I grew up on a family farm. 4th generation. We pulled the pin and moved to Alaska when gen 5 was born. Mostly produce, up to 1200 acres at one time, huge input costs, high risk / high reward. When my mom and dad were running the show when I was a kid, we had exactly 2 years where we made money. They survived the Carter years and had a 21% note on some land, some was rented and some was family. I honestly have no idea how they do it today the way banking is. We had some excellent and very creative bankers over the years. The area has a couple real farmers left and a dairy, the rest has become ranchettes and horsey farms.
If you aren’t borrowing money and real estate values don’t crash you’ll be fine. Productive farmland is very valuable and with Bill Gates’ of the world buying it all up I don’t see why this should change.
I would very much take the advice above about haying. It’s good money and input costs are minimal. As long as you control the bugs and fertilizer, about the only thing to really go wrong is a rain at the wrong time. Where I lived you could get 5 years before you had to rotate it out. You can have someone custom harvest it to start with if you don’t have the gear. Do it somewhere that gets at least 3 cuttings a year. The “idiot cubes” small bales(classic, I love it) is the way. Plus the smell of a hay field when the irrigation water hits it is something you could be a go-zillionaire with if you could bottle and sell it. Nothing like it in the world.
If you aren’t borrowing money and real estate values don’t crash you’ll be fine. Productive farmland is very valuable and with Bill Gates’ of the world buying it all up I don’t see why this should change.
I would very much take the advice above about haying. It’s good money and input costs are minimal. As long as you control the bugs and fertilizer, about the only thing to really go wrong is a rain at the wrong time. Where I lived you could get 5 years before you had to rotate it out. You can have someone custom harvest it to start with if you don’t have the gear. Do it somewhere that gets at least 3 cuttings a year. The “idiot cubes” small bales(classic, I love it) is the way. Plus the smell of a hay field when the irrigation water hits it is something you could be a go-zillionaire with if you could bottle and sell it. Nothing like it in the world.