7 ms·
This is huge, to be successful today you really need to be in the several thousand acres ranges, where only a few generations ago farmers made a living on 100-2
by mikey_p 6y ago
This is huge, to be successful today you really need to be in the several thousand acres ranges, where only a few generations ago farmers made a living on 100-200 acres. If you can't afford the capital to expand via real estate niche farming is a more viable option for many folks. It's also often more risk than conventional grains, but with typical tradeoffs with higher reward.
- bluGill 6y agoYou can be successful on 10 acres - serving those high labor niche markets. Or you can be successful on 3000 acres. It is hard to be in the middle.
- randomdata 6y ago> only a few generations ago farmers made a living on 100-200 acres. You still quite easily can if you own the land outright, even in the grain business. The problem is that you need multi-millions to buy 100-200 acres, which nobody wanting to start farming has, save situations of inheritance. That means, for most, the vast majority of the potential profit turns into servicing debt or paying rent to the actual landowner. When you are only receiving a small portion of the pie that the land is actually generating, that's when you need thousands of acres to accumulate enough. To put it another way: The going rate for rent for farmland around here is around $300/acre. $300 * 200 acres = $60,000. If you own the land and don't have to pay rent, that alone is a decent living; more than most people make. And that is ignoring the profit that someone renting would expect to make off the land.
- pradn 6y agoI'm curious: how much revenue can an acre generate where you are?
- randomdata 6y agoA stellar dry bean crop could push $2,000. But then wheat is a struggle to get much above $500. Corn and soybeans generally ride up the middle between them. Those are the primary crops grown here.