65 year old lifelong farmer in Wisconsin here. Cole rubs me 100% the wrong way, can't stand his theatrics, but I will check it out. Guys who were 5 - 10 years older than me largely got wiped out in the 80s when interest rates jumped, grain prices dropped, and then land values collapsed. We lived through it, but it wasn't fun.
You might not agree with me but over the last year Cole has matured a lot. He has calmed down and I think the whole grain bin site put him into a reality check.
I watch both of you guys, I appreciate your difference and the knowledge that you both share. You don't learn from just reading one book or hearing one perspective... and sometimes its learning what might not work for you. Farming in my family unfortunately skipped 2 generations and I'm starting with almost nothing, including a family mentor to learn from. Sincerely, thank you for what you do!
The big AG channels are making from RU-vid and brand deals. It’s getting harder too watch all of them cause they walking billboards. As someone working in the AG here in California NOTHING is making in farming accept for the ones that didn’t save their money when times were good and didn’t buy new iron all the time.
Last year all my corn was caught in that six week drought vortex, planted a week into it and no germination for five. This year I'm laying early/late plantings! Last year I did your VT bean rolling plan; I broadcast dry beans into standing rye and when they emerged with a couple of leaves I flattened the rye and the beans popped right back up with their mulch weed barrier under them, was pretty amazing, so I'm repeating this year.
Just watched Cole's video and it's very eye opening for farmers future, I like you wasn't a fan of his videos however I decided to go across on your recommendation, after watching it I was very surprised so I've decided to subscribe and give him a chance... And for those who are saying that "I can't stand him, he's just a kid.. I won't watch his videos".. go give him a chance, it's one of the most mature videos I've seen him do..
A lot of Cole haters out there. I agree with you to watch his video. Cole is a good guy. Haters need to do videos like you guys do. They would fold under the other haters criticism. It would be a bitter pill for them to swallow..
I watched Coles video last night. I hope he's coming from a genuine place and not just making this series just to boost his RU-vid revenue.... Luv ya's from Kentucky!!!
I hope it boosts his RU-vid revenue and helps make him more money. Why don't you want people to succeed? Are you that petty and vindictive that you don't want other people to do as well as they can?
I watch it last night when it come out and I think you both are right and I love learning more about farming even know I grow up on a farm back in the 80 and we was a dairy farm till 2000 when my grandma got sick and we sold out and know I’m a truck driver was pulling milk tanker and grain hopper thank Wes
I grew up and worked on a ranch in the panhandle of Texas till my Junior year in High School when my Father was forced into bankruptcy and forced to sell it. The last year of high school and the summer after I worked on a farm in South Texas. So while I may now later in life be a city slicker I do know just how much hard work it takes to make a crop or herd produce and how much easier it is to loose money than it is to make money. In the early 70's the government put a cap on how much you could sell calves for and let everyone know when the cap would be lifted. No one sold calves at a lose while the cap was in place. As soon as it was lifted every one who had calves put them on the market at the same time. Wasn't just us who lost our ranch because of the damn government interfering with the market.
Watching both you and Cole with respect because I could never do a video or be a good communicator, here is my take. On slow to average farm years Wes would be my farm advice guru. On great years and needing to lower my tax bill, I would appreciate Cole and his Cadillac ways. The average rents Cole states makes me appreciate the living my Dad provided in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s on 320 acreas, 80 tillable; with dairy, hogs, and sheep. Today’s rent my nephew gets for the tillable acreage is $40. A great year is 90 bushel corn. Dad had to always work construction along with farming to raise 5 boys.
My uncle was an Apple grower when I was 13 years old (1963) he told me, when there was a poor crop he made money as opposed to a good crop he lost money. In the late 60’s he wood pack his apples in a three pound bag, pack several bags in a card board box he purchased and deliver them to the Boston warehouse . He wood get 29 cents a bag and A&P a supermarket chain at the times would get 79 cents a bag, I said uncle W you really are on the short end of the stick.
@@onelonleyfarmer polar soda was the a large soda company at the time, I think A&P was there largest customer, then A&P started to dictate the price they would sell the soda to them and eventually polar soda went bankrupt.
Iam 46 years old worked on farms as teenager learned alot of stuff with animals and equipment my kids will probably never see and appreciate the efforts put into farming theres a huge disconnect between people and were there food comes from
I have to farm part time. It's a small side business that keeps the insurance and the taxes paid, keeps the freezer full of beef, chicken, turkey and lambs, plus pays for my antique tractor addiction. Haha. Seriously though I get $3.75 for the beef, $5.25 a pound for my broilers and turkeys and $350 a head for the lambs. Plus $6 to $7 a bale for horse hay half of which I buy from me for the stable I run as my day job. Also work part time on a dairy an use that money to sock away. In my opinion the best approach is to let marginal ground set, and reduce population and fertilizer rates to cut costs down. If output nationally is lower, prices will go up.
@@georgedoorley5628 I'm getting that as a direct marketing price where I take the lamb to a butcher and the customer picks up the whole lamb. On the open market we can do ok with them. I'm an hour from Detroit Michigan. There's a huge Arab market and three processing facilities there. My county at one time had more sheep then any other country east of Mississippi river. Some guys talk about their family having 800 to 900 lambs on feed 100 years ago here.
Watched it already, was truly eye opening. I told him to give you a call for advice on what to study on what your doing to try to rebuild the land and get away from artificial inputs. Great hearing your opinion on his video. Have always agreed with you on the corny intros he has done but truly I think I’m more embarrassed for him than upset about them. Wishing you and your family the best.
Wisdom doesn't happen over night! It takes time, but if you take time to listen to those who have acquired it over time there is loads of value in there!
I was attending a young farmer meeting and they asked what everyone ran their break even numbers on. In that room of 20 or so farmers I was the only one who planned on worst case scenario crop insurance coverage numbers. They all looked at me weird when I told them that. Couldn’t believe I operated on worst case scenarios.
I like how cole will tell u about his wins and losses the only problem I have with Cole is the way he flaunts his new electronic gizmos and how he tries to get every little speck out of a field you will never do that and the Ben site if you watch the videos they kind of rushed them guys to get it done so of course they're going to have problems
If I understand Wesley (Onelonelyfarmer) I think that he could relate to the NFL coach who once said to a player after his touchdown “act like you have already been there”. Similar to my job in the service department of a Chevrolet dealership 3 days a week in which I’m making $15.00 an hour and when it’s not winter time I occasionally get to drive Corvettes. I see more C8 Corvettes than the older ones. Today I parked a red C8. Last week I moved a base C8 then the next day a Z06 C8. It can be the highlight of the day but if I’m tired and feeling stiff the thought going through my mind is “I gotta do some contortions to get in and out of this thing so I don’t scratch it and get yelled at by the dealership owner”.
I have watched cole and you, sometimes i find you both annoying but having said that i will say i am better informed about farming and for the most part i am entertained 😊
Hi Wesley I have watched up to you talking about city folk I love what you call them, CIDIOTS we will be using that expression 😂 I will watch the rest later. All the best from Henry
Arnt all those “cidiots” the exact same people we depend on to buy the agricultural products we produce. I’m sorry it dosent seem like it makes much sense to run down the same people that we depend on. Oh and I’m pretty sure last time I checked they pay taxes which then gets subsidized back to farmers through certain programs from the usda.
Watch both of you. Unfortunately I am one of the small time horse hay feed guys that had to start from scratch since my grandfather was the last farmer in the family and he died before I was born. To say hobby farmers such as myself are cut throat isn't quite fair. I work my tail off trying to put up a good product with 3rd or 4th hand equipment that price wise makes sense for my operation. I grew up watching my neighbor lease my mothers land for crops and I did farm hay for another neighbor starting in highschool and fell in love. I only farm 40 acres that I rent from my mother, but have to maintain a day job to survive. Funny enough I recognize that stretch of road you were on. My farm is half a mile from the intersection of rt 1 and 41 in Avondale. I assume you are hauling mulch hay to Laurel Valley or Basciani based on where you ended the video.
We do 120 broilers per a year for ours and another families freezer. We split them 50/50. Good food cheap and clean and really healthy. So yeah i know about quality. Jim
Wes, it's the same for every small business I know, not just Farmers. The money isn't there this year, the economy that's been staggering along is now failing. And get ready for more supply shortages in parts and raw materials, they are already started.
Colethecornstar has 608,000 subscribers so I’m guessing he’s living off of his RU-vid channel income. I hope that his channel is a separate business from the farming operation. I have no idea if Cole is a part owner of the family farm or is on salary or hourly wage. The old house that he is rebuilding sure looks huge and I’d be scared to see what the heating bill is in in the average Iowa winter. Maybe he could run a corn burning stove?
You have to always be analyzing your numbers. At the point where growth is too big of a risk (expense wise) then you re-evaluate your crops. We got a lot of flack and people laughing because we are switching into Christmas trees, but for us, in OUR location, its a dead nuts winner. You don't EAT hay, nor do you EAT christmas trees, and while hay feeds animals, MOST people only want the crappy, low dollar hay. Run those numbers and you LOSE money just to make it. So we grow high quality orchard grass for horses, and sell out before winter with a dedicated customer base. But that STILL only makes $800/acre, and we only have so much tillable acres. To rent is impossible, corn and soy guys grab the rentals (which run over $100/acre/year) and buying land is out o the question since it goes to housing. We have NO WAY to grow our hay business, not to mention the need for a larger barn to store any larger hay crop. That's another $50,000 in our area. And upgrade equipment, that's at least another $30,000. Over $80k just to expand and HOPE I can gain enough NEW customers to sell at my price of $8/bale instead of the cheap stuff at $4/bale. The local tree farm down the road was selling 2500 trees per year in just TWO WEEKS when they retired. They couldn't keep up with demand, and their operation wasn't too fancy. Current tree price out here is $60-90. at 1,000 trees per acre, the guy was making GOOD MONEY JUST on trees (said he doubled his profits just on wreaths). For us, it made perfect sense. So we are SLOWLY transitioning over, keeping our hay fields and planting in succession, eventually we will use a few of the fields for trees, while keeping 10 acres for hay. While christmas trees are a luxury, it's also about the "family experience", and we are in an area exploding with growth and middle class to upper middleclass homes. For us we'd be idiots not to do it . . . we are only 3 miles down the road from the previous farm . . .
@@onelonleyfarmer you don't have to do u cut, you could do commercial and sell for other growers. Or do seedlings. There's a huge demand for seedlings and producers cannot keep up 😉
I found it funny how the grandpa would weld two discs together, and fabricate a 16 row planter out of a 8 and a 12 row... But daddy and cole can't seem to bolt some railings back on the overpriced bin site themselves. Cole seems like a reasonably smart guy, but he sure made some decisions different that I'd have made with some of the financials. Anyway, I expect his series to be pretty good, and honestly I'll probably watch it when I come across it because he does seem to be learning from his mistakes and some of these videos could be good content.
I am no fan of Coles anymore, but I'll watch his Dads channel once in a while. I'm a self employed equipment mechanic and I'd say if I bought a new truck for 80K and the fender fell off because it wasn't built right I'd be mad and not bolting it back myself. With what they spent on that bin set up and it's falling apart when the wind blows and the other problems they have had, why the heck should they with what it's cost for a supposed professional build that's far from right .
@@super6954 A few years ago, a fog light fell out of my brand new car, and was dangling by a wire because the clips that hold it in place must have not been hooked good. I climbed under, took off the air dam, and snapped it back in place. Saved me 2 hours going to the dealer, and was done in 5 minutes. The dealer already got all the money for the new car, and they're not going to also get 2 hours of my time "on principle" over something I can fix myself in 5 minutes. Most brand new equipment has some problems because the companies are just sloppy, and I choose to pick the battles when resolving them.
They're in a lawsuit over the bin site. You have no idea what their attorney has told them to do. If they make "changes" to the existing conditions may have legal ramifications. Quit trying to make judgments on people when you have NO idea of the entire situation.
@@Bradley38 If I'm spending all that money on new equipment it comes with a warranty for a while and other than general servicing the other problems are the dealers responsibility. one of my customers has a 2 year old Ram pick up he's real pleased he has extended warranty on. As soon as that warranty's done it's gone. The dealers had it more some months than he's seen it, this Monday it gets new injectors !. Coles bin yards no different, it shouldn't be their problem if it's not put together right.
Farmers should hedge way more than they do. Anhydrous Diesel Fuel Grain Sales should all be hedged every year . Some years it will limit your gains but it will also save the farm in bad years . The market doesn't care if you survive .
You hit the nail on tue head with this video. And if I had to guess your sister raises Cornish cross chickens as the legs typically break by 8 weeks and if they don’t it’s a heart attack by 9 weeks
The Cornstars are narrow based just growing Soy and Corn. Might need to have a few more different crops (easier to do in some places than others). What are the lower volume crops or crops that do not require such expensive storage? Pop Welker put up a ten minute video last year, financial tracking for trying to farm the Montana desert. video title "I designed my own farm management software!".
You have to have a market to make any money on a crop. And Iowa doesn't have a lot of markets for crops other than corn and soybeans. At least, not that won't lose more money than corn and soybeans.
I was talking with a neighbouring farmer today talking about the prices of everything if we are not making money nobody is both our farms run on an extremely low output cost basis we don't have any fiance out on anything own all our own machinery we don't employ any staff we buy in very little feed if we can't make a profit nobody is I don't know how many more years we can keep going
Havent watched his channel in years. It was more then I could handle. Hes all over the place and was constantly trying to sell something. To each their own....
I watched Cole last night. A few of his numbers are off. They own a 1000 acres and he is charging $ 279 a acre for rent. Owning will be a big help to the bottom line. Granted that is were you hope to make But it will cushion his loss. My guess is his loss will be around $ 150,000 which is crazy. Good talk today Wes !! Stay safe my friend.
He is using the average for his aera on rental costs as if he showed his true costs another farmer would come and steal his rental ground and he doesn't want to show his costs on ground that he is buying unless you believe that you should put all of your information on public knowledge
I saw his video last night, I was actually wondering if you would see it at some time and what your response would be. I agree a bit of a goofball but I think he has a good heart and he does look at it from a perspective of really getting into the numbers. Not surprised you agree with him only that you called it out, that’s cool. A lot of changes coming I’m afraid based on a lot of things going south this year. Hope we all survive it……
I just watched episode 2 of this series he's started, looked in the comments and everybody's spamming the comments concerning about his lack of continuing the house restoration series. What a disgrace. The general public just doesn't seem to understand what Cole is trying to do. Oh well. I guess that's the audience he's built up from his normal content.
Can't believe you can't make money at 9 percent interest on inputs, and the federal government already telling us we aren't going to make money this year.
i'd say he's not too much at risk putting numbers out there especially with the certain limitations he put in place. his operation is very much replaceable with others in the area. it's a bit different if you specialize in certain markets like mushroom hay like you did, Wes. then there are a lot of interesting secrets even between the lines.
I cant stand to watch him. I refuse to watch anything he puts out. Too much clickbait, too much product pushing, too much just general nonsense. You should promote some smaller channels that do honest every day videos like you do. Bandit farmer, oliver 66 farm boy, more like those guys. They deserve more subs than cole does.
I can stand to watch him. Never do I refuse to watch anything he puts out. Hardly any click bait, very little product pushing, what little nonsense there is, is clean and family friendly. Promote other channels that are willing to take chances and show behind the scenes stuff that we all have questions about.
I watched it and I can't for the life of me figgure out how they are projecting a $250 an acre loss. They must have a ton of payments on something. They have a marketing firm market their crops and that firm should tell them they are spending too much if that is the case.
@@waynejones5239 Not the way he's doing it, no. I've posted actual numbers for a single field before, but not for my entire operation. I'm not saying that he's wrong, just explaining why the numbers he posts won't completely reflect his actual financials at the end of the year.
You say something often that I don't really hear elsewhere. You maintain and improve your land. Obviously, in the days of using anhydrous, you're ahead of so many. Love your stuff👍👍
+extracomment: All farmers at least in europe and usa are not gonna make any money :/ same sh** here in germany. no one has sold any of the "expensive produced" grain last year during harvest, the silos are still full. , now we all only get that shitty price. -.-
I can’t accept that I am operating at a loss this year (I know I am) but I hold out hope that something will change, or why the hell am I even doing it.
He did disclaim that: All acerage for the same rental rate, and maximum bank loan for expenses. Numbers are better in reality, and he said that in the video.
He doesn't have to raise corn and soybeans and he doesn't have to farm 2,000 acres there's other cash crops out there that aren't government subsidized
He better trim down the length and get to the point if he really hopes to make a difference with this video series. He's not going to get the attention of the people that don't know about this stuff unless he makes the content easier to consume, not many are going to sit though 30-60 minute long videos.