[AT] Answering Farmer

[Greg Hass]

>SNIP**
>         Great information Greg. I did notice that you failed to mention 
> which farm enterprise we
>should be in to make us a good living without all the 
>complications...   ;-)   Seems to
>be a real shortage of those...
>         You grow a lot of edible beans if I recall correctly and raise 
> hogs. Assuming that if
>for some reason you were to start over tomorrow that you would still 
>farm... If you could
>pick and choose and had the money what crop/critter (if any) mix would you 
>pick?
>
>--
>"farmer", Esquire
>SNIP**
In all seriousness, I asked our local elevator guy about a month ago what 
crop to grow that would pretty much guarantee a profit.
I was told that "that particular crop" was highly illegal.  After we both 
had a good laugh,  he said that the one with the most promise at this time 
seemed to be wheat.  (Unfortunately we are already locked into what we 
planted last fall for this crop.)   Due to an extremely late fall last 
year, I was only able to get in about 17 acres of wheat, and we are not 
sure to get all of that due to the late planting date.  For those who are 
not familiar, I farm about 110 acres.  (Not as a hobby farm, but as a need 
to make money.)   Also, all of my machinery (except for 2 items) is over 30 
years old.  My skid-steer is 23 years old and my 4-row corn planter I would 
estimate to be about 14 years old.

Edible beans are a big crop in our area - navy, black, pinto, etc.  They 
are a high weather-risk crop, but do have the advantage of an early harvest 
date which allows us to get wheat planted in a timely fashion after the 
bean harvest.  As for livestock, I no longer own any.  The feeder cattle 
went 15 years ago.  I had them during the "bad" years and lost a fortune on 
them.  (At one time I had 100 feeder cattle and 300 hogs.)  I sold the last 
of the hogs 9 years ago when the last of the children went to college as I 
then had no one to help move them.  Plus, about 12 years ago the big 
corporate farms started taking over to the point that buyers only wanted to 
deal in semi load lots and that basically shut down our local livestock 
markets for those of us that sold 8 or 10 at a time.  For this year I have 
decided to go wth wheat and about 26 acres each of  corn, soybeans, and 
edible beans.  (Haven't decided which kind of edible bean yet.)  A few 
acres of sand hill I leave in hay and sell to a relative for his dairy 
cows.  As far as what I would ideally like to do... having had livestock 
for many years and now being in my 50s, I would prefer to be able to raise 
crops and make some money.  At least for now it appears one will have to 
raise several crops and hope that one or two will make some 
profit.  Although the farm is my main work, I have a couple of small 
part-time jobs, running a small appliance repair business and driving truck 
for a cousin during harvest.  The wife also has a full-time job.  (She's a 
librarian.)

Greg Hass