On 08/02/2015 9:07 PM, Martin Eastburn wrote:
....

... Uncle Art had a large dairy farm co-op
(had 13 kids that lived) and each married with a farm - They all worked
and helped each other. As time would take their toll, each sold out to
the large corp that took over the region.
....

KS is one of the places that has laws against corporate farm ownership
(other than closely-held family corp's) so that hasn't (at least yet)
happened here...at some point I expect there will be court challenges
and they'll have a difficult time keeping it in place, unfortunately.
While there are quite large operations, they are all
family-owned/operated still, and all the ones in the county and that I
know in neighboring counties are continuing entities of the original
homesteaders. It simply takes a larger operation to manage given
current economics than years ago--if I weren't retired from a previous
career before came back after Dad passed, it would be a marginal living
on our acreage now that was (at least in good years) comfortable for
folks. I've scaled back as the years pass as had Dad and run no cattle
(which given current markets is great on the selling side but not so
great on an operation such as ours which was a "buy and sell" annual one
with the primary farming operation and no permanent pasture so that's
just as well at the moment.

There are quite a number of dairies in the area now that didn't used to
be--they have moved out here from CA, AZ, etc., where they've been
forced out by either city expansion or more often the extremely onerous
environmental limitations placed on them by state or counties or even
municipalities. Of course, the home county here in KS passed an
ordinance some 30 yr ago now that prevented Seaboard from bringing in
their hog operations; they instead are 40 mi away down in OK panhandle.
We do have a large beef packing operation and a number of feeding
operations plus one of which (27000 head capacity) a few miles east of
us was sold last year and converted into "Heifer Source" a raising
operation for milkers--it's Minnesota-owned and I understand most of
them end up up in that neck of the woods after they're finished here...

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