Jon 0:00

Welcome to the Si Farmer Podcast. Podcast where we talk farm business, marketing equipment, agronomy, finance. If it impacts how we farm, we'll probably talk about it here on this podcast. And today is no different, you know, in the past , um, by the way, welcome to season three. The, in the past two seasons, I've really focused heavily on the marketing. How do you market a farm? And I've really focused on farms that are not commodity crops. So if you're farming corn or soy, the marketing that I've talked isn't bad for you. It's just probably nothing that you're gonna use to grow your business because you have a guaranteed market. Now that market's gonna fluctuate, and there's a whole side of marketing that goes into green marketing that I don't touch on too much, but I've really focused on those people growing a crop that is not a commodity crop, whether it's, you know, we're a forage farm. Uh , I know people that raise honey, that raise , uh, direct to market cattle. So , uh, raising cattle and selling into the community, hogs , uh, chickens, eggs. And if that's what you're doing, you have to market a product. There's no commodity market that tells you what the price of your product is. You determine the price of your product based on your production, based on the quality of the product, based on the, the demand for the product, et cetera. So, you know, with that, I sort of have focused on how do we market farms and products like that in this season. I wanna talk more about the how do we start farms. I know a lot of people are in the, that I talked to are trying to grow a farm. They're just starting out and they're, they're homesteading or they're, you know, they've got 10 or 15 acres or five acres and they're trying to raise a few pigs and a few cows, and they really like that side of it and want to turn it into a, a side business or even possibly a main business. Well, we have grown, this is our third full year as commercial forage farm, and we have grown, we've doubled our production almost every year. First year we did it, we did, oh , just shy of a half a million pounds of forage. And in year two, I think we did just shy just over, actually just over a million pounds. And this past year we did just over 2 million pounds of forge. And that's calculating out tons and bales and all that. But that's roughly, you know, roughly how we , we got there and we've grown this farm like anybody else can. I did not come from a lot of money. My parents weren't rich, they were hardworking people, both owned small businesses. Um , you know, I didn't have millions of dollars in the bank to buy equipment and start out with zero debt, bought it a little bit at a time. Uh, I assume some debt. The , you know, so we have good banks that work with us . We have smart people that I can ask questions of. And I've made good connections with landowners. I've become, and I try to be a very good tenant, which being a good tenant gets me more landowners. I also, you know, we pay good money per acre, and that's hard to do in the, the big scheme of it. So with that, you know, I kind of tell it's a quick little deal. One of my dearest friends passed away a couple of weeks ago, man , it was tough. He and I were really, really close and, but I was at the funeral and a lot of farmers that we know were there. And guy who is a pretty big farmer, I mean, he's not huge, but he is big, he's five, 6,000 acres. He came up to me and we were just shooting the bull a little bit catching up, hadn't seen each other in a while. And he asked me, how did you get started in this? And that's what really kind of, kind of kicked me in the, it kicked me in the head a little bit and said, you know what ? How did I just sort of have rolled with the punches for the past few years and just tried to make good decisions with a, with with a view of looking forward, trying to grow, trying to become more efficient. Because in , in our farm, if we can't be efficient, we can't grow. It's too expensive. So, you know, we , we got to looking at it and saying, you know, how did I start? And I, I mean, the, the answer is, you know, it's not an exceptionally exciting story. Kind of a slow methodic story. You know, again, I didn't have millions dollars, didn't have rich parents, didn't own, don't own a , you know, don't own enough land to make it profitable off the bat. So we had to go about it a different way. And we did. And so far we've done pretty well with it. So let's get into this podcast. Welcome to the Si Farmer podcast. I'm a first generation farmer trying to grow a small farm into a successful business. And this podcast, we talk about the things that impact farms. We talk about marketing, business, technology, equipment. If it impacts how we farm, we'll probably talk about it here. Let's get into the show. Today's podcast is sponsored by Little Tractor and Equipment Company. Now, I've worked with these guys for years. These are great guys and they really care about the small farmer carry a lot of lines of products, tractors and lawnmowers and all kinds of stuff. But one of the things they carry that's really unique is they carry used coyote tractor parts. So if you run an older coyote and are looking for an engine or a transmission for , uh, an LB 1914 or something like that, check these guys out. Go to little tractor.com and click on the used parts tab. Like I was saying, you know, how did we get into this? And I started out, like a lot of guys had a few acres, had a cow. I butchered that cow. We ate steak, we liked it. I liked the work. I like the physical side of that work. I'm not a multi-generational farmer. Um , my parents didn't farm. My dad was a , a , a metallurgist and a Chemical engineer. And my mother was a music teacher. They both owned small businesses at , at different points. My mother taught music lessons and my dad , um, and in his later years owned a , owned an insurance agency in a small town out on the East coast. My grandparents were farmers, but they weren't big farmers. They were, you know, to call 'em farmers. Was they, they, they grew food to eat. You know, the depression era. Their, their farm consisted of what they needed to eat for the year. They were , they wanted, if they wanted ham, they, they had to raise pigs. They wanted beef, they had to raise cattle. Um, they didn't sell cattle into, I mean, I'm sure they sold a cow or two here and there when they did, but most of their farming was subsistence. So I didn't come in it . I'm not a multi-generational farmer, so I'm starting this from scratch. Um, but started it knowing that I love the work. I like the hard work of it. And so the question that I was talking about earlier was , how did I get started? Well, we had a few cows and I had grown a herd from one cow. And over several years grew from one cow to two to 10, to 30 to 50 to almost 70 head. And I started, I was buying hay for most of that. And I started the, the, you know, I started growing my own hay, started bailing my own hay. Any, any place that let me bale , I'd bale it. 'cause every bale I bailed made it a little cheaper for me to farm. Now, being in this for a while , I can tell you it was probably more expensive to bail my own hay than it was to buy hay. I could have bought hay cheaper than I could bail it. And you know, guys will say, well, if you've got a cheap tractor and you buy an old 8 53 baler , um, you can bail it cheap and you can, but when you factor in the cost of equipment and the cost of depreciation and all of that, it is almost always in , in some large scale operations. This probably does not, does not qualify, but it's almost always cheaper. Buy your hay, take the ground that you're bailing in hay, put more stock on it. Buy hay. And I'm a forage farmer, so I want you to buy hay. We also have a business where we're, we're starting to sell , um, some packages to help people improve the quality of their pasture. So we're getting into the agronomy side of it and helping people grow, grow better, lusher, thicker pastures. Because better pastures means more carrying capacity, which means you can have more care , more caring . Pest means more stock, which means you can make more money. So, you know, we, it was, it would've probably been cheaper for me to have bought hay all those years, but I liked the process. So I did it. It was something I enjoyed out there. The tractor mowing, raking bailing hay. We had the opportunity to pick up, I think it was an 80 acre block, an 88, I think it was an 80 and bale hay on it. Couldn't run stock on it. It wasn't fenced, but it wasn't great . It wasn't row crop ground, but we could pick it up and bale and outta that 80, there was probably, I don't know , uh, it was probably 65, 70 acres of available ground. And so we did it. And then I had a surplus of hay. I had more hay than I needed to feed for my stock. So what do you , did ? You sell it. And I really like, now there are some hay customers that are challenging. If you sell hay, if you sell anything, there are challenging customers. But I like people, especially, I'm not a big fan of big groups of people. I, I get, I get a little nervous, but I love one-on-one, talking to people, getting to know people, trying to figure out how can I help them? And, you know, how can they help me and how can I help them? How do we build a relationship? So I , I like that part of it. So, you know, we started by, we started selling hay , and I just kind of put the word out, Hey, I've got some extra bales here. I've got, you know, four or 500 bales stacked up here if anybody wants some. And we sold it. So didn't have a bale left at the end of the year other than what I needed for my stock. And I always tried to have a surplus so that I didn't, I never wanted to be scrambling for hay at the end of the season. And right now we're getting, our business is getting call after call after call of people needing hay 'cause they didn't, didn't plan well enough. And they're, they're caught in a bind. And we were sold out of all of our hay. We were sold out by the 1st of December. So, you know, we're sort of in that, trying to help people, trying to find other hay producers that might have some surplus left that they're willing to sell. So we try to connect people up. Some people would say that's a bad business decision and I would disagree with them . I'm here to help. But anyway, so when we got to that, that next piece of ground really liked the hay production side of the business as much as I liked the livestock. So I sort of slowed the livestock down. Cattle market was kind of depressed back then. So I kind of slowed the market, slowed the, the, the, the livestock down and went more into the hay side of it. Um, but when I got asked the question of how did you get started, it didn't just dawn on me say, Hey, I'm gonna start a hay farm. I'm gonna start a forage farm. Well, it just sort of grew as I made decisions based on a couple of things on what I wanted to do. Because it's hard to be, it's hard to be passionate about something that you don't want to do. If all you want to do is make money and that's all you care about is making the money, farming is probably not gonna be the business you choose. Can you make a ton of money at it? Here you're , there are guys who make really, really good livings farming, but they're passionate that you'll find on almost all cases they're passionate about. They love to farm. When they sit down at dinner, that's what they talk about. When they go out, when they go out with their friends, they're talking about farming. That's, I mean, it's just the kind of person you have to be to be successful at that. And you have to be patient. You have to absorb huge amounts of capital. Like , you know, you have to spend tons of capital to get into it because tractors are expensive. Bailers are expensive. You have to be willing to do that , to get, to get to where you can actually make money at it. And that's one of the challenges in getting farm started and become being a new farmer, is it's so capital intensive. When you start, you know, second generation farmers, people who are starting out in their dad's farm to their grandpa's farmed , you know, they're , I won't say it's easy 'cause I don't wanna diminish the hard work that these guys put in. I know several multi-generational farmers that are these kids and these men that are, are my age and they're hard workers. They are not afraid of hard work. And I don't want to diminish what they do. But when you start from scratch, there are challenges that we as first generation farmers have that they don't have , uh, access to an old piece of equipment that just makes a job easier. And grandpa had it sitting around for 30 years. You , you go out and you , you use it . I mean, it's, it's those type of things that make jobs easier. And it's the little tools, the, the advice, the council that first generation farmers, we struggle with. We struggle with having the council , the, the people that we can lean on to ask questions. I mean, how do we get started? Well, we make mistakes, big mistakes. I made a huge mistake cost hens of thousands of dollars. And that was, I, I made a mistake of planting when I shouldn't have. Now I was able to save the crop, barely. And it's become, it , it , it , it has done well in, in the, the subsequent years. But the first year it was 200 plus dollars an acre to plan it and saw zero income, in fact, only saw expenses on those acres. I mean, there was zero revenue from it. So, I mean, you, I put this huge amount of money down and saw zero return. And not only zero return. I had to spend money on it. And it was a huge loss. But I learned I won't make that mistake again. And you have to, but being able to, you know, not only financially but emotionally accept those hits is a big part of how you get started. You have to be willing to take the gut punch. You gotta be willing to stand up there and take the hit. And was it a financial hit? Yeah, a big one. But it was as much an emotional hit when you make those mistakes. And if you're starting farming, you will make those mistakes. If you're just getting started and you're a first generation farmer, heck , if you're , I talked to a row crop farmer the other day made a huge mistake. He planted a non roundup ready corn and then sprayed it with Roundup. And this was on like a hundred acres. Killed it all. I mean, it was a bad, bad deal financially, but also emotionally, it's a tough thing to think that you made that mistake and it's all on you. So when we, you know, when we get started in farming, we have to be willing to absorb these hits. And not all , they're not, you know, new farmer. Yes, it's financially tough, financially, very, very difficult. I know a another guy who's just getting started like me a a little older, like, I mean, he is younger than me, but he's, you know, he is up there in age. He's already had a career and he's starting in the row crop side of it . And he's struggling financially struggling , um, acquiring land, struggling, acquiring, you know, it's a struggle. And, and we talk about it 'cause it's difficult. He didn't come from a multi-generational farm family, he's just starting. But this whole idea of, you know, you hear so much negative about getting into farming. There are the positives too. And I love the , I mean the life man , there's not much better than being out. I mean , I have a , we have a swather, we have a John Deere. Uh , it's a W2 35 swather. There is probably no more enjoyable day other than maybe a day with my family, but there's probably no more enjoyable day than sitting in that swather coming over a pretty green hay field where there's nothing around you that you can see except, except alfalfa or grass or whatever it is. You're mowing you . It just me and my dog, man, what a beautiful day. I love it. And the lifestyle is amazing. But you have to be strong in this. I i I go through this story and tell these things because we need more farmers in this country. We need more. And it's getting harder and harder to be a small farmer. Corporations, corporate farms, and even the, the large family farms are corporations, and they make it hard on small farmers because of they make huge blocks of land deals. They're able to buy land at a, at, at huge prices that there's no way that you can afford a piece of land. That the land cannot generate enough revenue from farming to be able to afford the land. And corporations come in in and buy it. Um , the wealthier buying this land as investment property and then, you know, turning around and either doing nothing with it or leasing it to farmers. So, you know, in some ways that's an opportunity, but it makes it hard for a young farmer to get started. And my purpose here in this whole, in telling these stories is follow your dreams. If you wanna farm, you can do it. You can get into it and you can start farming. But be willing to take the hits, be willing to take, you know, the gut punch of, man, you made a mistake and you lost a hundred acres, a hundred acres of crop, you planted it and nothing came up. You , you, you know, you got a piece of equipment that breaks, you gotta figure it out. It's tough. And it is, you know, it can be an emotional rollercoaster. We were just reading an article the other day, I'm sort of passionate about , um, I've had some family members that had some mental health issues and never got help. And so I read an article in , um, oh , I believe it was Ag Agricultural Drive. It was a , it was a reprint of something, but it was , um, talking about mental health and farmers. And I did a whole podcast on the suicide rate among farmers. And I think that, you know, there are some, some challenges and when these emotional hits keep happening, because it's not only your livelihood, something you're passionate about, and when both of those things fail, it emotionally is brutal. And we, we are seeing high, high suicide rates in the farming community and a difficulty in getting people help. Uh, you know, I , my purpose here, and I , I've kind of rambled just a little bit, but it's, it , it's, I wanna be encouraging and say you can farm. But I also wanna put that little, that little touch of reality in there that be willing to take the body blows because they'll happen. And when they do, be willing to ask for help. Be willing to put the time and the effort and the work into fixing it. You know, you can do this. That it is possible in today's world to start farming and be successful at it. Now again, you're not gonna be rich. If you wanna be rich. You're a lot easier, a lot more secure ways to do it than farming. But if you're like me and this is the life you like, the people you like, the the the things you like to do, man, it's great. So , uh, you know, just kind of wrap , I , I get close to wrapping up here. I just wanna mention that, you know, we're, we're gonna try to have some interviews this year. We're gonna try to bring on a veterinarian and talk about some livestock issues and , um, you know, how we treat our livestock. And, and the, you know, me, I'm a forage farmer, so I'm always passionate. I I'm trying to grow a great forge. But I also love to talk to veterinarians about,

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About, you know, what's a great forge? What can we do better in the forage industry to make it more palatable to the animals? We're gonna bring some manufacturers, some equipment, people on. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna talk about a lot of fun stuff in the , this coming season. And I apologize, I dropped off sort of the end of last season. We got into production and it's hard to, I start about four o'clock in the morning. It , it was hard to do the podcast and keep up the farming side of it. And the farming side won what I like to do. So anyway, follow us here on this podcast and we'll catch you back. We're gonna try to put one out a week and we will catch you later. Have a great one. Good luck and God bless.