Farms getting larger, Sen Grassley`s fault?

[sdholloway56]

As much as I’d love to champion small farms I really can’t argue against the awesome advances in productivity and efficiency- at least in the bulk commodity sectors.

But that said, and given that the economic multipliers from subsidizing those sectors are exceedingly low, there’s no reason to coddle them.

Free market.

I’d also dismantle the crop insurance system.

[sdholloway56]

Or more specifically, 100% of the subsidies.

The American taxpayer paid vast amounts to front the seed money for that system.

It is time to cut the cord.

[BA Deere]

This Michael Franken blaming Grassley for the decline in the number of farms, I don`t know how that is a senator from Iowa`s fault or how he figures on he can turn things around?    Locally I`ve seen "boys" who took a early retirement, their folks died and they started farming the land.   If you want more farmers you need good prices like now and what we had in 2012, a drought makes farming profitable (mother nature`s set-a-side program)  but that only lasts a couple short years and then it`s back to "Bob Utterback prices" .   I think the deep pocketed families can keep growing and plodding ahead and so long as family member are interested, they will outlast everyone.  And why wouldn`t a kid in those families want to farm?   Get a $150,000 allowance for driving a $800,000 combine while the hired help are in the dust and bee wings ....twist my arm.  😀

[sdholloway56]

Subsidizing scale certainly accelerated the inevitable.

[BA Deere]

Well, that`s true.  The problem was how do you design a farm program that helps the 400 acre farmer be a safe risk for the banker to give him an operating note while excluding aid to the 2,000 acre farmer becoming a 10,000 acre farmer?   I like payment limitations, however that horse has left the barn.   And the cheap food end of things, the 10,000 acre farmer will (I hate to admit) will contribute  more so than the 400 acre farmer.   However the 400 acre farmer is in many cases probably older, independently wealthy, essentially working for free for the fun of it.  Where as the 10,000 acre farmer has to be efficient, such as buying inputs cheap and selling at the top 10% of the market.   The anti-payment limitation crowd successfully ran out the clock. 

[Hobbyfarmer]

BA, wrong, wrong, wrong.

That older financially independent farmer is not working for free.

He is making money like he has never dreamed about in his start up days.

He has also figured out paying income tax is a good thing.

They don't take it all, and as he is probably on SS or very close his monthly check gets bigger every year. 

Had a visit with one of those types that lives in east central Iowa but is larger than 500 acres, his opinion was if you're not paying north of $100,000 a year in income taxes your not doing something right.

I will not be into #s but I will concur that until you manage to control spending and actually start accumulating some cash and paying taxes, you are either in the startup phase or will be always on the outside looking in...

[BA Deere]

Hey Hobbyfarmer, farming is one of those industries that sometimes defies gravity 😀  I look at the cow/calf guys selling calves at Greentag auctions and they are shall we say older than average, in some cases perhaps "buying mineral with their social security check"  and good for them, when some their age are having coffee at Caseys.   

What makes farming funny is when land hit $10,000, a "smart person" would say "Sell it! at $10,000 you`ll never farm that out of it, take the money and put in a safe mutual fund and get 8% return".  There`s tax on that transaction as well.  But, lo and behold that $10,000 land doubled in value to $20,000 faster any other investment   just sitting there doing nothing like deer in headlights!  

I suppose a S-corp  one avoids getting dinged with the 15% social security tax.   

[unlgrad]

I am sure you didn't mean to misrepresent what Trump said in his inaugural address, so I hopefully can post this below so you can see your misrepresentation.     Trump said "Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. "    

[gurly3801539]

sw, your example seems to be not a problem with payment caps but of bureaucrats and employees either not understanding the rules or trying to enforce them to their own beliefs. I am not against large farms. Everyone can run their business as they see fit. My opinion (and every one can disagree) remains if USDA sets a cap and then makes rules to over ride it they are not serious about it.

[sw363535]

my main problem is that congress is supposed to write the bill, usda is supposed to administer the bill as intended.  Usda is unfortunately charged with writing the rules and defining the details.  In 96 the administrative manual contradicted the wording of the bill when it came to defining entities.... when the rewrite was done the farm bill was administered quite differently than originally written.

minor problems are that political activism within the department over shadows the employee training.  And in most bills since employees are looking for violators rather than assisting producers.  Mostly it changes attitudes and creates some office confrontation.---- ie we had producers that were forced to provide original copies of long term leases annually that were on file in the office from previous years, because it seemed the office manager thought they were farming too many acres.  second example was the obvious change from service to enforcement made for "tactless" forced retirement of 23 year experience office personnel because they were too "chummy" with the farmers.  Since 96 the office changes atmosphere depending on party in control of government.  Also, all the offices in sw ks struggle with finding personnel for the last 25 years.  Many had veteran staff prior to 96 and since staff is constantly rotating along with the rotating managers in those years.  

Much of the tension in our region comes from the attitude of the state level management.  all that leads to constant "new people".   Covid and the attitude around employees locked in the offices and producers locked out sure hasn't helped. State level threatening made CED's uncomfortable about making perceived mistakes.

We had some struggles.