The things I can't control like weather.

 

problem

Labor and transition of farm - who/how it will get taken over.

 

The widening city-rural gap, and the mistrust that develops. This mistrust is being bred in fear that we as producers are reckless users of the tools
(chem, seed tech, land) we have. Food has become a religion in many circles, and there are many who have trouble with food production being profitable.

That being said, I enjoyed conversations over the holidays with friends who were genuinely interested in getting the rural scoop on some of this 'spin'.

 

Interest. We pay lots now and will likely pay more in the near future. Large sums need to be borrowed for a small profit which is not guaranteed.

 

The farmer's carrying high debt loads should be deathly afraid of deflation, it's really the only thing that can really jeopardize a productive operation. Interest rates can be locked in and managed, weather will average out over time, but deflation.......that should be feared!

Nothing else major as long as one is OK with change.

 

High rent ,high land prices and interest only loans with fcc

 

Will eventually catch a lot of farmers if we have a couple years of down prices or low production. There are no support programs for farmers any more so be careful out there.

 

High rent high land prices high interest high machinery prices , and who's fold is that?

 

Low commodity prices & high input costs. I can figure the rest out.

 

Low commodity prices & high input costs. I can figure the rest out.

Except for the last few years with the higher prices that is what we have always had, except for those years in the 80's with the stupid high interest rates. If we survived that past we should do just fine in the future.

 

Wow! I surprised at these answers.....I'm not worried about higher interest rates...partly because if they raise int. rate significantly, the gov becomes insolvent!

I'm worried about where the gov. is going to get the revenue to pay their debt....So I am worried about regulations....the ones we know about...the ones we will find out about....and the ones they are trying to pass currently (and the penalties for not being compliant when we didn't know about them). And higher taxes Property tax and income tax.

low prices are part of the cycle....if you don't plan for it then you will be gone! and locking in low interest rate is kind of funny....my banker said the average farmer re-finances ever 4-5 years.....so I question those that say locking in low rates for 30 years will save very many farms.

 

4.80 $ wheat. That don't pay many bills.

 

Technology, what happens when someone or something wipes out the internet or electronics even for a short period of time? It may never happen but the way everything is interconnected and getting more so every day a glitch could be devastating.

For instance...
Many if not all current GM vehicles and many others can be shut down over the internet.
Can a virus or worm be introduced into a manufacturer's software that can shut down all their equipment on a certain date after the virus is introduced?
Solar flares or something else unprecedented ejected by the sun?
Electromagnetic pulse bomb?

 

This farmer?

Age
Health

 

What costs us the most, year in year out, is weather forcasting. Or should I say the deterioration of quality forcasting. Government cutbacks, and more reliance on computer modeling has marginalized the forcasts. More than once a heavy rain event was forcast@4pm., so we go and seed shallow all night. Only to hear a dry weather forcast next morning @8am. Seeds stranded in dust for weeks. $$$

 

I never plan my work around the forecast.... ever. It will bite you in the a$$ everytime! I think our reliance on technology is getting scary. Solar flares, hackers ( mind you having no money in my account I wont lose much there! ) and almost everything in the world being vulnerable to someone on the internet thats capable of bringing us all to our knees.

 

Obama

 

For us it has been weather alone. Specifically too wet for too long. 06, 07, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. All of those years had acres too wet to seed. Two of them we could seed nothing, 2 of them half, and the other two were 80% of what should have been.

This has almost done us in to be honest. In the midst of an ag boom, it hurts having no crop and high prices.

We need dry weather. Had things been drier, I would be doing pretty darn good.

I can deal with high inputs prices, low grain prices, government inaction, high interest rates.

But I can not afford too much rain ever again.

 

For us it has been weather alone. Specifically too wet for too long. 06, 07, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. All of those years had acres too wet to seed. Two of them we could seed nothing, 2 of them half, and the other two were 80% of what should have been.

This has almost done us in to be honest. In the midst of an ag boom, it hurts having no crop and high prices.

We need dry weather. Had things been drier, I would be doing pretty darn good.

I can deal with high inputs prices, low grain prices, government inaction, high interest rates.

But I can not afford too much rain ever again.

I am the same as you we haven't had as many terribly wet years but since 2010 2013 has been the only good year we made a decent profit every year up until 2010 after that mother nature made it tough without my off farm income and custom work I would be in the red. I recently switched mortgages to MASC rates locked in for full term and I have less than $150,000 in equipment debt so I am ok in that respect. Its frustrating though through all these high commodity prices we made less money than when wheat was $4 and canola $7 because we had lower inputs and better weather

 

Money

 

money

Precisely.

 

Yeh..I've tangled with the IRS..didn't vote for Obama..suffered low commodity prices...made money on cattle...and the oil companys have put me over the top while the price of oil crashes!

I got two tractors down and am too tight to put 'em in the shop...Colder than all git-out..and I'm going to buy more cattle...I currently have a head-cold..and hope the French kill all the terrorists....OH!...I'm looking for a little-bitty loader to fit a 5020Allis Chalmers too..plus I bought a new Glock at Atwoods

 

erosion of my freedoms, aka government all up in my biz

 

Sale on tinfoil hats



Got a big sale going on on tinfoil hats, sounds like you need one.

 

If you would have asked this question a few years ago, I would have said the election of Stephen Harper will be our biggest threat as farmers and as a country .

Now we have to survive the omnibus bills he passed that will be very hard to undo that give way too much power to industry over people and could change environmental for hood.

Bill C 18 (upov 91) will affect Farmers Negatively for generations to come as will his severe cutting in public Ag research,

His Marketing freedom bill that(whether you supported cwb or not) Gave way too much power to grain co's and railroads,with No transparency ,no accountability and unlike the U.S system we are trying to market our grain with NO access to Market info

His recent Euro trade deal that allowed us an increased beef quota even tho we weren't filling the one we Already Had- In exchange for Canada Not being able to sell Generic Drugs
Did I mention when he was head of Canadian citizen Coalition his three wishes were to end CBC, end the CWB and end Public Healthcare ? He has a pretty good start

End of rant

 

Unfortunately he hasn't ended the cbc or public health care yet. Hopefully soon.

 

Divorce

 

That is a big one, you really get pushed back a lot of years.

 

Well seeing how his gov't has cut funding to provinces for healthcare I kinda think the end is near.
And his secret deal to end some generic drugs sales shows Whose Sending Him christmas gifts. Along with the ones the Grain Companies and Seed companies Are already sending ! Too Bad you can't connect the dots mbfarmer

 

Our country would be a much better place if everyone was as intelligent and tuned in to whats going on as you are!

 

Oh and the cuts to CBC have been for awhile now too, as this Gov't doesn't like Anyone questioning it or making anyone Aware of what is going On. It truly is the Party of the Uninformed

 

If you think the bias, one sided, liberal spin doctors at the cbc are anywhere near making you aware of what`s "really going on" you truly suffer from head up ass syndrome.

 

I am just starting as a farm business and trying to buy from my folks so they can retire and we can take over. small farm not enough acres to make a living off of. I don't know of one major problem but many little things.

buying land is hard because prices are higher then what can really cash flow. couple big shot farmers come in from out of our area and offer big money for land and developers.
also as a new farmer I have no equity or cash, to start up everything is borrowed. as a small farmer whenever land comes up there is a couple big guys that everyone know can rent there land they don't think of us little guys.

renting land is hard to come buy, once a farmer gets land here they seem to have it for life. very little rented land changes hands. so you have to talk to the guys that are 2-10 years away from retirement. so patients there will get some land. I am trying to work with older farmers now so when they retire I have a better chance.

banks don't want to borrow money today. bad prices and 5 years of goofy weather they are working with older farms and don't want to start carrying debt of a new setup.

prices are upside down right now. fertility prices are still high like corn was 7$ but corn is 3.50. in 120 bu corn to make it cash flow a guy has to start looking at how much can he mine until prices change or what other crops can he plant.

as a start up I took 50 acres 1/6 of the farm out of production to put to alfalfa. it wasn't cash flowing row crops have to do something to make a profit on this soil. try telling the bank that we will be short this year because of that land but next year will be better. they have never heard next year will be better.lol

 

HaHa. I forgot all about that side of things. I need to make a revision:

Weather, and competing with old money farms... lol

 

huts, they are gauging up land in a hurry only way to compete is join the competition its tough competing with them i'd say they have more farm hands and don't have to take over the farm, they just buy more land and gain more equity

 

I recall a lot of oil companies competing for land. Lot of blood will be shed within the year because of the oil down turn. Same thing will happen in farming if the down turn stays longer then a year or two. Their books looked great with high asset value and cash flow from high crop prices. But all of a sudden within a year cash flow has already vanished and now their land asset value dropped in half while debt remained the same. People will be forced to sell because of their debt to equity, if prices stay down. Those that made their money behave will be there to purchase it at 10-15 year lows in some areas and be there to sell at the next bull market for retirement.

 

It's not used all that often, but it is funny!

 

Just a note Sw Man says that intreast rates can be locked in I don't know your age but in the early 80's yes I did lock in intreast rate at16% try to manage that ,everyone was in big trouble if we see rates go to 6 % a lot of people will be in a mess.

 

I was there too, and land prices were pretty much the same then as now. So that tells me there should be some pretty cheap land coming up in the next five to ten years if history repeats itself!