C2-LancastM- Farming, Saturday, April 12,1986
There is a prevailing philosophy
in this great land of ours that if a
person works hard, he or she will
be successful. A full time job will
yield an income at least adequate
for the basics of contemporary life.
Right now a lot of farmers are
saying that’s not so. That no
matter how hard they work, for
how long they just aren’t making
it. That there is an inequity in
agriculture. These farmers feel the
game is stacked against them,
because a full time job no longer
yields an income adequate for the
basics.
But is that really the case? Are
most of the failing farmers you
read about fully employed? And
how about you don’t read about
the ones that are quietly sinking
into debt without fanfare or
headline.
Typically, the farmers who are
going broke in the corn belt and
even on the Delmarva peninsula
are com and soybean farmers.
Their financial fate rests with the
price of com and soybeans. And
most would agree that a difference
in price starting in the early 80’s
has been their downfall. When the
price turned, they tried harder to
produce more com and soybeans
and to do it more efficiently
greater yields at lower costs per
bushel. And still they weren’t
successful because the price per
bushel continued to fall.
Four or five years of that kind of
struggle has left them frustrated
and many of them dead broke. But
have they really come to grips with
the problem? Given the current
situation and the outlook for corn
and soybeans over the next five or
maybe even ten years- there isn’t
much chance for high profits
growing com and soybeans. And
beyond that many farmers are just
not fully employed.
When times were good a lot of
farmers expanded very rapidly
adding more acres, more equip
ment, more debt and more
headaches. Then when the
situation turned around they were
forced to cut back. That meant
giving up rented acres. Perhaps
even selling or losing recently
purchased land. The net effect
fewer acres to till but with the
same amount of time available to
do the work. Debt loads may have
been reduced, risks and operating
expense cut but nothing happened
to assure any new income or to
utilize the idle time resulting from
some of those cut-back decisions. A
farmer who considered himself
fully employed tilling 800 acres can
no longer make that claim farming,
400. Not if he is still growing com
and soybeans.
And look at the other things that
have happened along the way.
Between their boyhood days and
middle age where a lot of troubled
farmers find themselves now there
have been a lot of changes in
agriculture. Changes that have
made the farmer more efficient.
Plowing ground with a two-bottom
sulky plow and five mules as I did
many years ago makes me
painfully aware of the difference
between how things were then and
how things are now.
The farmer who was fully em
ployed on 120 acres 50 years ago
grew a variety of crops including
feed for his horse power and he
tended a wide range of livestock
including dairy cows, beef cows,
Farm
j Talk
Jerry Webb
hogs, chickens, horses and maybe
even sheep. Compare that to his
son or grandson who may now be
Montgomery
Montgomery County 4-H'ers recently held a 4-H Showcase
at the 4-H center in Creamery. The event was designed to
introduce the public to what 4-H has to offer.
On hand for the showcase were from left, Tricia Curtis,
alternate dairy princess and vice president of the Western
Mont-Berks 4-H Dairy Club; Magic the Cow; and Lisa Ruth,
Montgomery County dairy princess. This trio distributed milk
to guests and talked to visitors about milk's benefits.
Joe Lippy, one of the well-known and
successful Lippy Brothers Inc. at Hamp
stead, MD. is pictured with Ray Layser of
the Asgrow Seed Company. Joe and Ray
discussed new varieties for 1986 and
how they compare with the Asgrow
varieties the Lippy's are using now. Good
soybean growers continually look for the
new variety which will do a better job for
them. Joe is no exception!
Lippy Brothers have grown Asgrow
brand soybean seed for about six to eight
years. Joe doesn't recall exactly how
long it has been. They plant about 2500
acres of soybeans each year, most of
which are Asgrow’s! Joe prefers Asgrow
because it has good vigor - standability -
holds into harvest by resisting shattering
- and is dependable year after year. Joe’s
final comment is, “If there is nothing
better, we don’t fool with it.”.
See your SEEDWAY dealer soon. Get
Asgrow soybean seed - the only seed with
Asgrow soybean research and quality in
every bag!.
tilling 500 acres of com and
soybeans with a variety of large
machines- self propelled and
otherwise. That 120 acre farm that
wa a full time job for father or
grandfather is no more than 3 or 4
weeks work with today’s
technology. And 500 acres is by the
longest stretch of the imagination 4
months work. So where is the full
time job? And where is the quarrel
with the great American dream
that a full-time job yields the
basics of life?
Today’s com and soybean far
mer may be doomed by the very
technology that has created them.
He can in fact control only so much
land, machinery and capital and
therefore, only manage so many
acres devoted to com and soybean
County 4-H Showcase presents 4-H program
production. In today’s market, the
maximum production from the
most efficient of those producers is
barely enough. And for those who
are less than maximum the results
can be downright disastrous.
There are farmers who have
found a way to back out of the com
and soybean syndrome and
develop other ways to broaden
their income base. For some that
has meant broiler production,
vegetable crops, fruit trees, a
roadside stand or some other
agricultural enterprise. For others
it has meant going beyond the
farm gate to other activities and
enterprises- like driving a school
bus, building houses, selling
agricultural supplies, becoming an
auctioneer, hiring out to perform a
variety of services needed in the
4-H’er Alex Young.
Ray Laser - Joe Lippy
agricultural sector or somewhere
else.
Some farmers need to take a
hard look at their com and soybean
enterprises and realize that the
scope of their particular farming
operations will never yield a good
income in the current economic
climate. The very best yields at
current depressed market prices
aren’t going to make it. Those
farmers have got to come to grips
with that economic phenomenon
and also come to grips with the fact
that they are not fully employed.
And that excess labor can be
devoted to something else. Once
those decisions are made, the
opportunity for increased income
is limited only by the skills and the
imgaination of those farmers.