816—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 15,1983
High price to pay for rented land
Farmers and landlords often
wonder what is a fair price for the
rental of farmland.
Many times, a farmer who’s
been tilling the same ground for
years suddenly realizes that a
neighbor has paid a little more rent
and has stolen away a parcel of
ground that he was counting on.
And so the next year he’s supposed
to pay a little more and steal it
back.
And too often landlords feel
they’re at the mercy of area far
mers who pay them less than the
going rate for the use of their
acres.
It’s easy for misunderstandings
and hard feelings to develop in this
environment of mystery and in
trigue. And the question has to be
asked, “Is there a better way?”
A growing phenomena, one that
was unheard of a few years back,
may hold some interest for far
mers and landlords. And it may be
a disaster for both. It’s called a
cash-rent auction.
Here’s an example: An airport
authority in Bloomington, Illinois
owned a 384-acre farm and it
wanted to get the best possible
price for its use. So it held a cash
rent auction. Wes Kinfidon bid the
price up to $209 an acre for a one
year lease on the parcel.
The large crowd that gathered to
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Jerry Webb
watch the proceedings probably
thought be was crazy he paid too
much. He couldn’t possibly make
any money. But in Kingdon’s mind,
he had no choice. The Gridley,
Illinois farmer had lost his lease on
another farm that he had tilled for
11 years. He had checked with
everyone he could think of and
couldn’t find anymore land. And so
the cash-rent auction was his last
hope.
He already had the machinery
and he still wanted to farm. So to
him being the top bidder on that
airport parcel was extremely
important. It was more a matter of
loss-minimizing than it was of
profit-maximizing. Because
without it, his machinery would
stand idle and he would be
unemployed.
In local terms, $209 an acre rent
is too much. There just isn’t any
way to make money at that price.
The more productive Illinois
farmland offers a little hope, but
certainly no assurance of even
breaking even. And observers said
the auction was a high risk en
deavor that can only work against
other farmers who are renting
land. They’re afraid landowners
will see this high price and con
sider it the norm, thus raising their
own rent beyond the sights of
sensible, profit-minded farmers.
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Farm auctions are a tradition
they’ve gone on forever. And most
see them as a way of establishing a
proper price. If you stand around a
farm auction where they’re selling
machinery and livestock even
land you can observe some
items selling for less than they’re
worth, some perhaps for more than
they’re worth, and some about
right. And, in general, the attitude
is that an auction is a fair way to
sell things.
' Buy many farmers are saying
< that in fact it is not a fair way to
! rent land. That it brings together
, the desperate and die foolish,
competing for an almost intangible
, product. All they’re actually
1 buying is the use of a piece of
ground, with the most desperate or
most foolish among them offering
the highest reward.
From another point of view, it
must be said that renting your
farm to the highest bidder could be
a disaster. A landlord that cares
anything at all about his land
would surley be concerned with
farming practices and the renter’s
view on conservation and soil
erosion, crops to be grown, and
perhaps most importantly, will the
renter be able to make the
payments?
At another cash-rent auction in
Illinois, a farmer bid $245 an acre,
but then after the auction wasn’t
able to meet the credit
requirements. So the deal fell
through and the cash-rent had to be
re-auctioned a few months later.
That time, the land went for about
$2OO an acre.
Another example of the ab
surdity of such a situation in
Missouri a farm’s cash-rent went
on the auction block and out-of
state farmers won out, with the
soybean ground going to farmers
in Illinois and the wheat ground
being rented by a Kansas farmer.
If you know your geography, you
must realize that one or both of
those farmers will be hauling
equipment hundreds of miles to till
that Missouri farm.
Cash-rent farming to the highest
bidder spells disaster for
everyone. First off, for the tenant
who is going to lose money on his
farming efforts and hasten his
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demise from farming. He’s most
likely to cut every corner possible
because he’s .already spent too
much for the land.
When things don’t pan out he’ll
probably be unable to pay his
production expenses. That’s
trouble for lots of other people. It’s
unlikely that he’ll rent it again next
year. That could mean another
cash-rent auction, another
desperate farmer winning the
right to try again, and another
round of disasters.
While the short-range income
potential could be beneficial for the
landowner, in the long run he could
wind up with a worn out, tom up
and generally worthless piece erf
ground. Obviously, a progression
of over-extended, highest bidders
will do nothing to improve his soil
or control erosion.
A farm is not a warehouse and
cannot be treated as such. You
can’t simply pay the rent and pile
your stuff inside until such time as
the lease runs out. A farm is a
living thing that mu<rf be treated
Farm ponds pose
winter
LANCASTER Farm ponds
provide many forms of recreation
such as fishing, boating, swim
ming or ice skating. “Proper
precautions must be taken to in
sure that these happy activities do
not become tragedies”, reports
Duane E. Pysher, district con
servationist of the U.S. Soil Con
servation Service.
“Freezing of ponds will even
tually occur this winter, and if ice
skating takes place on your pond
you should follow a few simple
rules,” adds Pysher.
—Make sure the ice has frozen to
a safety depth of 6 to 8 inches
before skating is allowed.
Remember new ice is much
stronger than ice which has par
tially thawed and then refrozen.
—Locate thin ice areas which
usually occur near the overflow
pipe or where spring flows or
accordingly by people who un
derstand it and care about it.
It can't be totally automated and
it can’t be dealt with as an
inanimate object that is always
there. It must be tended as you
would tend livestock, with each
individual field even areas
within a field requiring special
knowledge and treatment.
It might be nice from the stand
point of total food production if
agriculture could be handled like a
great big factory, with food coming
off an assembly line in neat little
packages and being loaded into
shiny little trucks. But it doesn’t
work that way.
We’ve already proven time and
time again that agriculture
belongs in the hand of those who
care about it. I think the same
thing holds true for farmland, and
it seems unlikely that the highest
Udder in a cash-rent auction is
going to concern himself with the
long-range productivity and well
being of that farm.
danger
streams enter the pond.
Mark these thin areas after you
have located them.
Following these 2 basic rules
should insure you a safe skating
season. However, do not forget to
provide rescue equipment at the
pond in the event of an ice break.
Keep a long plank or ladder and a
rope at the pond’s edge to make a
rescue. Never go out on thin ice to
make a rescue without sliding
along a ladder or plank. Also, take
the rope with you. Chances are
these items will never be needed,
but if they are, make sure they are
there and everyone knows how to
properly use them.
The precautions taken to make
ice skating safe should extend to
all other activities performed on
your pond at other times of the
year. “Make your pond safe year
round,” urges Pysher.
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