Post by Ronny TXRe: "The Myth of the Small Farmer"
Group: misc.rural Date: Tue, Dec 26,
(Larry=A0Caldwell)
TX) says...
Ronny, you are wrapped up in the myth of
the family farm; cows 'n chickens 'n
pigs 'n 40 acres of corn. Today, that's
a hobby farm. It's possible to make a
living off of small acreage, but only by
specializing and finding a niche market.
Ronny:
I agree with you about the need for a niche market,for a small farm to
provide a living. But the 40 acres of corn seems a tad excessive to me.
:-) And don't get me wrong,I'm not talking about a living that provides
a house that is actually 3 to 5 times bigger than what someone really
needs. Nor am I talking about a living that provides the newest of
vehicles,truck and car every 2 to 4 years. And I've seen I don't know
how many people of my generation doing just that. Buying things like
that. Going into debt for years on end to the bank when so much could of
been trimmed back and they still would of been very comfortable in their
own smaller home and their own good;but used vehicles. (Heck,one of the
best deals I've ever gotten was buying a good used 6 year old van this
year for a 1/4 to a 1/3 of what a brand new one would have cost me. And
to me anyway,another good deal I got this year was paying out about
$1200 to have several things fixed up on a nearly 40 year old truck of
mine. No guarantees on it of course;but it's running like a top since
last winter and I just brought in a half cord of wood in it today. And
the yearly insurance bill for it is around $400. Bought that truck from
a nephew of mine 13 years ago for around $1200,when he was a teen and
thought he just had to have a brand new sporty type car to impress the
girls! LoL Now compare all of that to what I would of paid for a new
truck in monthly payments and insurance.)
Post by Ronny TXWhat I hear you saying here is that
specialist family farmers should have no
concern about how they will feed
themself and their family members if
things got bad. Now I can understand how
such people feel as they do and do as
they do when they are comfortable with
the amount of money they have and the
grocery stores are handy and they can
pay cash for what they need or want;but
my question was what would such people
do to feed themselves if things got bad?
And since they are farmers and have
land,then should not part of their life
be involved in growing some of their own
food? That simply seems prudent to me
for a person in such a position to do
such,instead of their paying out so much
of their hard earned cash to a local
grocery chain store.
Ronny, food is cheaper than dirt. The
average American family spends about 8%
of its income on unprepared food,
compared to about 30% in
1925. As a percentage of income, nobody
in the world pays less for food than
Americans.
Ronny:
I must be shopping at the wrong grocery store! :-) But then I admit that
I don't buy much unprepared food and that I need to get to doing more.
But then I wondered how much unprepared food the average person buys in
the United States? I would bet very little as to their overall diet.
Post by Ronny TXIf you want to take
responsibility for feeding yourself,
learn to cook. Quit eating Big Macs and
Hamburger Helper, and you will quickly
find out how cheap food is.
Ronny:
I completely agree with you on this part. And I do cook some;but not
nearly enough. And that needs to change this coming year. Not just for
the lower prices alone;but for my health. (BTW,I seldom eat takeout
hamburgers and such. I usually don't have time for that and such is a
treat for me seeing as the nearest fast food place is 12 or more miles
from me.)
Post by Ronny TXMy contention is that they need to be,at
least to some degree. And who has a
better chance to be,than a specialist
family farmer who already has the land
and equipment to personally grow some of
their own food?
Farmers don't grow their own food, they
grow food for hundreds or thousands of
other people. It's what they get paid
for.
Ronny:
Do you really realize what's being said when you say;"Farmers don't grow
their own food."? And it's great that they grow food for so many
people;but why not also a bit for themselves? And I'm speaking of the
smaller family farms here that specialize in one or two crops. Not
talking about huge farms owned by big businesses that have lawyers that
know how to farm the government as well or better than some people know
how to farm the land.
Post by Ronny TXThe water bath canner and the smoke
house are just hobbies, like knitting,
or hand spinning your own yarn.
Certainly I have a water bath canner,
and a pressure canner too, but when the
canneries are clearing out their
seasonal inventory, I can buy tins of
canned vegetables 3/$1 at the local
canned food outlet. The contents of a 7
quart canner would cost me $4.69 at the
store, less than an hour's wages at
minimum wage. You want me to take up a
lifestyle where my time is worth about a
quarter of minimum wage?
Ronny:
It's all more than about money. It's also a matter or being more
independant and self reliant,at least to a degree that makes sense. So I
have not a thing against a smaller family farmer buying and stocking up
on canned vegetables at the store when they're on sale 3 for a dollar or
such like. Such as that makes perfect sense.
Now about that 7 quart canner? :-) How many times can you reuse your
jars? See, that needs to be counted in too when sayin how much this and
that costs. Plus, isn't a really good canner a long term investment?
Post by Ronny TXShouldn't a specialist family farmer be
striving to pay off their mortage and
thus own their own land as free and
clear as they possibly can,as soon as
they can? And couldn't at least a part
of that be done by their growing much of
their own food on their own land and
thus freeing up money to go for faster
mortage payments- money that would
otherwise would simply go to the local
chain grocery stores?
Most farmers end up farming the equity,
at least part of the time. If they are
very lucky, their only debt is the
mortgage. Many farmers borrow the money
to put in a crop, and almost everyone
sooner or later has to borrow to replace
equipment. Most farmers are also looking
to buy more land, and their expansion
loans are just a percentage of their
overhead. By the time the mortgage is
paid off, a farmer is ready to retire.
Ronny:
So,are you saying that most smaller family farms just live in and exist
on debt? That's sure not a good place to be if the price of your one or
two specialty crops drops way down. And if you're borrowing money to put
in a crop,then that means borrowing money from the banker at interest.
Any cheap interest out there now days? :-) And why should a smaller
family farm always be looking to buy more land? If what they already
have doesn't make them a comfortable living and pay the debts,then how
will buying more land to farm and adding on more debt help such people?
Or will such tend to simply put them further and further into debt? I
simply can't see the use in growing a bigger debt when the idea is to
grow crops on the land you already have and that in such a way as to at
least pay for the land and all and make the farmer a comfortable living.
Post by Ronny TXIf you are farming with your own money,
you don't worry about where your next
meal is coming from.
Ronny:
You do if the value of your money drops too much. Not much use in paper
money if it's not worth much. Can't eat it,can't do much of anything
with it.
Post by Ronny TXAnd where would the small or large
specialist family farmers bread come
from as he stood in the bread line with
his family? And it's been years back now
that I knew a farmer who specialized in
wheat and pinto beans and I never
thought to ask him if he and his family
prepared and ate some of the food they
produced? But wouldn't it make sense if
they did? After all,not a bad start
having your own bread and pinto beans!
:-) LoL Add to that a garden plot with
various things that they could eat fresh
and put up for winter and if so then
they would have it pretty good if times
got bad. Even better if their place were
paid for in full and the bank could not
come after them in harder times.
When was the last time you bought 25
lbs. of pinto beans? Do you have any
concept of how much food that is, and
how little it would cost at any bulk
food grocery?
Ronny:
Are you saying it would cost less for the pinto bean farmer to buy his
pinto beans at the bulk grocery store? It that's so,then he's doing
something wrong in his farming or else that store will soon be out of
business. And the farmer I spoke of already had his land,his equipment
and the pinto beans and wheat he grew. So my idea was that such a farmer
should simply put some of that food by for use for himself and his own
family.
A farm is a business. It
Post by Ronny TXneeds a substantial cash flow to
survive. You aren't going to get that
cash flow out of a hobby garden. When
things get bad enough that you can't buy
groceries, you better start packing a
suitcase, because you won't have a farm
tomorrow.
Ronny:
You'll still own your farm if you don't have a large amount of debt that
you're having to make payments on to the bank. But if you do and you
lose your farm,pack your suitcases and have to leave it,then exactly
where is that specialized family farmer and his family going then and
where are their groceries coming from then and how will they pay for
such? And that's just groceries and not even talking about how they will
then house or cloth themselves? So my idea is simply that such people
should grow at least some of their own food,stock up on that,go into
debt only when absolutely necessary and pay off all debts on their land
and home as quickly as they can.
Post by Ronny TXI have neighbors who make about half a
living off of a farm stand. Their
"garden" is 60 acres of irrigated row
crops on rich river bottom land. Some of
it they truck garden and some they sell
farmgate. It takes half a dozen Mexicans
to plant, irrigate, cultivate and pick,
and three Anglos to run the farm stand.
Their payroll costs alone are over a
third of a million dollars a year.
That's a lot of beans.
Ronny:
Have they gotten to the place where they own their own land free and
clear? If not, then hopefully they are working towards that goal as soon
as possible. And does their diet consist a great deal of the truck crops
they grow? Or do they buy a lot of groceries from the local chain
stores? Do they store any of their own truck farm crops for their own
use when such are not available fresh? If they don't,couldn't they? You
see it's not just cash that's security. In fact cash can be very poor
security;but stored food is a good form of security.
Post by Ronny TXPeople had to eat back then,people have
to eat now. If not,they starve. That's
not changed,nor will it ever change in
our present world. Just a fact of life.
Eat or die. So it's still my belief that
the specialists family farmers of today
should at least consider growing some of
their own food for their own table and
storing some of that too. Which,among
other things,simply seems the prudent
thing to do if things got bad with their
specailty crop(s) and the price dropped
way down on such. Better to have that at
home than to have to count on a bread
line where you and your family might or
might not find food or enough food to
eat.
You are letting your survivalist
fantasies run away with you, Ronny.
Farmers can't afford to go back to 19th
century farming practices. Governments
can't allow farmers to go back to 19th
century farming practices. There are 6.5
billion people on this planet now. The
only way to feed them is high input
industrial agriculture.
Ronny:
Don't we mostly have high input industrial agriculture in the U.S. now?
We got that and how many of those 6.5 billion people, in this
world,can't afford to buy food from us? Some of those people even living
in the United States. So it's great that we can produce a lot of
food;but that doesn't fill the stomach of the person that can't afford
to buy such from us. And I'm not asking any smaller specialized family
farmer to go back to 19 century farming practices;but I do believe they
could go by some of them and have a better life,a better living and more
security for themself and their whole family. And I don't have
survivalist fantacies;but I do believe it is prudent for smaller
specialized family farmers to grow at least some of their own food and
stock up on that as they can. After all they already have the land and
the equipment for that. And if it's truly a family farm they have,
then they have at least some of their own labor or perhaps all of it in
some cases. So why not put such to use at times when they aren't tied up
with the specialized crops? Why not them and any kids they have working
even a smal amount of personal for use at home crops and that say in
place of the kid(s) being indoors playing a video game? Or is that
considered too much to ask of farm kids nowdays? :-)
Post by Ronny TXWhen the cities
go dark and the highways go silent, the
farms will still have fuel and
fertilizer necessary to produce a crop.
---
Ronny:
But such ain't going nowhere if the trucks aren't running down those
highways and delivering such to the processors and then even more trucks
delivering such to the grocery stores. And if the highways go silent
then how are the people to get to the grocery stores to buy the food
that finally gets their from the farms? So if the cities go dark and the
highways go silent, then it doesn't amount to a hill of beans if the
farmer can still get fuel and fertilizer to raise a crop. But what will
matter to the farmer is such a case as that is if he or she has a small
debt load,land and home paid for and if he or she has actually grown or
purchased some of their own food and have such stored for their own
personal use.
But then I'm not at all talking about end times deals,really horrible
bad times when I say I don't see why specialized family farmers don't
grow and store at least a bit of their own personal food? I say doing
such is good as just as good and called for in much better times. Anyway
like that,that saves the farmer money is good. Anything that helps him
or her get out of debt quicker is good. And it's not just growing their
own food;but as you mentioned and as I agree,it would also consist of
buying bulk food,canned food and such out of the stores when such was
cheaper. Such a way of life simply makes sense for the smaller
specialized family farmer or anyone for that matter. So if you can
produce some fresh foods cheaper than the stores,then so that;but if
another can produce bulk dry or canned goods cheaper than you can,then
buy from that person and stock up a bit when such is cheaper. Just
simple common sense things like this will lower any persons debt,the
amount of cash they have to shell out to others. And such makes sense to
me for all people,specialized family farmers included.