What would you do with a million dollars..

Jethro Rocker said:
Yep, indeed. The oldies that wanna keep farming till they lose it all...

The missus and her bro family rented their land on a crop share (not cash) basis for many decades. So the risk of bad crops etc was totally real and no guarantee of income.
We sold it all off in 2017 thus the retirement. Well, I quit work a ways before that as they sold some smaller sections. Why beat your head against the wall and have to farm it for 50 more years to get the land value out? It's the stubborn old guys that I don't get.
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Well, farming isn't just an occupation; it's a lifestyle. I'd be beyond heartbroken to see my family's farm be sold off to some Chinese company or some giant corporate ag operation. We've been farmers as long as anyone can remember, all the way back to Holland and Germany before my ancestors even came to the States. I imagine a lot of them find their self-worth in their work. To them, to sell out is to fail.
 
mcblink said:
Well, farming isn't just an occupation; it's a lifestyle. I'd be beyond heartbroken to see my family's farm be sold off to some Chinese company or some giant corporate ag operation. We've been farmers as long as anyone can remember, all the way back to Holland and Germany before my ancestors even came to the States. I imagine a lot of them find their self-worth in their work. To them, to sell out is to fail.
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It's one of those things if it's not taught and passed down, you have an entire way of existence lost and that's one more thing to rely on from a large corporation that will only screw everyone else in pricing when they own the monopoly
 
mcblink said:
Well, farming isn't just an occupation; it's a lifestyle. I'd be beyond heartbroken to see my family's farm be sold off to some Chinese company or some giant corporate ag operation. We've been farmers as long as anyone can remember, all the way back to Holland and Germany before my ancestors even came to the States. I imagine a lot of them find their self-worth in their work. To them, to sell out is to fail.
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My little rural town was western Illinois. Population about 3600. Entire county was around 15,000. Lived there till 2002 when we moved to NE Illinois. Started working full time in 1972. In 30 years it’s surprising how many family farms became corporate farms. Land bought up by doctors and lawyers, etc from where we live now. Many times the original owners continued to work the land…. Just as employees now receiving a paycheck.
 
And some of what was happening was the farm kids my age weren’t staying on the farm. Mom and dad sometimes didn’t really have an option other than to sell when they got too old to continue farming. That was always sad…. But part of how things evolved.
 
I'd do like Mike, and just set it into any long term accounts to make me as much money over the next five years as possible. I'd also pay off the mortgage, and do a few mods/upgrades to the house. I want to retire soon, so I'd try to make it last while still having fun with it.
 
Another contributing factor was the loan interest rate in the 80’s. Farmers were being coerced into high rate loans by the local bankers. When for various reason that same farmer was unable to maintain loan payments…. Those same bankers foreclosed on the land and in essence, forced the farmer out of business. And that’s really when corporate farms started moving into my county. They were the only people that could afford to buy land. Pissed me off then. Still pisses me off today. Many of those farmers forced out were my friends and customers.
 
My stepmother gave up her family farm 1.5 million a year in property tax it had been in the family since 1865
Funny my friend George an I went to lunch one day it was the first spring sunny day George said would you look at that
I said the snow covered mountains George no the two men are politician's and they have their hands in their own pockets.
 
mcblink said:
Well, farming isn't just an occupation; it's a lifestyle. I'd be beyond heartbroken to see my family's farm be sold off to some Chinese company or some giant corporate ag operation. We've been farmers as long as anyone can remember, all the way back to Holland and Germany before my ancestors even came to the States. I imagine a lot of them find their self-worth in their work. To them, to sell out is to fail.
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I get that.
In our case, We sold some to a Hutterite colony and some to a smaller farmer and Ducks Unlimited. No big foreign buyers here. No children to leave it to and again, we weren't active farmers doing tne work.
Making piddly off it depending on weather every year was pointless. The buck stops with us two. We have no kids. All her family is gone. To retire more than comfortably before age 50 seems like a total win in our case.
 
I guess for me it comes down to if the remaining family cannot make a good living off the land that is there and no one left to or wants to take it over, what is it for?
Nice to have the farmland in the family for many years...but for what? Older and older people struggling to make ends meet vs just sell it and move on. If your family had no one left to take it over what is the land for?
 
Agri-business. That's why the smaller mom & pop farms are gone, or are struggling. it's like every other industry in that, businesses are not grown in unto themselves. They are swallowed by a bigger financial firm, that swallows up other businesses until they are so big they implode.

It's like the online game my kids used to play all the time. Agario. You start out a small circle and you swallow up smaller circles around you. You keep eating the smaller circles until one comes by that is so big, it takes up the whole screen.

Welcome to Capitalism. :D

What they should do is start up with new OnlyFarms accounts

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