If you look at corn being basically $1 back in `45, $1 back then was worth 1 silver dollar or about 1 oz of silver. Today a silver dollar/1oz of silver is $15 or more. So, if that says corn production got easier than silver production or our money value has went to pot. But I do know, if corn was $15/bu, Bigshots all over the place would go nuts raising more & more & more.until it was $3 again...Dang John Deere, they made farming fun. 
From what I heard the 1940s was a golden age in farming, if your insurance agency didn`t pan out, you could go across the street to the banker and borrow money for a quarter, 20 bred sows and a B John Deere on a 20 year note and pay it all off in 10 years and then be working on your second quarter.
You can still borrow money today. What's stopping you? 
Time it will always be as long as government is involved....and we are so egomaniacal that history is forgotten.....
Now as stated here, the young farmer isn't even a high priority for an old farmer. He is somewhere below pond scum..... a victom to be raped of his pride with high rents and unimaginable proformance expectations. Starting with the phone on his belt. he is never out of the bulls eye. Going home and working his way out of this is not even an escape from the multitude that advise and dictate to him. Most (including the rentee) haven't got a clue how to accomplish what all expect of this worm we all have our thumb on.
usda will provide the retiree a retirement plan so he doesn't need a young farmer..... no sense in giving anyone who isn't "well backed" an opportunity. Us old timers who think our $500 land is worth 10K (total loss of focus) will not risk our imaginary $9,500 on a neighbor kid (who is not imaginary).
"well backed" ----- I have a vision of a man who in 1957, retired with 640 acres and equipment to farm it and another 800 acres rented. He owed nothing and had saved a decent savings for the time.... With a sick wife he took a job as a school janitor, to get away from the dirt storms of spring, in a school system near his childhood home in central kansas. He chose a promising young couple with no backing and sold equipment to them on time. Rented his ground to them and offered to adjust the payout on the equipment "when" tough years come. "We'll add years, and hopefully we will have many to come".
That is how a young farmer becomes "well backed". And that is what happens in our country when we aren't looking for congress and taxpayers to do the real work.
It is ugly when a bunch of dirt farmers turn into "estate managers and investors"..... Living arogantly off the work of their predecessors .
its always somebody elses responsibility...... and right now there are there are abandoned dogs that are rated higher than young farmers in our society.
It sounds like you need a new banker.
I found the deal of .28 / eggs interesting, as I remember '' Casing eggs '' for the creamery truck - - -
With all of the tech available , why aren't today's layers producing say 2 or 3 eggs / day & and I'm not talking about double yokes we held back due to the creamery rejecting them, due to packaging problems - - -
2 or 3 / day would cut production margins by -? , so the consumer could have 1/2 priced eggs - ?
SW - NO RYE COMMENTS - even with the '' cover crops '' fad - ?
It was in the mid-50s that Dad started on his own, he had saved $10,000. He bought a 120a farm and rented 120 and raised a lot of hogs. He paid a little over $100/acre to buy the land (didn`t have any tile), he had a F-30 and probably couple F-20`s. But I was figuring today that he didn`t have a gross worth of no where near $20,000...he started farming on that, didn`t have a off farm job, paid off his borrowed money in 5 years the 10yr note and was buying another farm.
You figure the $1 in the 50s and 40s being "$15" today, $20,000 then would be $300,000 today...and he bought a farm and comfortably farmed on that in today`s dollars. But to buy the same farm and livestock and rent another 120 it would be $1 million today and you wouldn`t have a comfortable living and couldn`t service much debt.
In the 80`s in school I`d sat figuring what it would take to start farming (instead of listening to the teacher ) and if I recall I would figure buy an acreage with some good buildings, farrow/finish 150 sows and rent 400 acres for my corn needs and soybeans to sell to off set the meal cost I would have. Buying 4430 and 6600 combine, 8 row machinery, figured I needed $600,000 from FHA. I`m glad I didn`t go that route or just when I would`ve started getting equity, I would`ve been wiped out in 1994 and 8 cent hogs. My point is the 1980`s was the last years that you could still at least have the dream of starting from complete scratch.
