Silvan wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:


That's why 90% of farms are owned by Conglom-Ag isn't it?

Actually, that's not true at all...in actuality, other than the
corporate hog and chicken producers, most are still family-owned
businesses...of course, they have gotten larger...


You know more about it than I do, surely, but it certainly looks to me like
what I said above is true. Driving through the rural Carolinas, for
example, it seems like just about every patch of dirt that doesn't have a
strip mall on it has a sign in the corner saying something like "This
Property Owned and Operated by Agri-Mega-Corp."


(non-irrigated)). Today, assuming similar growing conditions, I'd
expect near 80 to as much as 100. However, the recent spike in fuel
costs is definitely a hit--I'm studying carefully what to do for next
spring. Winter wheat, of course, is already in and up (and looking
good, here, too!)


It also seems to me that efficiency or no, it must be much easier to go
broke than to turn a profit in that business. I guess that's true of any
business, but it just seems to me, as an outsider, like the deck is stacked
against farming all around. They want your land for strip malls and yuppie
gated golf communities, so they can get higher property taxes.


You are probably not that wrong, just in statistics. The number of
farms continues to drop and the size of farms continues to rise. So
big corporation farms in terms of acres, continues to increase, but
total numbers of farms also continues to decrease.

The family farm, as an institution, generally passed away long ago.
There are lots of gentleman farms, but I would hardly call those
family farms.

Anyway, farms are a business whether family or corporation owned. If
you don't know how to run a business you fail, no matter how hard you
may work. A lot of so called farmers don't seem to understand that.

I have to laugh everytime I hear about some poor guy and his wife
losing the family farm because of the poor economy, government screw
ups, or what have you. Usually it turns out that he owned it for only
5 years (not what most people envision as "the family farm") and that
the guy really knew very little about farming or running a business.
Another one of those "poor me, it's not my fault I failed."

Don't get the idea I am running down "the family farm." Successful
farms are still around, but the owners learned and adapted to the
business requirements of today. More power to them.