how be a good farmer
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Category: Allis Chalmers
Forum Name: Farm Equipment
Forum Description: everything about Allis-Chalmers farm equipment
URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=51765
Printed Date: 16 Dec 2025 at 10:35am
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Topic: how be a good farmer
Posted By: smiling00
Subject: how be a good farmer
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 6:29am
| i am wondering how to be a good farmer after i gradute from college. |
Replies:
Posted By: Jim Lindemood
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 6:41am
| Take good care of your family, the land, and any critters you have. Be honest in your dealings with other folks. Work hard - nobody ever drowned in sweat. Do you have a farm now? What is your location - what you grow best will vary by location. |
Posted By: AC WD45
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:00am
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Lot of hard work, sweat and praying ------------- German Shepherd dad 1957 Allis Chalmers WD45 #WD234847 1951 Allis Chalmers WD #WD88193 |
Posted By: BStone
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:03am
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smiling00 wrote:Posted By: MikeinLcoMo
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:08am
| It's easy to make a little money farming. Start out with alot of money and quit while you have a little left. |
Posted By: Stan IL&TN
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:24am
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So you are in college but you don't know how to capitalize? Around here we learn that in first grade. I'm thinking troll, but please correct me if I'm wrong. ------------- 1957 WD45 dad's first AC 1968 one-seventy 1956 F40 Ferguson |
Posted By: JarrodACFan
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:25am
Now that's a good one! ------------- 1956 WD45 Narrow Front Factory Power Steering, 1953 WD Wide Front Allis Express in Muncie, IN |
Posted By: darrel in ND
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:30am
| All of the above, plus I would add to that, good record keeping. That is one of my short-comings, but I do give it my best shot. When ever my record keeping starts to falter, so does my operation. Darrel |
Posted By: wkpoor
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:42am
Judging by what I see in my area that doesn't seem to apply. I realize farming has had its ups and downs but I believe farming is in its ups right now. |
Posted By: MikeinLcoMo
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 7:48am
| Jarrod, I grew up in Ripley Co. Ind. and anything over 200 acres was considered a big time operation ! |
Posted By: Bob J Wi
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 9:46am
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The farmer was asked what he was going do with his lottery winnings, he said he would farm until it was gone. |
Posted By: mmccarty
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 2:36pm
| What kind of farming do you want to do? |
Posted By: DougG
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 4:23pm
| Good luck , you will need alot of it; its a tough business , too many things out of your control and imput prices on everything is unreal ;an older gentleman told me once , use your head , never give up ;; but know when to quit |
Posted By: bitburn
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 6:23pm
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As a non-farmer, I would say starting, creating and maintaining a good relationship with local customers. Get input on what local people, restaurants and businesses need. Think outside the box as to product to sell that no one else sells. Also see what products you could export to other countries. The location I am at,, before corn and wheat took over, was famous at one time for onions and peppermint oil. As a small farmer, I think this is the only way you can compete; producing items that are too expensive to mass produce. |
Posted By: victoryallis
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 9:53pm
| Don't get caught up with fancy iron. Worry more about function than age or apperance. I have bought alot of fixer uppers most have panned out well but not all of them. Second look where you can make yourself more effeceint -we have put in on farm grain storage, just added on farm liquid fertilizer storage over the years we have streamlined the tillage process to save fuel on labor costs. Do as much for yourself as you can over time polish your shop skills and try to eliminate having custom work done for you. Also try to search out good deals on iron I have hauled some of my iron from along ways away but it has payed. Analyze where your money is going on cost per unit of saleable commodity I have a couple distant neighbors that spend the money to plant a crop but don't do anything about weed control and don't get squat. You can learn alot by watching your neighbors and seeing what is working for them and what isn't none of them are perfect but you can learn something from all of them. |
Posted By: GBACBFan
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 10:20pm
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As you consider farming recognize that at a minimum you need skills as a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician, a herdsman, an agronomist, a labor relations expert, an accountant, and a market analyst. If you have to pay others to perform any of these tasks for you, it will be harder to be profitable. If you do graduate from college, select a farm related field you enjoy and work there first to make sure farming is what you want to do for the rest of your life. The physical work you enjoy when you're 22 is much harder when you're 55. Also be mindful that there's a lot easier ways to make a living, especially if you have a college degree. Just a thought or two for your consideration. ------------- "The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine." - Mark Twain |
Posted By: mmccarty
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 10:35pm
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What courses are you planning on taking in college? Take some business planning courses. Take an accounting course. I try to talk to some of my fellow egg producers around here about their bottom line and many don't have a good grasp on it. They did some rudimentary planning, figured they could make some money, but then deliver a shoe box full of receipts to their accountant each year so they can file their taxes. Money goes out and money comes in, but they aren't sure if they are really making any money. Take some technical school courses; basic ag mechanics, welding, soil agronomy, livestock courses, whatever fits your idea of what you're going to do. Get some hands on experience. If you want to dairy, hire on at a dairy for the summer. If you want to grow produce, find a job at a truck farm and learn how the place runs. Read, read, and read some more. Want to produce eggs for a living? Read everything you can find about commercial egg production and chickens. Want to grow and direct market organic produce? Start reading. There are many lifetimes of experience in those books that will keep you from reinventing the wheel. |
Posted By: 427435
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2012 at 11:37pm
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Unless you're looking at some niche type farming, I think it is extremely difficult to get into general farming (corn, beans, wheat, etc) without help from a family member that is already farming.
------------- Mark B10 Allis, 917 Allis, 7116 Simplicity, 7790 Simplicity Diesel, GTH-L Simplicity Ignorance is curable-----stupidity is not. |
Posted By: morton(pa)
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 10:13am
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Be able to adapt, especially to new ideas/methods, etc etc. Be prepared to work your a** off for what you want and/or have. Don't be lazy aka don't let grass grow between your feet. Look for deals on equipment or any supplies in general and scoop them up when possible. Pay your ALL of your bills on time, learn how to manage your money and learn how to budget(don't even bother farming if you can't do these things). If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always gotten. So many people say "I can't make any money farming". I say they're wrong because they are still doing everything their grandparents did when we've had so many technological advancements in every single thing relating to agriculture, from seed to fertilizers to equipment to ways of doing business. A good friend of mine has proved this to me. He's 2 years out of college and is running a 1 million dollar plus operation he started from scratch...no help from his parents. Only thing he started with was FSA Loans and money from his pocket working his ass off over the summers... |
Posted By: morton(pa)
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 10:19am
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Furthermore, get the most out of your education....I'm sorry if you feel like I'm bashing you, but I find it extremely hard to believe that your a college student with such atrocious English such as that. Get the most out of your education. Knowledge is power. With education and knowledge comes respect on so many different levels... I'm a college student too...2 years down with 2 years to go...I plan on finding or starting an operation of my own when I'm done WHEN I can do it...don't rush things. Only do it when your ready for it...physically, financially, and with a full time commitment to do so... |
Posted By: wjohn
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 11:07am
Boy, you shoulda met some of the elementary education and kinesiology majors at the college where I did my first two years of school! ------------- 1939 B, 1940 B, 1941 WC, 1951 WD, 1952 CA, 1956 WD-45 |
Posted By: Dave in il
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 3:07pm
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Land is the biggest hurdle. You can't farm without it and it's very competitive out there. You need to be able to rent land and that means you have to contact many different landowners and develope some type of relationship with them before they will consider renting to you. Your freinds and family should "talk you up" to any prospective landlord they meet as well. Your good name and your local reputation are your best asset when renting land. You don't say but hopefully you have some family or an existing farmer helping you get started. You can try offering very high cash rent but you better have a good business plan and an understanding banker.
If this is a "real" post tell us about yourself and your goals. ------------- AGCO My Allis Gleaner Company |
Posted By: John Kenny
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 3:54pm
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I've been running a small certified organic vegetable farm, now in my fifth year. I actually started the business while I was still in college, out at the farm at 5, back into town for class at 11, back out to the fields till 6 and then home to do homework until 11. It was difficult and I would recommend doing one at a time. All the advice here is good, and probably representative of the area of the country where the farming is being done. In Rhode Island you can make a living off of a couple acres of land. At this point I am making roughly $20-25K/acre (gross of course, it's netting the net that's tricky) and always learning new ways to maximize my land. Elliot Coleman boasts of making over $100K/acre. This is not wheat and soy beans... Either way one of the best books I've read for farming is by Gary Zimmer, the Biological Farmer. Take a look at it and learn from a true soil guru. Good Luck! |
Posted By: John Kenny
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 4:04pm
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One other piece of advice: don't buy into the super-man farmer myth. Yes, you will need to have and develop a wide-variety of skills but there are always people who will be there to help you as long as you are honest, sincere, and don't take advantage. You CAN do it, even if you may not be a jack of all trades. Folks from this awesome web-site are an example of the community out there that is ready and willing to help other farmers. |
Posted By: morton(pa)
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2012 at 9:50pm
Yes...I know. I shake my head down in shame at my generation sometimes... |
Posted By: Kcgrain
Date Posted: 10 Jun 2012 at 9:18am
| Gary Zimmer is a snake oil salesman, that I have personally proved to be a liar, and when proven wrong based on his own BS information he runs, and tells his sales staff to avoid people like me becasue we dont "believe". I have rented land that was so called biologically farmed and it is a mess. He trives on the livestock business becasue mostly there land is rich with fertilizer so his myth of bilogical balnce of land is hard to see. He is a complete and succesful con artist, that thrives on the big farmer is evil, and if you follow me I can have your small farm making boat loads of money and you can sustain your small farm lifestyle, which for the older generation is key to the con. His books and lectures are loaded with "facts" that he produces and he is the consumate sales person attend one of his lectures and watch him in person, but trust me in person when called out he reverts to the rat caught in the trap, and his charm, and BS quickly leave. Send me a PM and I will give you the trials of trying to farm from scratch. I did it, it can be done, but let me warn you its a huge uphill battle. |