Number of U.S. Farms Declines, Farmers Getting Older

[longknife]

By AP / Mary Clare Jalonick Feb. 20, 2014

What do we do when we can no longer produce our own food? It isn't hard to understand why our youth are leaving the farm – long hours and little gain. No taking vacations as livestock must be constantly tended to. Self-employed, cost of health insurance. The list goes on and on However, the article does state this:

Vilsack says the boost in the number of younger farmers is partly due to increased interest and government support for locally grown foods and a thriving export market. Many younger farmers work at smaller operations, where the boom in the farm economy and a rising consumer interest in where food is grown have helped them.

Will that be enough?

Read more: Number of U.S. Farms Declines, Farmers Getting Older | TIME.com Number of U.S. Farms Declines, Farmers Getting Older | TIME.com

 

[ScienceRocks]

Robotics ran farms....

At this point we can pay a small upkeep tax to have the ability to eat for much cheaper then the current system.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Small family farmers are run out of business so Big Business can buy them up.

Send the Repubs a thank you note.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Small family farmers are run out of business so Big Business can buy them up.

Send the Repubs a thank you note.

What ever that's cheaper for me the consumer = win. Big businesses and as I said above is the best way to feed a population.

 

[whitehall]

Small family farmers are run out of business so Big Business can buy them up.

Send the Repubs a thank you note.

When are lefties going to realize that their freaking guy has been president for freaking six years? Send Hussein and his brain damaged V.P a thank you note and include the senate majority leader.

 

[Old Rocks]

Small family farmers are run out of business so Big Business can buy them up.

Send the Repubs a thank you note.

When are lefties going to realize that their freaking guy has been president for freaking six years? Send Hussein and his brain damaged V.P a thank you note and include the senate majority leader.

Yep, and in that six years has turned what looked to be the Second Great Republican Depression into a serious recession. You people left us with a nation losing over 500,000 jobs a month, a market going straight down, and two wars off of the books. And you have fought every measure that would alleviate the problems you created.

At present, the market is at 16,000 again, and doing well, the unemployment is down to 6.6%, and slowly, all to slowly, declining, and our expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan are on the books. Looks to me like President Obama can claim success.

 

[Old Rocks]

By AP / Mary Clare Jalonick Feb. 20, 2014

What do we do when we can no longer produce our own food? It isn't hard to understand why our youth are leaving the farm – long hours and little gain. No taking vacations as livestock must be constantly tended to. Self-employed, cost of health insurance. The list goes on and on However, the article does state this:

Vilsack says the boost in the number of younger farmers is partly due to increased interest and government support for locally grown foods and a thriving export market. Many younger farmers work at smaller operations, where the boom in the farm economy and a rising consumer interest in where food is grown have helped them.

Will that be enough?

Read more: Number of U.S. Farms Declines, Farmers Getting Older | TIME.com Number of U.S. Farms Declines, Farmers Getting Older | TIME.com

Still have family members that own ranchs. In order to keep the ranchs going, one has to have outside jobs, or be willing to live very frugally.

But it is not just the farmers that have an aging population. Craftmen in industry are facing the same problem. The average age of a millwright is over 55. Don't know what that of an electrician is, but, from personal observation, probably close to that.

We have created an economy where the people that shuffle paper and never get down where the work is at, get a higher reward than the people doing the actual work. And then the people shuffling the paper state that the people on the factory floor and out in the field are the drones, and deserve lower wages than they are getting at present.

 

[Mr. H.]

Boo fucking hoo. I could give a shit.

Small farmers are bailing because the selling price is right, Bob. $15-20K/acre is not uncommon. Same for ranchers, providing they own the land. Why is the price of farm ground so high? Subsidies. That's what Big Ag is buying. And they probably intend to plant more fucking worthless ethanol corn.

 

[Mr. H.]

Here's a "God mad a farmer" story for you...

I hold mineral rights on a 40 acre tract that averages 2 barrels/day oil production from 3 wells.

The land recently sold, with the royalty minerals.

New owner shows up, and my employee happens to be on site. This farmer proceeds to chastise my employee with regards to the number of wells, tanks, and placement of materials and infrastructure.

He announced "I'm going to drill a well here, here, and here"!

After a phone call from my employ, I make a phone call to the Sheriff.

Fuck you money-drunk farmers. After more than 35 years of dealing with your bullshit, I'm sick and fucking tired of it. Farmers are nothing these days but money-grubbing subsidy-sucking whores.

I expect to run into this guy by summer. By summer, I will have my conceal/carry permit.

He better have his.

 

[RGR]

Small family farmers are run out of business so Big Business can buy them up.

Send the Repubs a thank you note.

Bullshit. I fled the small family farm because digging in the dirt struck me as a dead end job, the only advantage being that I could have stayed local, never traveled, kept my small town attitude forever and specialized in sitting around on the porch evenings thinking small thoughts.

When grandma died and the farm went back to woodlands it required no big business excuse.

 

[RGR]

Fuck you money-drunk farmers. After more than 35 years of dealing with your bullshit, I'm sick and fucking tired of it. Farmers are nothing these days but money-grubbing subsidy-sucking whores.

I expect to run into this guy by summer. By summer, I will have my conceal/carry permit.

He better have his.

Now Mr. H you KNOW that isn't the right way to deal with landowners! Do a 360 day pressure test on the well and shut off his free natural gas! That was always my favorite. Imagine what happens when they can't heat their swimming pool anymore! (true story, pissed off the landowner fierce with this one) Plugging the well another, and make sure to throw a few rods in when you set the plug, had a landowner come back and try to redrill one I did this to once.

 

[Mr. H.]

I refer you to the thread about the real one-percenters. Farmers and ranchers.

Grrrr....

 

[Mr. H.]

TMI booze ranting .

We don't produce gas, only salt water. With occasional droplets of oil.