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Law of Diminishing returns
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<blockquote data-quote="hillbilly beef man" data-source="post: 1813272" data-attributes="member: 4786"><p>Sadly overall in agriculture i believe we have become a victim of our own success. My grandfather started building this farm after WW2. He worked a plant job and paid for 3 farms with 40 cows and 7 acres of burley tobacco. Until we got a round baler in 1994 very little had changed on the farm since the beginning in how things were done since the 1940s. We wintered cows on square bales and corn silage that was loaded and fed by hand with a fork. It took 4 of us working every day, and many hired hands working during hay and tobacco season. Feeding in the winter would take about 6 hours every day.</p><p></p><p>Now my wife and I run the same number of cows and put up the same acres of hay as grandpa did. Thanks to advancements in equipment we do this with no help other than each other. In terms of man hours we probably do not spend a 10th of what grandpa did to take care of 40 cows. Me and her will put more hay in a barn by ourselves with round bales, loader tractors, and trailers than grandpa did with square bales, a crew of 4 men, and pickups. As a kid it took us 6 hours a day to feed, now i put out enough hay to last a week in 4 hours. We wintered 20 steers in a barn and it would take 4 of us a week to clean it out with pitchforks. Now it takes me a day by myself with a rented skid steer. If you account for inflation I am probably not even making half per head as grandpa did. Given what you make per head and the increase in land cost today I could not pay for one of those farms, much less three.</p><p></p><p>It seems in agriculture the more acres or head that a person can take care of as technology advances the less per acre or head we make. In the 40s and 50s there were plenty of people who made a good living off of a couple hundred acres of cropland or a 40 head dairy. Now 10 times those numbers are needed to make a living.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hillbilly beef man, post: 1813272, member: 4786"] Sadly overall in agriculture i believe we have become a victim of our own success. My grandfather started building this farm after WW2. He worked a plant job and paid for 3 farms with 40 cows and 7 acres of burley tobacco. Until we got a round baler in 1994 very little had changed on the farm since the beginning in how things were done since the 1940s. We wintered cows on square bales and corn silage that was loaded and fed by hand with a fork. It took 4 of us working every day, and many hired hands working during hay and tobacco season. Feeding in the winter would take about 6 hours every day. Now my wife and I run the same number of cows and put up the same acres of hay as grandpa did. Thanks to advancements in equipment we do this with no help other than each other. In terms of man hours we probably do not spend a 10th of what grandpa did to take care of 40 cows. Me and her will put more hay in a barn by ourselves with round bales, loader tractors, and trailers than grandpa did with square bales, a crew of 4 men, and pickups. As a kid it took us 6 hours a day to feed, now i put out enough hay to last a week in 4 hours. We wintered 20 steers in a barn and it would take 4 of us a week to clean it out with pitchforks. Now it takes me a day by myself with a rented skid steer. If you account for inflation I am probably not even making half per head as grandpa did. Given what you make per head and the increase in land cost today I could not pay for one of those farms, much less three. It seems in agriculture the more acres or head that a person can take care of as technology advances the less per acre or head we make. In the 40s and 50s there were plenty of people who made a good living off of a couple hundred acres of cropland or a 40 head dairy. Now 10 times those numbers are needed to make a living. [/QUOTE]
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