One of the issues we are having here is the older guys that have gotten big in the cattle biz get first shot at nearly all of the lease land. Next shot generally goes to another big operator with a good reputation. Can't really blame the land owners as these guys have the means to keep the land up and pay whatever the lease price is. Another thing the bigger guys do is from January to March theyll send a buyer to the sales within 100 miles and buy all the good bred cows. They can afford to pay more and get the top cattle. I don't blame these guys as I'm sure at one time they were an up and comer and struggled with the bigger operations doing the same. From what I can see this is what makes it so hard for younger guys to get in. That and the fact most younger guys I meet don't care about working 7 days a week.
Cattle people/ farmers are getting old.
- Thread starter kickinbull
- Start date
Help Support CattleToday:
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
That's the big issue all around. There will not be a sustainable replacement rate for young folks replacing the old unless we get another crash. Too many people really think that all of the food comes from factory farms and ranches, but the reality is that you've probably walked past someone that you never knew that ate something from your place if you've been in ag long enough. It's a damn crisis, and if it ain't then it will be and not far off.
D2Cat
Well-known member
It's not just land for livestock, it's everything including housing. Lucky made a comment about the old guys selling to established businesses (other old guys). That's just the nature of the economy.
If you took your cattle to the sale and the checked bounced, my guess you wouldn't take any more there. You have to sell to someone who can pay the price. Younger folks have to start small and build their wealth. It is not going to happen quickly. I think that is what Fence is talking about. He purchased land at what was a fair price and paid for it with his work. As time goes on the land increase in value and it's to his and his family's benefit.
Don't begrudge him for that. Look at it from another angle, if he were your father and made the same purchase you'd be proud as a peacock.
Remember, most anything you purchase with an engine goes down in value. Most any land you purchase goes up. That's why is always being bought and sold.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
I haven't begrudged anybody anything. It's not arguable, though, statistically alone it should hardly be a debate. Inflation is outpacing wages and the value of the dollar by leaps and bounds, it's like a race between a man on crutches and an olympian. Land prices have been subjected to extremely unnatural inflation over the course of a few years now, and the situation is becoming untenable. Talk to a younger financial advisor or analyst (I say younger because a lot of the older guys are still blowing smoke up people's butts so as not to interrupt the business flow) and they'll even tell you that this is headed for a bad place. At this point, we aren't just headed for another crash, we *need* one, and if the powers that be keep yanking us back off the cliff to buy themselves more time and security, it will be a crash like one of those jet trains jumping the darn tracks when it does happen.
And the reality is, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, that this falls to blame on poor economic philosophies institutionalized in American society. I might have come off wrong, I'm not blaming anyone here in specific, but I do wish more people would acknowledge that we're gonna have to make a lot of changes if we want a next generation in a *lot* of stuff we hold dear, or if we want to avoid repeating this cycle over and over.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
And when you're choosing to sell something or who to sell to, you really do need to think about what kind of place you want your grandkids to grow up in. And anyone here who has even a single kid that isn't on dope or crazy, selling shouldn't usually be on the menu at all. Even if your kids aren't interested in ag, put the darn place in a trust with clauses and somebody in your descendants will come along that loves it the way you do.
greybeard
Well-known member
I've seen so many people (young mostly) that want 'to be like uncle Bob' or to have the same kind of home their grandparents do but they don't realize 'Uncle bob and grandparents' worked and paid for that over a lifetime.
Odd comments about land prices. Land is no different that investment equities or livestock. Buy low, sell high and no one ever contests that but bring land up and you'd think we were all robber barons or corporate raiders...or Billie Sol Estes-T. Boone Pickens types...
(I liked Pickens, other than his stance on horsemeat)
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
The barrier to entry was much lower on land buying back then everyone's meemaw and pawpaw started and that's not debatable. Inflation and wages have been running in separate directions for a long time, this is a well recorded phenomenon and has put us here. Upward mobility in most fields was way higher in that period as well, again, that's statistically just a fact. We cannot sit here and claim to really support the American dream if we're gonna keep playing with an outdated rulebook. After all, there's a reason we're having this discussion.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Here are some "facts"-
Land is too expensive to buy. Can't be paid for by farming or raising cattle. You will not be able to pay for it.
The stock market is overpriced and too risky. Put your money in safer places.
All the farmers are old. Young people are not interested in farming. We may starve.
Young people are irresponsible and lack good judgement. We are doomed with the new generation. They don't take anything serious.
Buy old equipment if you are going to try to farm. You won't be able to make the payments on this expensive new equipment.
I am going to do it the way my parents and grandpa did. These new methods don't work.
Government interference is killing us.
Biggest danger is the Russians.
Sound familiar? These were the "truths" when I graduated high school. In 1971. When minimum wage was $1.60. Land was about $400/acre. Calves sold for about $0.30/pound tops. And the Dow was about 900. Some facts are just "timeless". The people that were held back by those "facts" 50 years ago probably regretted believing the facts. There is still opportunity today. Just some "facts" from an old guy.
Land is too expensive to buy. Can't be paid for by farming or raising cattle. You will not be able to pay for it.
The stock market is overpriced and too risky. Put your money in safer places.
All the farmers are old. Young people are not interested in farming. We may starve.
Young people are irresponsible and lack good judgement. We are doomed with the new generation. They don't take anything serious.
Buy old equipment if you are going to try to farm. You won't be able to make the payments on this expensive new equipment.
I am going to do it the way my parents and grandpa did. These new methods don't work.
Government interference is killing us.
Biggest danger is the Russians.
Sound familiar? These were the "truths" when I graduated high school. In 1971. When minimum wage was $1.60. Land was about $400/acre. Calves sold for about $0.30/pound tops. And the Dow was about 900. Some facts are just "timeless". The people that were held back by those "facts" 50 years ago probably regretted believing the facts. There is still opportunity today. Just some "facts" from an old guy.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
I'm sorry, but you're an absolute dolt if you think the cards or the chips are the same now.
I'll even help you out. That $400 an acre then would have scaled to around $2,800 now, not the $10,000 it's headed to in a lot of places. That 1.60 minimum wage would scale to a little over $11 now, which is more than a lot of people make an hour now. The .30 on the beef would be about 2.10 now, and I'd love to see em sold for that but I think pigs will fly first.
Last edited:
simme
Old Dumb Guy
You may be right. I graduated with an engineering degree with a 4.0 gpa. I am retired with enough money that I don't worry about what people think. I met my goals. Tell us how you are doing with meeting your goals. I wish you the best. I always tried to learn from those people that have already faced life's challenges.
I did have to goggle the word "dolt". Not a word that we use much on the farm. But, I have no doubt that the young generation will get it figured out.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
Typical drivel, move the goalposts away from the actual point. You can read, I added to that point what prices would look like if value and inflation were scaling in proportion. If you can't figure that out, take the degree to the bathroom next time... it would still make a good butt whipe.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Haha. Thanks for the encouragement. A good attitude like that will make a difference for you.
callmefence
Keyboard cowboy
Drivel
Last week's sale. 5 weights went over 2.10 on good steers.
Land is considerably higher than 2800 but you know they ain't making anymore of it.
Life's always been hard. Some people deal with it , some cry and make excuses.
Dairy queen is starting at 15.00
Last week's sale. 5 weights went over 2.10 on good steers.
Land is considerably higher than 2800 but you know they ain't making anymore of it.
Life's always been hard. Some people deal with it , some cry and make excuses.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
So what you're saying is that you ultimately don't have a point or even a response to being proven statistically wrong? Yeah, that's about what I thought. Your only point was that the dreamers will make it, and yes, some will. Some people will always bareknuckle through any odds, but you're pretending that the problem isn't vastly out of control when it is. I posted the numbers, at least what they would be if things were happening to scale... the situation isn't so. As far as my attitude, I can be a little hot under the collar but I do alright. I'm a square dealer and make friends pretty quickly, including plenty of older ones, I just don't like to ask folks for stuff I can't pay back fast, so I don't ask much of anybody for anything. I get what I need, even if it sucks getting it.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
Sure, this is true. I always fight for what I want and I don't believe in excuses, but we can get freaking real about how out of proportion it is and why the average age in ag is getting older. We're supposed to be wanting to leave this world better off for our kids, not milk it and die.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
This is part of the problem, it went up suddenly and drastically as a knee jerk to get people back to work and is negatively affecting value as a whole. Y'all keep acting like I'm blaming y'all and not a much larger set of institutions.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Older people will look back over decisions and thought processes when they were younger and realize that they were sometimes not as smart as they thought at the time. Sometimes they realize that some of their thoughts were just stupid. But all any of us can do is use what we have and try to be the best we can and make the most of what we have. That is timeless.
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
I'll agree with you here and apologize for being a hothead. It's a family thing, we get cooler-headed every generation... you should have met my grandfather.
greybeard
Well-known member
Minimum wage (and all wages) back then was a lot lower as well. 60 years ago, when land was $350/ac here minimum wage was $1.15 hr.
The intangible that most people miss is the improvements and labor that a landowner has put into a piece of property. Under a free market condition, they have the right to recoup as much as they can from that work and infrastructure/improvement.
1998. The black square is where my house, yard and shop is today. The photo shows a little over 1/2 of a 41 ac parcel. It was raw forest, thick underbrush and worthless in my opinion other than the timber value.
The county put a value of $81K on it but a private appraiser valued it at $72K as it was landlocked and no access road to it. I bought what you see in the picture in 2003 and it looked just the same as in 1998. I inherited the remainder in 2007 and it hadn't changed a bit. It had two 40 year old falling down fences on it, you can barely distinguish in the picture.
I began work on it for real in 2008 and bought another 17.4 ac immediately to the North in 2011.
Today, the entire cleared part makes up 58.8 acres. If I had to figure in my labor on top of the material costs, I'd probably be close to upside down on it. You can take land from a forest but the forest always wants to try and claw it back. The blood sweat and tears and physical effects I can't begin to value.
My shop and flagpole are just to the left of that green bush.
the heartbreak comes with it. grab your boot tops, clean up, start again and pull yourself back up. 2017. The pond is somewhere out in the middle right of the picture. value that........
The intangible that most people miss is the improvements and labor that a landowner has put into a piece of property. Under a free market condition, they have the right to recoup as much as they can from that work and infrastructure/improvement.
1998. The black square is where my house, yard and shop is today. The photo shows a little over 1/2 of a 41 ac parcel. It was raw forest, thick underbrush and worthless in my opinion other than the timber value.
The county put a value of $81K on it but a private appraiser valued it at $72K as it was landlocked and no access road to it. I bought what you see in the picture in 2003 and it looked just the same as in 1998. I inherited the remainder in 2007 and it hadn't changed a bit. It had two 40 year old falling down fences on it, you can barely distinguish in the picture.
I began work on it for real in 2008 and bought another 17.4 ac immediately to the North in 2011.
Today, the entire cleared part makes up 58.8 acres. If I had to figure in my labor on top of the material costs, I'd probably be close to upside down on it. You can take land from a forest but the forest always wants to try and claw it back. The blood sweat and tears and physical effects I can't begin to value.
My shop and flagpole are just to the left of that green bush.
the heartbreak comes with it. grab your boot tops, clean up, start again and pull yourself back up. 2017. The pond is somewhere out in the middle right of the picture. value that........
Gobbler'sKnob
Well-known member
Your cattle are more colorful than I'd have figured.
