johns_79 - 3/8/2024 14:00

The general public has no idea what farmer finances look like. My wife is not from an ag background and it shows. I take care of finances and we really haven't intermingled our money for a good reason...if she saw how much I had at certain points of the year (mainly after grain sales) she would question why she needs to work and think we need to go build a mansion on the nearest lake with the yacht club.

She doesn't see the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks I write at certain times, like for rent, chemical, seed, debt payments, and real estate tax payments. The last few years have been good, but I remember when we started I was grossing 3/4 of a million per year, but basically breaking even on inputs and needing the government payments just to make things work. I've built some equity now so a bad year won't sink us, but a bunch in a row still might. So we need an off-farm income to supplement because I don't farm a lot of acres and any farm profit I make I try to put back in the operation as I am still rather young and plan to do this for another 25-30 years.

I will say I have it better than my father and grandfather did. Dad farmed when ethanol, soybean processing plants, and roundup ready crops came to the industry. I feel these two things made grain farming a lot easier to turn a profit. Before these, our crops were grown for animal feed and export, everything went to the elevator or was fed on the farm as we had a small hog operation. I faintly remember walking beans, cultivating twice, and the bean rider coming to the farm. Then 30 years ago pursuit changed everything on the bean side, no more riding beans! Hogs were farrow to finish, we couldn't go anywhere because dad was also married to livestock. Then that industry consolidated and the hogs left when I left for college.

Now I don't cultivate, can plant my entire crop in a few days, still pick rocks but they've gotten to be less with staying on top of them and not plowing every acre, and I can spray everything in a nice day. I'm also not usually out puling a bunch of weeds of the soybeans that escape the herbicide. Row cropping has gotten more efficient, so less time is spent in the field per acre.

I'm grateful to the previous generations for their sacrifice to build this operation. I'm 3rd generation on this current farm, grandpa bought the farm when he was my age back in 1963 and know they went without. Growing up, I didn't have the latest and greatest stuff my friends had because we just couldn't afford it. Now my kids don't seem to have to do that, but I'm aware of it so I try to keep it conservative with them so they understand the value of a dollar.

I do question if we are in an "ethanol bubble" and it will come crashing down someday if and when electric takes over the transportation industry, but there may be other ways the industry will adapt.