Farmer Incomes to Drop After Record Years

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - Farmers will see their incomes plunge in 2006 coming off two years of unusually high prices and record crops, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

Rising energy costs and interest rates are gobbling up the bottom line for farmers, analysts said.

That's old news to Illinois grain farmer Brian Sharp, who saw fuel costs shoot up 35 percent last year. Sharp is planning to cut back on fertilizer and is mulling a switch to cheaper no-till farming.

"To return to a level of decent profit, we're going to have to make some considerable changes on our farm," said Sharp, who heads the Illinois Farmers Union.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/ap_on_go_ot/farm_income

[Daphne08]

1. My family owns a farm back home.

:(

[tanyev]

2. How many small family farmers are even left anymore?

[AlecBGreen]

3. The future of this country depends on small farms

Large scale, corporate agrisbusiness is a blind alley. It puts the squeeze to family farms, keeps the large grain-belt farms perpetually in debt, and only increases our dependency on fossil fuels (gas for planting, drying, and shipping, petroleum to manufacture fertilizer and pesticides & herbicids). Add to that groundwater pollution, aquifer depletion, erosion, and topsoil loss.

Heres the worst part - Its all massively subsiized by the federal government!

:argh:

The single best thing you can do to help this country and the planet is to support your local farmers. Buy fresh, healthy produce and help save the world!

[MadHound]

4. The thing is that these record breaking past two years

Were only good for large corporate farms, they were hell for the small farms.

Record breaking crops drive the price the farms gets for his crop down. While corporate farms can live thrive and survive on these narrower profit margins, the small farmer can't. And it is the large corporate farm who will suffer the least from higher energy prices. Since farm fuel is bought in bulk, in many cases the larger amount you buy, the bigger the price break you get. Thus your per unit energy prices are lower for the corporate farmer than the small farmer.

However this might be a blessing in disguise for the small farmer. Large farming operations depend on fertilizer. The ground has been so ravaged and has had so many nutrients taken out of it that if it doesn't get fertilizer, it won't produce. Now the large farmer will be spreading spreading that petroleum based fertilizers on his fields, that is his only option. A small farmer though, who generally raises livestock in addition to crops, will be able to rebuild and fertilize his soil with the manure from his livestock, thus precluding the need for petrol based fertilizers. Now this will cause some short term damage, for the field in question has to be manured for a year before you grow on it, but in the long run this is an oppportunity for the small family farm to come out ahead.

[AlecBGreen]

5. MadHound

dead right brother. A Chiefs fan who knows farming AND whos got some great ska lyrics in the sig line...we gotta get together for a beer some time!

[ecoalex]

6. No Till is not cheaper

Having to use triple or more rates of herbicide, pesticide, is not cheaper, neither is the runoff from such high rates of applied chems.Eco farming returns a farm back to profitability by returning life to the soil.A healthy soil is a living breathing organism which produces it's own nitrogen and frees up nutrients from bacterial fungal enzymic systems.Continued application of toxics, and increasing them to reduce tillage is a poor choice. For profitability agriculture must be ecological.Farmers who want to stay on the land need to divorce themselves from the lender toxic cycle, and learn how to farm with the systems God gave us.Promote life don't destroy it. Eco farms have inceased wildlife, clean runoff, and produce crops with less inputs, returning the family farm to profitability.All it takes is a honest assessment of your farm.Honesty is the corner stone of ecological farming.

[AlecBGreen]

10. you're right

CHEMICAL no-till is just as bad. It prevents some erosion, but at the cost of pumping on tons of herbicides. Mechanical no-till is better - simply run over the crops with a tractor and a special crimper and mechanically kill the stand of crops. It stops herbicide use, adds organic matter to the soil, traps carbon, reduces erosion, perserves moisture, ... the benefits go on and on ...

"Farmers who want to stay on the land need to ... learn how to farm with the systems God gave us. Promote life don't destroy it." Your right ecoalex - ECOfarming is the way to go.

[kayice]

12. My father is having a fit how much farm and pasture land is

selling per acre for -----to someone who is buying up parcels of farmland in this area for hunting purposes. It is sad that farmers/cattlemen are selling their land to some fat cat from the city so they can hunt once in awhile but a lot of them have no choice--- they cannot afford to farm anymore.

Alec, is that a KS flag? Hey, KC fan! Fellow Chiefs fan here and blue Kansan.

[AlecBGreen]

13. Kayice

its a flag of my home state, Virginia.

Its a shame that farmers are getting priced out of their own land, but Id much rather it go to a hunter than a developer. At least it will be kept in pasture/forest...thats a helluva lot better than a 100-home subdivision. Man, northern Virginia is getting EATEN ALIVE by developers these days. The county to our east, Loudon County, is right next to DC and its population has more than doubled twice over in the last 20 years.

Whats land going for in your area? Here its easily $10,000 plus an acre in the country if it can be developed. Imagine the pressure that puts on old-timers to sell out and move to Florida...

-Alec

p.s. Welcome to DU! :hi: :toast: :party:

[kayice]

14. This is just pasture and farm land,

a farmer may sell 80 acres for 1500 an acre, nothing that huge! Nothing to develope really here. Towards the KC area and Fort Reilly area may be more now. Here most farmers already had to take a part-time job years ago to make ends meet.

Thanks for the welcome. :hi:

[1932]

7. Just like before the great depression

[wordpix2]

8. hemp, med marijuana and biofuels to save the family farms!

[greendeerslayer]

9. only one way to go

I'm an organic farmer here in the drought belt and I see all the big-time conventional farmers and ranchers around me having to sell off their livestock. Meanwhile I'm guessing they'll still making payments on their big trucks and tractors. It's not looking good for them.
I'm not doing great but I'll survive, many of them won't. The future of farming is sustainable agriculture, farmers are either going to have to adapt or get out of the buisness.

[whatelseisnew]

11. Farm Aid is helping the family farmers

www.farmaid.org