Doom and Gloom

[TexasBred]

A farmer is the only person that lives like a pauper all of their life and dies as a millionaire.

Not out here. Best equipment money can buy, new trucks, new cars, nice houses...and last but not least... crop insurance. They may farm 10-15,000 acres but own less than 500...it's all leased.

 

[john250]

The average age of our country's farmers is rising.

I don't believe that statistic shows the truth of the matter. I believe that large scale production agriculture has taken the place of small farms in many cases. Since it is nearly impossible for a young person to jump in with thousands of acres and equipment to match we see farming becoming generational. So while it is true that the current owner of the farm may well be in his sixties, the next generation is in their thirties and they are the ones running the daily operations but legally have no ownership. By the time they have legal ownership they may well be in their fifties or even sixties but they've been the farmer for years. I see this played out on the mega-dairies all the time.
At thirty six, I'm one of only a handful of farmers around who started small with my own money and built it into something(still small :roll: ) but I know literally hundreds of guys my age who are farmers/ranchers/dairymen who will have at least part ownership of the operation they're with in a matter of time so you can see how a survey of my age group in this area would skew the information.

Nail.on.head. I went off to school in 1968 and some experts were lamenting the average (old) age of farmers. It was about 60 then, as now. I'll guess that in 1920 the average farmer was 55.

 

[torogmc81]

Don't know about anyone else but I stopped watching the news along time ago. Majority of it is negative and makes me made or sad, plus you don't know who to believe either. All I ever got out of watching the news was a damper on my good day, so then what's the point of engaging in something that you know is going to worsen your mood.

I feel kind of bad that I'm not very informed about what's going on in the world and our nation, but it's just something I have to do to keep my chin up a little higher and focus on my family, friends, and me instead. I don't even turn on the news for the forecast anymore at 10:17. My favorite "meterologists" video cast is posted around 10:30 so I just catch it on my own time. Just my :2cents: for the night