Need opinions on beginning farmer.

Find a good case ih 1660 or 1680 good combines and room to expand.

It will never work unless you and your wife both have a out side job. MACK

Back in the 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's you could make a good living on half those acres but today I think it would be tough to do it on 500 acres.  Fertilizer, fuel and everything else has gone way up but price of grain has stayed the same.  Yields are more today but costs are up even more.  As Mack said you better have a source of income to help out until you know you can make a go of it full time.  Caution is the word of the day.

Keep the 100,000 in your pocket. Stay working wherever you are. And wait to inherit the farm. You cant make a living farming 500 acres. If you cant do everything that needs done,dont waste your time.

Before you think about what equipment to buy you NEED a buisnes plan. If you don't have a basic understanding of buisness managment you should keep your job and stick with hobby farming.

Edited by dave63 - 04 Jul 2012 at 5:30am

You're 29 and have $100,000?!?!?

You take the farm an I'll take over whatever it is that you do.

realolman wrote: You're 29 and have $100,000?!?!? You take the farm an I'll take over whatever it is that you do.

He didn't say how he got the 100k Be carefull what you wish for. LOL

dave63 wrote: He didn't say how he got the 100k Be carefull what you wish for. LOL

Yeah.... you're right.  I am thankful for what and especially who I have.


Edited by realolman - 04 Jul 2012 at 8:33am

Go back and read what Dave 63 posted first, then read it a couple more times. If the numbers don't work it won't work. Five hundred acres is a part- time income at best. No to minimal investment to start out then work into asset ownership as income allows is the only way to mange the risk associated with getting started unless, someone else takes on the risk and you work for them and into the business slowly. I've been working with farmers for almost 40 years on setting up this type of business entry. Those who ignore Dave 63's advice struggle and many faii. 

+1 on a detailed business plan.

Unless you are going to farm part-time, you don't need real big equipment to farm 500 acres.  My Dad farmed 480 acres with a Farmall 560, and a couple of smaller tractors in the 60's.  Crops were corn and soybeans and they were harvested with a mounted 2 row picker and a pull type combine cutting 3 rows of beans (40" rows).  He would hire some help in the fall is all------------I was off in college at the time.

A couple of 100 hp tractors would be plenty.  See if there was some farmer in the area that would combine your crops in exchange for your help  harvesting his acreage.

By the way, does the farm have a house that your wife is willing to live in, and is she on board with farming as a way of life??

Until he retired about 10 years ago I had a neighbor who farmed about 450 acres and made a living at it. He had 4 row equipment, in about 30 years made a transition from corn to the corn crib to a combine. He usually got the place plowed, disked, and planted in one good week of long days. He paid cash for anything he bought at most of what he bought was new and green. He's still renting the farm house but sold the equipment spread over a few years to minimize the income tax effects of recovery on depreciated equipment. He bought several new tractors in that time period as well as cars and trucks. He didn't splurge but he still apparently lives comfortably. His contract was crop share. So the landlord took the lumps of bad years and was blessed in great years. That means the landlord pays for half the seed, fertilizer (and in mine), and the herbicide and gets half the crop delivered to the elevator. The landlord has to sell the grain to his best advantage.

When I farmed a small patch, I did the plowing, the spraying (using a three point sprayer that I built), the planting, and the cultivating (when I cultivated), but hired combining. For the $20 to 25 an acre it cost I couldn't keep rubber parts replaced on a combine annually. And when that custom operator added a semi for hauling, I quit dragging wagons with my tractor. It sped up his combining to haul 900 bushel loads with the semi at 35 mph than for him to wait for me hauling 275 bushel wagons at 20 mph and for me it sure was a lot more comfortable on a chilly day riding in the semi cab than on an open tractor. And my tractor probably burned more gasoline than it cost at 4 cents a bushel to get the corn to the elevator.

One of the early axial combines still works well, 1460, or 1660 and isn't too horribly expensive these days. But it will take maintenance and parts chasing.

No till is nice for holding back soil erosion, it does require attention to chemical application because timely sprays are crucial to it working. On my farm, I started out full till, and transitioned to no till. I really liked how the ground stuck around during and after a May 5" overnight rain, but I didn't like waiting for the ground to warm up and dry so I could plant, especially beans in the corn residue. I added trash whippers to my planter and it handled the residue just fine and by fall that residue is consumed by earth worms and other organisms so I didn't find I had an accumulation of corn stover. My tenant now is a strip tiller, a decent (but expensive for the small operator) compromise between full till and no till that gets a warmed and dried strip for planting allowing earlier planting.

I only sprayed glyphosate, I hired the stuff requiring an applicator's license, had to accept more crop damage but some of that stuff I didn't care to handle. I used my sprayer as the metering and carrying source for injecting 32% with the planter and sometimes for sidedressing. The expensive parts of my 4 or 8 row sprayer were the tank and the pump. I assembled the rest from standard plastic plumbing pieces accompanied by spray pressure regulators and nozzles, but I monitored the pressure and adjusted a needle bypass valve to regulate the pressure much closer than the pressure regulator ever did. I used an electric pump. The bypass went to recirculate the tank to keep it well mixed.

If you can minimize the equipment investment by using vintage equipment, you can use your 100K cash for operating and improve your bottom line probably at least 8% by not paying the bank off the top of the income for the operating loan.

Gerald J.

Two more inportant items. THE amount of crop ins you can obtain. And the length of contract. I would not try this with out enought ins to cover expenses. Losing your work for a year is bad, losing your expenses is bankrupincy. A 5 year contract is also needed, What if he dies and heirs want to rent to some one other than you. Also makes easer to get operating loan Good luck,its a good life,and you will have more than 401k when you retire, if you play your cards corectly.I have 55 years in farming businses I know more about running a combine than this machine

Eldon (WA) wrote: MACK wrote: It will never work unless you and your wife both have a out side job. MACK It will work....heck with all the gov'ment programs, subsidies and crop insurance all you need is a way to get the seed in the ground and you can't lose!

He cant make it on 500 acres? I farm 250 acres and I started farming about 4 years ago. I pay farm payments on 200 acres of ground that I've bought and rent about 67 acres. If you can get a reasonable rent and its good ground. Go out and get a decent 150 horse tractor and some older equipment and go after it. I dont have an off the farm job, and if I didnt have to make farm payment every year my wife wouldnt need a job either and thats only on 250 acres. 9 times out of 10 the guys that say you cant do it are the guys farming 2000 acres paying huge rent and farming with new equipment.

Family and business most of the time is not good business.