How typical is this?

[cowman]

Had a couple stop in yesterday looking for some hay. I gave them the number of a seller and we had coffee. I've known this farmer and his wife all my life.
He and his wife are in their early fifties. Seventy five cows, a couple of hundred acres in wheat and barley. Have 3 quarters of good black land. Everything paid for, kids grown up and gone.
He told me they had to pasture their hay and part of their crop last year. Put the rest of the crop up for green feed. Sold their calves in the October low last year.
The two remaining elevators in their area are coming down this summer and they will have to truck their grain about another 40 miles.
They figured they've had enough and have listed their farm. Figure why lose more equity and work for nothing. Still young enough to do something else and enjoy life.
How many more are there like this couple? If we get one more "wreck" how many more will be looking to leave?

[pandiana]

I guess I would also like to know just how typical this is? Many of my friends and neighbors are also 'talking' the talk but it seems to me this happens every year at this time. I keep hoping they won't do the 'walk', but this year I am not sure. How many farmers selling out would it take to create some formidable waves in the agriculture industry?

[ianben]

Same thing over here. Three nieghbours sold or selling already this year. Same age group 50/60. Sick of working for peanuts going to do those things we never get round to while they are still able. Some of the old guys still keep going though one guy is nearly eighty.
He struggles on with worn out takle and very little help from his family.
Sometimes it is the ones you least expect who walk away.

[countryguy]

Same situation here.Two auction sales coming up within four miles of me.The papers have seemingly endless listings of upcoming sales in the province.One of these sales a couple weeks ago was a 22 thousand acre grain farm.A couple years ago there was a sale for a 15 thousand acre grain farm.I guess that blows the "bigger is better"theory out of the water.

[cowman]

Do you find this situation sad? Maybe I'm just getting too damned old but I can still remember a time when there was never a question of selling out. You got old, the kids took over, and you lived out your life on the farm. We thought this way of life would last forever. It was a good life with three, sometimes four generations, sharing the same business. I remember when you cared about your neighbor and helped him, and he helped you. Somewhere along the way we lost something. And maybe it was the thing that made the whole farming thing worth bothering with?

[Deb]

Exactly, Cowman, it was the lifestyle. Poor but happy. Now we're poor and unhappy. I bawled my eyes out when the neighbours sold their dairy farm where I worked all summer and weekends for nothing. They were the ones that convinced me to go into agriculture, not by what they said, but how they lived.

[carebear300]

It just goes on and on agriculture keeps losing good people as we sit here. The life and ideals that we all love about farming are being replaced by the harsh reality that all our friends and family that aren't involved in agriculture are so much better off. The financial pressures will finish us all off eventually. It is a shame because when us third and fourth generation farmers are all gone there will nobody to teach the people that take over the really important things about stewardship of the land and what responsibility it entails for anybody that works it. The country won't realize how valuable we were till we are gone.

[cakadu]

Carebear, you bring up an interesting point. It is somewhat similar to the up and coming generations of kids who do not know how to cook beyond the microwave. One of my greatest pleasures in life was having my nana show me how to do something, or if I found a very old recipe that called for a "medium" oven, she could tell me. We are fast loosing that and it's a shame.

How do we go about balancing all the elements that are a necessary part of the agriculture business and lifestyle. What would you think of a mentoring program so that those that have left the land or thinking about it, could pass on what they know to the next in line. There is some thought that many of the farmers of the future will not be from rural areas, but city dwellers that are going to look at farming as a business opportunity. How will we ensure that they take care of the land as well?

[cowman]

I imagine the plains indians thought their life would go on the same way forever. Their way of life came to an end pretty fast. Some of them adapted, some of them didn't.
For a lot of farmers leaving the farm is not a hardship financially. It frees up all kinds of money to get into something else or to retire. Lets them do some of the things they never had time for. And while I find it sad that people are leaving the farm in there middle years, it is even more sad to see the old farmer struggling away. Too old to change or enjoy his wealth, and no one to take over. When he dies the kids blow it or the government gets it.

[Deb]

When you get the mentoring thing set up Cakadu, I'm here!! I would love to go into the schools and teach one cooking class on how to can fruit or grow and freeze vegetables. I suppose there is nothing stopping me now...maybe. Except time.