Flood, farm, etc.
I'm back in Bloomington now, but I spent the last few days back home in Jefferson County, catching up on some work there. With planting season around the corner, my brothers and I spent some time planning and doing some maintenance. Large parts of the Midwest are flooded right now due to snow melting and lots of heavy rain. In the Ohio River Valley, where we live, the river is expected to crest today and begin receding. We were spared the worst, but I'll definitely be back soon to fill in some badly eroded spots around the fields and driveways after the flooding recedes enough to do so. Let's hope those farms, homes and businesses who really were affected can recover quickly.
In the meantime, we did some minor repairs on the buildings, fences and equipment. I'll be moving to NYC within the next few months, so I've been trying to do what I can before I go. My younger brother recently moved back to the area, which means he can help out and I don't need to be around as much. In fact, this is the first year in a long time that the three of us won't be actively involved in the farming operation in some way. We're out of the livestock business as well. Things are settled down enough now that we've been able to scale back, work out leasing arrangements, and focus on our own careers. I'm grateful for the help and guidance we've had since being thrust back into this, and I've learned some valuable lessons, but I'm also excited to finally have the time I need to polish off my PhD and finally put it to work professionally.
It really comes down to the fact that the economics of farming these days only work on large scales; if you're going to own and maintain all of the expensive equipment and buy the chemicals, seeds, fuel, insurance, etc. needed to farm effectively, you really need to be running a large operation with several employees and several hundred acres at a minimum. That's why crop farmers today are either huge operations that own and lease thousands of acres, or very small operations where someone is farming his family's 20 acres with a tractor from the 1970s and working a full-time job somewhere else. Add to that the fact that today's land prices make it very difficult for small operations to expand or for younger people to start out farming. There's just not a lot of room for the little guys.
In the meantime, we did some minor repairs on the buildings, fences and equipment. I'll be moving to NYC within the next few months, so I've been trying to do what I can before I go. My younger brother recently moved back to the area, which means he can help out and I don't need to be around as much. In fact, this is the first year in a long time that the three of us won't be actively involved in the farming operation in some way. We're out of the livestock business as well. Things are settled down enough now that we've been able to scale back, work out leasing arrangements, and focus on our own careers. I'm grateful for the help and guidance we've had since being thrust back into this, and I've learned some valuable lessons, but I'm also excited to finally have the time I need to polish off my PhD and finally put it to work professionally.
It really comes down to the fact that the economics of farming these days only work on large scales; if you're going to own and maintain all of the expensive equipment and buy the chemicals, seeds, fuel, insurance, etc. needed to farm effectively, you really need to be running a large operation with several employees and several hundred acres at a minimum. That's why crop farmers today are either huge operations that own and lease thousands of acres, or very small operations where someone is farming his family's 20 acres with a tractor from the 1970s and working a full-time job somewhere else. Add to that the fact that today's land prices make it very difficult for small operations to expand or for younger people to start out farming. There's just not a lot of room for the little guys.
posted by leviaking at 3:09 PM
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