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We had no problem whatsoever in the dairy county in Minnesota where my dairy farm was and now owned by my son.
Nearly every farm I can think of since I first moved there ( 1978) has been transferred to the next generation and the farms are viable that none of those young men work off the farm.
Just within a half mile of me.........I never thought my son would ever return to farming, but he did and bought my farm. He rotationally grazes and has 55 milk cows.
The adjoining farm had a youngest son, star athlete, who left for college.
No one expected him to return farming. After 2 semesters he returned home and started dairy farming with his dad. They have 90 dairy cows and he got married this summer.
Half mile up the road youngest son said he wasn't interested. After one year working off the farm he returned. That was 15 years ago and he also has 90 cows.
Our county was settled by Germans with very strong work ethics and great dairy farmers. Those traits seem to be passed down generation to generation.
An older farmer I know got featured in a farm newspaper and answered many questions.
One question was..................." what would you tell a young man who wants to start farming today "?
He answered................"Be nice to your dad as that is your best chance "
However, when I moved here there was a dairy farmer 2 miles from me with 10 kids ( 7 boys) and he struggled.
He did teach his kids to have a good work ethic.
Three of the sons starting working for neighbors and eventually were able to rent a dairy barn and borrow money to buy a herd of cows. They bought their feed from other farmers to keep machinery purchases down. After about 7 years a farm came up for sale and they had enough equity to buy it, form a partnership, and move all the cows there.
Last month (21 years later) their modern dairy farm got featured in a publication
There are now 4 brothers........400 dairy cows......a herd of beef cows on a different farm they own.
NO FINANCIAL HELP from their dad but he gave them something better than money.........a strong work ethic passed down generation to generation.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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I always worked night shift in a factory to support my farming habit. I usually work 2-3 jobs for the last 40 yrs, (farming being one of them), + weekend nights trucking and night shift factory, It has worked fine for me and allowed single income (not a lot) so one spouse could be home to homeschool kids (Plus I was home all day since I worked nights) I taught the kids when not farm intensive (winters), tho I had a pretty good sized orchard to prune. Kids learned a lot on the farm, and were able to start investing their self directed ROTH IRA's at age 12. That skill (investing) funded their college. I expect they will some day return to farming.
I first 'retired' at age 15 when I left Dairy Farm Boarding school and started working in a machine shop night shift.
I went back to dry land farming... it is like retirement.
Retire early, retire often... I will be farming to some extent forever... my last event will be digging a hole about 2m deep. I keep the trackhoe greased up and battery charged for that event. My dogs getting kinda old, so maybe we can go on the 'family plan'.
50 years ago, it took about 1/3rd of the population to feed the nation. In other words, farming was labor intensive.
Today 1 1/2% of the people are involved in producing the food.
Reason, modern machinery and equipment. Someone above mentioned how on a ranch, the need for help is so much less.
In the past men on horses rode the fence lines, and checked and repaired fences. This could take days on a large ranch. Today a cowboy hooks a trailer behind an ATV to haul fence repair supplies and equipment, and does it in a day. Cowboys went ranch to ranch looking for work, pulling their horse in a trailer behind them. Today, the modern cowboy has an ATV in the back of his pickup. You have all seen pictures of cowboys roping and throwing down cattle to brand them, and castrate bull calves to turn them into steers. Today they will pull a squeeze chute and some panels to force the cattle into the chute. One cowboy can with an ATV drive cattle into the chute, where the sides clamp the animal still, brand them, castrate them, shoot them with their vaccinations, etc., then let them go out the other end.
It used to take a large crew, to cut, rake, and bale hay, and a crew to haul it from the field. Today one man with a modern tractor with an enclosed cab with heat and air conditioning, can cut a lot more hay than they used to cut, laying it into a windrow. Then when the hay is dry and cured ready to bail, the same man can then take a small machine behind his tractor. Drive down the row and pick up the hay going fairly fast with a machine. The machine makes it into a round bale, and stops, squats and lays a bale every so often. Then back to picking it up and making it into a bale. Comes time to gather the bale, one man can use a machine to pick up bales that can weigh half a ton or more instead of half a ton being 20 bales that were picked up by hand and thrown onto a truck. That one man can in a few minutes load the truck, secure the bales, and drive to the holding area, and use another machine on a tractor to unload the bales. And repeat till done. Instead of maybe a dozen men working for long periods, one or two men do it with equipment.
Here in Montana, we have more cattle than people. My grandfather grew up in the 1860s in western Montana, on the family ranch on Dry Cotton Wood Creek. When he was 16 for the first time he took a crew of cowboy/gun fighters to Mexico with his saddle bags full of gold coins. He bought a large herd of cattle, and they drove them back to Montana. Today if you wanted to do the same, one or two men would go down there to do the buying, and they would be shipped to Montana in trucks. A couple of days to move the cattle instead of months to drive them back with horses. Back then there were wars between rustlers and ranchers, and sheepmen, vs. cattlemen. And between big ranchers and smaller ones that had gotten land from the government the big ranchers claimed was theirs. My grandfather was involved in the wars, as he was a real hot gun fighter. He met my grandmother who was an army nurse at a fort, and she told him if he wanted to marry her he had to give up the guns and leave the state. He changed his name and they moved to California.
The ranching got easier over the decades and by mid 1900s, no gunmen needed, but it a crew of men on a medium to large spread. Today, with modern methods, it takes very few employees, often just the family that owns the farm or ranch.
where I live farming is mostly passed on from generation. of course former small farming pretty much doesn't exist like many things these days. But most of large farmers where the most productive farmers at one time. Its really much like any business.90%+ small business fail.
We have a few programs in this region that assist older farmers to locate young farmers, and help in the transition from one generation to the next generation.
I have a friend [Tom R.] who has presented a few workshops on farm inheritance. Tom starts a new farm, and then attracts apprentices to live on-site and work it. Any apprentice who stays on-site, becomes a partner the second year. As soon as there are 3 [or more] partners, Tom guides them in forming a LLC, and the new partners buy Tom out. Then Tom starts a new farm somewhere else.
So far Tom is on his fourth farm. I have been a vendor in markets, alongside vendors from two farms that had been started by Tom.
Would Tom be interested in a California based operation, if so, I may have a proposal.
I have a duck farm. When the recession hit, my metalworking shop went form $10K/mo to almost 0. I landed a job feeding chickens, it paid $15/hr which I am still greatful for. Six months later my boss bought a 12 acre farm. In this area of San Diego, land is about $8500/acre. About 2 years in, he offered to leg me do whatever I wanted with an acre of land, and I went with ducks. Turns out I am the only operation in the county and I am quite profitable. I thank you for the link to the microloans, it is sad that it took an "Al Jezerra" article to learn about it. I now have 450 ducks on 3 acres, laying nearly 250 eggs a day, and have 2 commercial supply contracts at 60cents-$1.20 per egg.
Did you know that San Diego County CA has the highest count of family owned farms for a county in the US at over 4000.
My biggest hassle in expanding is dealing with zoning. You can't subdivide out here any more, but they still want the fees associated with a "major use permit" for my attempts to reactivate a derelict 40 acre farm nearby that has been virtually unoccupied since 1974, the property is zoned ag, but since they won't make a lot in fees that way they are looking for any roadblocks they can, including a $1500 startup fee "on case I have questions". They seem to be intent on not letting my do my "by right use" unless they get $30K in incidental fees. FWIW, I did pay to have the well tested, even with CA's drought, we got 325 gallons/min. There is even a functional 2nd well powered by a 50 foot windmill tower.
... My biggest hassle in expanding is dealing with zoning. You can't subdivide out here any more, but they still want the fees associated with a "major use permit" for my attempts to reactivate a derelict 40 acre farm nearby that has been virtually unoccupied since 1974, the property is zoned ag, but since they won't make a lot in fees that way they are looking for any roadblocks they can, including a $1500 startup fee "on case I have questions". They seem to be intent on not letting my do my "by right use" unless they get $30K in incidental fees. ...
If you are in Ag zoning, then you should be able to do Ag stuff.
What is a "major use permit" fee?
"... since they won't make a lot in fees ... a $1500 startup fee", who is 'they'? What is a start-up fee?
I am not familiar with 'right use", or 'incidental fees', $30k?.
Where I am, there are many different zones that allow Ag to be performed in them. Like: Residential, Residential Recreation, General, and Rural. Then some specific zones that only allow specific kinds of Ag operation, like Flood Prone and Shoreland [where you can only produce crops that do well in flood plains; cranberries, fiddleheads, maples, etc], and Forest [where you do crops that do well under the forest canopy; mushrooms, ginseng, fruit / nut trees, and livestock]. We have zoning that might prohibit farming, but it is usually kind of obvious like maritime, or delicate marine habitat.
We do not have any permits required to begin farming here.
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