Something Discouraging...

[ranchwife]

this post poses a very interesting question??? What will happen to agriculture/ranching with all of our youngsters chosing "the easy life"??? Around here, we are seeing an increasing number (alarming, actually) of young folk going off to college and seeking jobs with BENEFITS, health insurance, paid vacation, monday-friday/9-5, retirement, etc!! Many, many ranches are watching youngsters leave agriculture because these kids have watched mom and dad and grandparents sweat their lives away and without much to show for it!! Unfortunately, they do NOT see that all that hard work if NOT for nothing!! My hubby's family is a prime example.....21 kids and my hubby and only 4 or 5 of his siblings are still in agriculture...others have pursued careers in contracting/construction (BIG money around here...real BIG!!), teaching (heck, yeah....9 months of work instead of 12!!), business, etc!!! Many family owned places are finding themselves with no alternative but to sell out to realtors who only wish to sub-divide and make millions!! Sad.....very, very sad!!

 

[msscamp]

The same thing is happening around here, Ranchwife. Most of the kids around here don't want to work - they hire on to farms/ranches, work 1 day and don't show up again. Farmers/ranchers are hurting badly because they can't find help.

 

[rkm]

You know a lot of young people leave the farm or ranch for what they think is a better life. Some come back. Most would like to come back.

I have 7 children, All are adults and none make the major part of their income from ag. But if I said "Lets go buy a ranch and raise cattle", and I had a plan, 5 of them would be parked in my driveway by morning.

They all love it, but it is just hard to make a decent living doing it.

 

[Anonymous]

The same thing is happening around here, Ranchwife. Most of the kids around here don't want to work - they hire on to farms/ranches, work 1 day and don't show up again. Farmers/ranchers are hurting badly because they can't find help.

The kids at your local high school dont have an ag-related work release program?...all summer I have juniors and seniors knocking on my door asking if they could work for me during the school year...they get out of school because of it so they are happy to work all school year long :lol:

 

[Herefordcross]

I would consider myself on the younger end of the scale, the problem here is that you can't get the ground to fool with the cattle, I can handle the work, the little pay and move on but, you can't get the ground to rent, lease, borrow or buy in any manner. Unless your last name is trump, rockafeller.

 

[msscamp]

The same thing is happening around here, Ranchwife. Most of the kids around here don't want to work - they hire on to farms/ranches, work 1 day and don't show up again. Farmers/ranchers are hurting badly because they can't find help.

The kids at your local high school dont have an ag-related work release program?...all summer I have juniors and seniors knocking on my door asking if they could work for me during the school year...they get out of school because of it so they are happy to work all school year long :lol:

Wyoming has two means of revenue - agriculture and coal exports. Why would the local high schools have an ag-related work release program since that is a major part of the states revenue? As previously stated, most kids here don't want to work - I probably should have qualified that statement to say 'most non-farm/ranch' kids' - my mistake. Town kids sign up for a job, find out they will be required to actually work and never show up again. The kids that live on farms/ranches are already working on those farms/ranches, and don't have time to hire out.

 

[dun]

The drain to off the farm employment isn;t a new thing. My old mentor was in his 80s back in the mid 70's. He had taken over the dairy when he was 18 and his dad died. He was the only one that had an interst in the dairy. The other brothers all went to college and 'professions' in architecture, engineering, a CPA, and a lawyer.

 

[msscamp]

The drain to off the farm employment isn;t a new thing. My old mentor was in his 80s back in the mid 70's. He had taken over the dairy when he was 18 and his dad died. He was the only one that had an interst in the dairy. The other brothers all went to college and 'professions' in architecture, engineering, a CPA, and a lawyer.

I graduated high school in the late 70's and, at that time, women had no place in agriculture unless they were married - at least in this state and in my family. Out of 4 kids, 2 of us had an interest in taking over the family ranch - my next to the oldest brother and myself. He died and I wasn't allowed, so the family ranch was subsequently sold when Mom and Dad became too old to keep up with it.

 

[cfpinz]

The drain to off the farm employment isn;t a new thing. My old mentor was in his 80s back in the mid 70's. He had taken over the dairy when he was 18 and his dad died. He was the only one that had an interst in the dairy. The other brothers all went to college and 'professions' in architecture, engineering, a CPA, and a lawyer.

I graduated high school in the late 70's and, at that time, women had no place in agriculture unless they were married - at least in this state and in my family. Out of 4 kids, 2 of us had an interest in taking over the family ranch - my next to the oldest brother and myself. He died and I wasn't allowed, so the family ranch was subsequently sold when Mom and Dad became too old to keep up with it.

That's very unfortunate, and quite sad. A person should have the opportunity to prove themself no matter their gender, age, religion, etc... At some point in all our lives, someone took a chance on us, we owe it to others to offer them that same opportunity.

cfpinz

 

[Carlos D.]

My husband and I decided to let our kids have a heifer calf of their own along time ago hoping it would encourage some farm interest. It has helped some. The 11 yr has one hereford cow and says when she gets older she is moving to CA. The 9 yr has at least 5 cows and heifers she owns,plus two goats. She says when she get older she is going to stay here. The farmers on each side of us don't have any one interested in taking over when they retire and there is already one development that is too close for comfort. So I hope she can get to stay here for a long time.

When my daughter was 11 she was outside with me all the time knew every cow and calf remembered which lamb belonged to which ewe .loved the horses ; played with baby pigs. Shes 16 now -first boyfriend .-and its as if she went to the can and her brains fell out. the way shes operating right now I wouldn't want to turn a farm over to her

carl

 

[dun]

My husband and I decided to let our kids have a heifer calf of their own along time ago hoping it would encourage some farm interest. It has helped some. The 11 yr has one hereford cow and says when she gets older she is moving to CA. The 9 yr has at least 5 cows and heifers she owns,plus two goats. She says when she get older she is going to stay here. The farmers on each side of us don't have any one interested in taking over when they retire and there is already one development that is too close for comfort. So I hope she can get to stay here for a long time.

When my daughter was 11 she was outside with me all the time knew every cow and calf remembered which lamb belonged to which ewe .loved the horses ; played with baby pigs. Shes 16 now -first boyfriend .-and its as if she went to the can and her brains fell out. the way shes operating right now I wouldn't want to turn a farm over to her

carl

But she's sixteen, what can you expect. It isn;t just boys that start to think with their hormones at that age. Like msscamp, she may turn out to be a top hand in a few years.

dun

 

[Carlos D.]

My husband and I decided to let our kids have a heifer calf of their own along time ago hoping it would encourage some farm interest. It has helped some. The 11 yr has one hereford cow and says when she gets older she is moving to CA. The 9 yr has at least 5 cows and heifers she owns,plus two goats. She says when she get older she is going to stay here. The farmers on each side of us don't have any one interested in taking over when they retire and there is already one development that is too close for comfort. So I hope she can get to stay here for a long time.

When my daughter was 11 she was outside with me all the time knew every cow and calf remembered which lamb belonged to which ewe .loved the horses ; played with baby pigs. Shes 16 now -first boyfriend .-and its as if she went to the can and her brains fell out. the way shes operating right now I wouldn't want to turn a farm over to her

carl

But she's sixteen, what can you expect. It isn;t just boys that start to think with their hormones at that age. Like msscamp, she may turn out to be a top hand in a few years.

dun

If I survive

carl

 

[dun]

My husband and I decided to let our kids have a heifer calf of their own along time ago hoping it would encourage some farm interest. It has helped some. The 11 yr has one hereford cow and says when she gets older she is moving to CA. The 9 yr has at least 5 cows and heifers she owns,plus two goats. She says when she get older she is going to stay here. The farmers on each side of us don't have any one interested in taking over when they retire and there is already one development that is too close for comfort. So I hope she can get to stay here for a long time.

When my daughter was 11 she was outside with me all the time knew every cow and calf remembered which lamb belonged to which ewe .loved the horses ; played with baby pigs. Shes 16 now -first boyfriend .-and its as if she went to the can and her brains fell out. the way shes operating right now I wouldn't want to turn a farm over to her

carl

But she's sixteen, what can you expect. It isn;t just boys that start to think with their hormones at that age. Like msscamp, she may turn out to be a top hand in a few years.

dun

If I survive

carl

And her boy friends do

dun

 

[Cheyenne]

I'm 36 and grew up a city kid, but I was always out at friend's farms playing with the animals. We started renting an acreage/farm six years ago. We now raise a few head of beef, pigs and our landlord brought over a few ewes this year as lawnmowers. Looks like we may finally get to purchase this farm next year when my husband gets home from overseas.

This place has been in our landlords family for well over 100 years and it has finally come down to no one else in the family wants it. So since we show an interest and help keep the place running guess we are the next best thing to family.

My point to this post though is that on more than one occasion I have been discouraged from starting to farm. This from established farmers who aren't even that old, 40's and 50's. I would think that older farmers/ranchers would be jumping at the chance to help someone get started to preserve the way of life/industry. Guess not.

So how many of our younger generations would like to get into farming/ranching but have been put off by the older generations? Just a thought.

I personally love this way of life, don't mind the hard work and want my kids to have this experience, even if they don't want to continue. I want to instill my love of animals in them atleast.

 

[Dave]

The problem with young people getting involved with farming is the schools. You see they teach math in schools. Kids learn to calculte how many hours you work and how little you make. Heck flipping burgers at McD looks better.
People are willing to pay more for what they want than what they need. Look at how much money peopel spend on toys but when it comes to buying food they want cheap cheap cheap. They think we are in trouble now with our dependance on imported oil. Just wait until we are dependant on imported food. Just a few short years ago we were feeding the world. That has changed and pretty soon the world will be feeding us.

 

[Hasbeen]

I was born and raised in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. Although there are (or at least were) a lot of small farms in the area, the only ground suitable to grow anything were the creek and river bottoms where the threat of flooding could wipe out a man's entire crop at any time plus there is only so much of it. After high school I moved to Columbus Ohio and eventually bought a home in a subdivision that was undoubtably build on farm land. Each day I would drive into the city to work and would pass through maybe 15 miles of nothing but table-top flat, black dirt farmland. For the first time I saw enclosed tractors, and corn/soybean fields stretch to the horizon. I thought each day how I would love to make a living that way! Then I started checking into land prices. At that time (1975 -1980) it was around $5,000 per acre. Not bad, I thought. Then I started figuring how much I would need to grow row crops. I figured a minimum of 100 acres to make around 15 grand per year. That means just the land would have cost a half million dollars! Not to mention a house, one of those nice big tractors, combine, seed, etc. At that time I concluded the only ones who had a choice would be those who inherited the land or were way smarter in finances than I was.

I moved back to Ky in the early 80's. I've since acquired a farm far too mountainous to grow crops on, but at least parts of it are suitable for livestock.

The point of all this rambling is, it's an expensive enough proposition to scare off most young people and the rewards are more in the way of quality of life than financial. That's something that is far more important to us old guys than to the young man trying to feed his family.

 

[Beefy]

The point of all this rambling is, it's an expensive enough proposition to scare off most young people and the rewards are more in the way of quality of life than financial. That's something that is far more important to us old guys than to the young man trying to feed his family.

exactly. also the quality of life may not be realized until later on. after other options have been explored.

 

[cmjust0]

I caught the farming bug when I was little and wasn't ashamed of it, but my brother always acted like he despised it all.. Way too cool for all that.. :lol: He never held any interest in the gardens or anything, but boy did he love the fresh sweet corn... Still does, in fact.. Just gave him an armload of silverqueen yesterday.

And, man alive, you oughta see his lawn and landscaping!! Best on the block, by FAR.. He'll work hours on end to get it just right, but gardening?? No, no, no.. That's just silly.. Too much work. :roll:

I say, just wait until his daughter starts acting like one of the heathen 'neighborhood' kids he hates so bad.. Just wait until they finish the subdivision and he's got no place to ride his ATV anymore.. I'm figuring within a few years, he's going to decide that he might need a little room to breathe.. Maybe a little tractor and a garden to keep green and weed free, instead of just a lawn and a few flower beds.. Maybe a few chickens for his little girl to chase around..

It'll happen. Its in his veins just like it's in my veins - he's just pushed it way down deep. It'll bubble up one day, as sure as anything.

 

[Bucky]

I am 29 and would love to be a full time farmer with my husband but land around here goes from $30,000 to $50,000 an acre. How do you even make payments when it costs that much? Much less invest in all the equipment? We did rent some pasture and have some feeders. I enjoy having them (when they are healthy anyway) but I don't know if it is a financially viable project for the future.

I do strongly agree ag is lacking young farmers. All of my good friends (only have 2 or 3 ) were raised on large ranches - not one of them are ranchers in their adulthood. I think much of it is that the public school system pushing kids to go to college into liberal arts educations and AG options aren't even presented - I let it happen to me (I have a history degree) - but now I know better ;-)

 

[msscamp]

The problem with young people getting involved with farming is the schools. You see they teach math in schools. Kids learn to calculte how many hours you work and how little you make.

I truly hope you're wrong on this because, if you're not, then that tells me that family values, traditions, outlook and history have been tossed by the wayside.