.be/3FnYaNBo3yc

[Taiga]

Nobody’s farm pays for itself around here. And you can’t get into a farm as a 20 year old without something backing you. Plus there are 6 months of the year, or more, where you could be making some other money. Shame to lose your productive years (age 20-50?) and the missed income. But some super productive areas could perhaps do it.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

After having spent most of my farming career working off the farm to earn enough Capital to reach critical mass, I look back now and think there might have been another way. Didn't even occur to me as a possibility at the time.

It looks to me as if FCC or AFSC Wood loan money to aspiring young Farmers with a flashy business plan.
Relatively little Capital required to lease equipment, and rent farmland. Not much infrastructure required without livestock and in the era of grain bags.

I know of some operations that consist of bunch of leased equipment parked on rented land next to grain bags with zero other infrastructure.

I suppose the reality is when they reach the other end of their career, they still may not own any assets.

Looking back on BSE and the 2002 2003 drought years, all the years of hail and excess water and low prices, and I'm almost certain that business model would have been a disaster here.

[blackpowder]

"""""""""""Agriculture hopefully ok in the future, but much easier to enter if you also have another skill set to supplement/fall back on"""""""""

Why get into it in you have to subsidize it with another job to make it viable?

Do professionals hold a back up degree or tradesmen have second jobs to earn enough to live?

There are or will be 2 types.
Large enough for full time.
Full time career supplemented by small farm.
At $1.2M per quarter those will shrink.

And employees.

[bucket]

The large guys buying out 55 -65 year olds because those guys probably have 45 years in at the farm. And are looking for a hobby without expenses as in being an equipment jockey . As that model fades away , so does qualified labour with a history on that land . Then the real shit show begins.

[AllisWD45]

Happening already

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Full time career supplemented by small farm.
.

I think you have that backward. In most cases it seems to be the career supplementing the farm. With no hope of profit on the farm. I feel really badly for the wives of some of these operations who work multiple jobs so the farm can buy shiny machinery far out of proportion for the operation.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

It was Economics 101 in 2011-2012 regarding buying US$, not 13-14 year old hindsight. The blindfolded dart throwing Monkey market analysts even got that one right.

I guess forages hindsight marketing service is not going to respond with any real time predictions. I thought perhaps he could at least tell us how dumb we are for not lying back or Canadian dollars when he did. He hasn't yet, in hindsight predicted when he did that, I will assume he still holds the US dollars.

That works out to an annualized return of 1.9% over that time. That's less than inflation, far less than gold or farmland or the stock market or nearly any other investment that can be measured in dollars.

I've never understood the theory of exchanging one declining asset for another declining asset.

[Old Cowzilla]

Spent most of farming career with second job now bigger job seems to be transition of farm to son without saddling him with debt while providing retirement income for wife and I. And still helping other kids. When 60 thought I had 10 more good years now at 65 not as sure

[furrowtickler]

Nearly everyone I know grain farming has always had a second or third or fourth income stream .
relying on straight grain farming income is extremely risky in dry land farming .
I have had a second job for 35 years .

[blackpowder]

I think you have that backward. In most cases it seems to be the career supplementing the farm. With no hope of profit on the farm. I feel really badly for the wives of some of these operations who work multiple jobs so the farm can buy shiny machinery far out of proportion for the operation.

The operations you mention are a thing of the past.
Where they do still exist, it's on equity, for now....
Inheritors of land below viable size will have careers elsewhere.
"Farming" a hobby farm on weekends.
Hiring field operations or "renting" the land out in various arrangements.
Depending on their size, attachment to the dirt or lifestyle.
Their kids will see land as an investment only. Or a burden.
Hobby farms a lifestyle choice.