I started farming in 82 , things looked pretty good. Then European subsidies caused grain prices to tank .my parents who I was in partnership with got killed in a car accident. I started changing over to cattle and just managed to build a herd when bse hit . Just when cattle and grain started to recover , two years back to back total drought. Then after that I had a big divorce settlement . Followed by the winter of 2012 , we got a foot of snow on Oct 6 and it never melted till May , but ran out of feed in feb. Just never seemed to get out from under the rock
Been there, done that. Saved my land base, but have found it's easier to farm for someone else and get paid every week. I also get to play with new toys without paying for them.. Life is good now.
@@andrewmellon5072 I didn't loose the land , but my machinery was wore out and the idea of trying to rebuild my cattle herd at 50 and nobody to take over , I didn't want to go deep into dept , just in time to retire
I hope you have a long and enjoyable retirement. I live in Ireland, my only son is a nurse, living in Australia married to an Australian so I know about passing on farms. I am retired 70 yers old. I rent out land and just keep 16 ewes which I am lambing now out side. I am glad it worked out.
Lending in the 70’s was done on demand notes with floating interest. A fixed interest on a bank note was unheard of. As inflation got out of hand under Jimmy Carter, the floating interest rates on those demand notes went as high as 22%. Most farmers couldn’t even pay the interest on their bank notes, much less the principal
Foreign countries and weather can’t be controlled but 19% interest only helps the wealthy people. Our own politicians are to blame for the farming crisis of the 1980s. Most of the large scale farms around that are thriving now are the lucky few that had debt forgiven.
The value of Farm Land was purposefully inflated. They lured landowners to take out loans based on the artificially inflated land prices, and then called in the notes when land values plummetted. A simple land grab.
Started farming in 65. Kept expanding with blessings from bank. Carter gets in and interest rates get to 18%. Along with Russian grain embargo and carter policies got in trouble. Bank would loan money for cattle when feeders were high. Next year when we thought feeder cattle would work bank said no. Struggled many years. I see this happening now to the more ambitious and aggressive farmers. Worry about relatives and neighbors.
Farmers were borrowing money against assets they had, land mostly and machinery, land values got too high, then corrected. Now the land they paid $1500 an acre for devalued to $500, the bank borrowed you $1200 on it. The lenders then claimed you didn't have enough collateral, and foreclosed driving the prices of land even lower.
I started farming in 1979, was very careful with every dollar i made, and invested back into my grain/hog farm. All used equipment, didn't borrow more than i could figure out how to pay back at any point. Never inherited anything, now own 1,000 acres in northern Illinois. So it could be done inspite of all the obstacles, and i faced all the same ones the rest did.
Good day from Ontario, Good for u yes interest in 1980 hit over 20%, divide that into 72 3-4 yrs it doubles. New machinery with costs never made money. A new pkup almost 80-90 thousand. Ths
There is still a lot of 18% interest paid today Any small farm that is struggling financially tends to have debt outside of the bank It's very easy to have $50000 of debt on 18% + interest today $50000 was a lot of money in the 80s I would think the 80s had to be easy compared to todoys financially strapped farmer
My Dad went through all that high interest in the early 80's when he was first starting. He also was buying grass calves, made money the first year, but every year after that he was buying high and selling low. Damn near lost his farm, what saved him was milking cows. FHA garnished his milk check so all his payments were current with them but as dad said we damn near starved to death. He also did alot of custom work to make extra money. He never got a govt write off like many did. So now today he can hold his head high that he survived that all by working hard. I've had my tough times getting started buy I never went through anything like he did. I can't imagine paying interest that high.
My grandpa said it was all do to irresponsible borrowing on the farmers and irresponsible lending. Add in dry conditions and he watched a lot of his neighbors fail. I was super young so all I have were his stories and inherited land from his estate. Most his neighbors who had to have new shiny equipment lost it all in the end. That's all I know.
@@scottrayhons2537 we already have plans on place to pass it on to my children. Share ownership with brothers it's set in stone to keep the legacy going
I was a young boy in that era. To this day the old man has always reminded me do not forget the 1980’s (he’s a good teacher). The farm couldn’t carry itself because of high interest rates taking away profit on rented or crop share land. In addition I remember 1988 and dad harvesting 6 bpa soybeans. Like others mentioned it was a perfect storm of variables contributing to the demise. I’ve farmed over 2 decades myself and I still think of the 80’s often. Sadly I can see this narrative could repeat itself.
I harvested 3 bpa deans in SE Kansas with out insurance 3 years a go...I sold that farm for a slight profit on the land. I wasnt married to it as Missouri is home.
Farmed through the 80s, 90s,2000s, busted my ass, retired now filthy rich now I tells ya! Nobody wanted to take over cause pretty much the same bleak future in it! High prices for everything, except what you want sell!
I promise you there’s a young guy like myself who would love to take over or buy you out. But he probably can’t pay what the 40-60 year olds can for your land and doesn’t have much to his name
A couple years back I talked to a guy in his 90s and his take on it was land prices exploded and the commodity price couldn’t support it. In his words back in the 1980s if you didn’t want to sell your land, you kept your mouth shut because you could throw out some absurd number and somebody would pay it.
Turning every pasture and woods in the Midwest into a field doesn’t help. We have such an over production of corn that they had to come up with things like ethanol and high fructose corn syrup to get rid of it
Terrible droughts here in Missouri in both 1980 and 1988. Crop insurance did not provide a floor like it does today. I have farmed for 40 years and I am more concerned today about conditions than I ever have been. I pray for the young and discouraged. Important for their spouses and families to encourage them.
I am discouraged...Its may 15 2024 and some guys havent turned a stone...But, I have seen this all before...I am discouraged about world events and the neo-bolsheviks mostly in DC.
We nearly lost our farm in the uk due to massive interest rates, it was mental around 17% and was very hard to keep the farm and most these days wouldn’t believe how hard it was back then !
I think the real root of the problem came under president Nixon. I remember him calling for the farmers to plant fence row to fence row because demand was high for American agricultural products. Then I believe before the end of the growing season, because of some issue with Russia, he imposed a grain embargo against Russia. That destroyed our credibility along with causing prices to plummet. I think the grain still ended up in Russia by going through some other country. All was well and good with the embargo until he wanted to expand it to include other things such as equipment. You never heard so much complaining because that was going to cause some people who worked for Caterpillar to lose their jobs. Along about that same time, there were people from America going to other countries such as Brazil to teach them how to grow soybeans. I don't know what the ulterior motive was but probably had something to do with keeping food prices cheap so the elected beurocrats could remain in power to stuff their pockets.
The United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union was enacted by US President Jimmy Carter in January 1980 in response to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The embargo remained in effect until Ronald Reagan ended it in 1981 upon taking the office of president.
Yes, Political, financial, fiscal shenanigans then, before, and to now. If recall well, read about Nixon protesting Argentina, Australia, NZ, France, Canada etc agreeing to sell foods/ agricultural products to labeled "Red China". At the time "Red China" had population of about 800 million and was short of foods so sought to buy agricultural products from other countries. Nixon & gang switched attitude went to China met Mao so to get in on selling agricultural products. Of course, cuts went to the gang. FFWD to now labeled China has population of about 1.5 Trillion people and exports agricultural products around world. Besides becoming go-to manufacturing place by West and others. Go figure? But the politicians, financiers, bankers, etc stil in games big time profiting plus, plus on both-ends off deplorables no matter what country they are in.
I bought my land during the Government whole herd buy oiut program. Which was to do away with excess milk production. My land is in the new 4b growing area. Because of the short growing season, some years frost free only Memorial Day to Labor Day, corn varieties of the time wouln't mature enough for grain harvest. Corn was used for sileage. Growing beans was unheard of. So after dairy was gone, the land had little value except for hay. Good land was in the $300 acre range. Since then, genetics has developeed long day short season corn & bean varieties, Yields with the right growing conditions are excellent.
My dad drove a tractor to Washington DC and participated in the American Agricultural Movement tractorcade in 1979. While in DC he and other farmers met with, from what my dad described as a sort of clandestine group of people that spoke with them and told them that they respected what they were doing but that they would not achieve anything because that was not part of the plan that the elite had for America. They went further to explain that the long term strategy in place by the people that control the world included bankrupting and or simply driving the small family farm out of business and for large corporate farms to take their place. Their desire was to move people off the land into big cities where they would be easier to control. Most people in 1979 who heard this let in go in one ear and out the other but anyone with an ounce of common sense can take one look and tell you that everything has gone according to their plan.
On my rural route we were 23 family farm units in 1978 when I began farming 200 some acres of prime sandy loam tilled and irrigated ... In 2024 we are 3 left . I am the only family sized one my next door neighbor owns 3000 acres and the next neighbor 5 miles down the route 5000 acres . Yeah, it is changing and ... Land is so expensive whenever any comes on the market ... We bought a 6130R JD last year and paid more for one tractor than the farm and farmhouse in 81 . I do not know how it is going to end ... Really I don't . Later thanks for he clip ; It was good .
I lived this whole damn period in the prime of my life and it was a SOB! You can work your butt off but if the timing is wrong in the economic cycle you are just screwed. The comments about being smart and not spending money or buying land or machinery are Bullshit. As you can tell I am pretty angry but my wife and I work 10 years for absolutely nothing and her parents give up 1200 acres to boot.
I heard “You’re not working hard enough and so we’re going to go bankrupt and lose the farm because of you,” at 5 years old. Forced manual stoop field labor. Never paid. Not good times, no. Tell me, city folk, that you have it worse.
@@coloradobrad6779 me also,growing up on a small dairy farm ,never paid always helping ,but irecieved hot meal ,potatoes and vegetables , for free every day , so my childhood was GREAT.
You must roll back into the 70s when we were given a 10% Investment Credit on machinery purchases. This investment credit rate was a direct reduction of your tax liability by 10%. It was an incentive to build implement sales and it worked. I had a neighbor who was a seasoned second or maybe third generation farmer who completely changed the color of his machinery from red to green during the 70s. For the time of my being aware of what interest rates were, the pretty much standard interest rate on a machinery loan had been 8% for a long time. When Carter turned interest rates loose to seek their own level machinery note “floated” up to as much as 18 to as much as 22%. This was on an existing note that was initially an 8% note. That’s how farmers suddenly discovered one morning they were upside down and the banker showed up at your door with an auctioneer to line up your machinery for a sale. That neighbor eventually lost his “home place” even. I, I should say we, because without my wife working as an BSRN (nurse) in town, between the two of us and a banker that agreed that if I kept the interest paid up he’d extend the principal for me I got by without losing anything. It was a sad time. The situation became so severe that Hollywood got involved and a couple of movies were made about the farm families’ predicament. It even led to the actors, who weren’t farmers, were asked to testify before Congress! During the go-go 70s with the 10% Investment Credit, a generous depreciation schedule and raging inflation rates you could buy a new tractor, use it three years, the tractors still worth what you paid for it and you could trade it in on a new one! I did it! Twice!
For Dairy farms the end to the parity price support, Jan of 1981, was a major factor. I wrote a paper in college about this in the early 2000's. My parent's blamed Reagan but it was not his fault. I learned that there was so much overproduction in the Dairy industry that the government just couldn't sustain support payments any longer. When the government support ended, the price of milk suddenly dropped and then stagnated for 15 - 20 years.
Now were in the 2024 farming crisis. Im a 36 year old farmer here in ks and it hard to get out of bed every morning, its getting so bad. Thank god for my family.
If you have any intelligence run as fast as you can away from farming. Get a real job with benefits and take care of your family, farmers have 3 time the suicide rate of any group you do not want to be one.
It turned 90 percent of pasture and tillable acres back into woods up here in north east Minnesota. It didn’t help that the steel market crashed at the same time. Many families just got up and left.
From SE Texas: Was forced out in '81 3 banks and production credit office failed. Took several years to get back on track in Dad's cattle business in NM
I was only 10 years old in 1982 but I remember my dad sold his tobacco pounds a couple years before and was put it all into soybeans. He and our neighbor was in together. They had older equipment that had been paid for, for years. And price was near 12$ a bushel. It was like that for a few years in a row. In 1984 he got out of the beans and was getting ready to sink it in beef. We already had some beef, about 69 head but he was going in bigger. I remember the soybean price that year dropped to below 4$ a bushel. Or sonething like that. He was pretty smart when it came to farming. Unfortunately he passed away that year due to cancer at 49. But his insight was very good.
As I remember one factor that played a role was the European Union started to subsidize their grain exports which helped to further depress grain prices. The USA started their own program in the mid eighties called the Export Enhancement Program. Not sure how the American program helped farmers because it wasn’t paid directly to them.
Hey thanks for your post I find it very interesting. I'm South African and I didn't know about this one. I completed high school in 1980 and went on to do a 5 year apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic in the sugar industry in the hot low country in the northeast of Southern Africa. My father had a small vegetable and fruit farm where he grew oranges grapefruit and pecan nuts and kept his grocery store supplied with fresh vegetables all year round. I went on to a career in underground mining mostly because of the high pay but my heart and soul are always with my first love, farming ❤
Since the 1960's I have watched Small farms be replaced by industrial Farming Operations. The number of Farms to control with Ag Prices and expensive equipment, are simply profit producers. It began in 1967 when they stopped using the Railroads to sort and deliver Mail. That duty is a Constitutionally mandated issue, that appeared to destroy a lot of small Towns and take the Small Farmers with.
@@davehughesfarm7983 A Post Office will hold a town together longer than any Politician can. I hauled Can Milk in 1969. That seems to be a vanished Art? The last few Milk Producers in our Valley, are served by an A- train. The last surviving Farmer who turns out His Cows, charges a lot for Milk. But remains popular. The Subdivisions use up the Water faster than the Politicians drink the Cash.
I was a young kid in the 80's. Life was hard. Our small farm never really flourished as every nickel went to mortgage and bills. Kind of like the 30's just with more modern stuff. Dairy cows got sold in 95, and got into beef just in time for BSE. I never really recovered. Still live below the poverty line and farming with horses and junk on poor rented land. There is no thanks from anyone, least of all the gov't.
One thing you forgot to mention, was the grain embargo that Jimmy Carter put on exports of soy beans. In 1979 in 1980 soy beans were 7 to 8 dollars a bushel. After he establish the grain embargo that put the price of soybeans per bushel in the tank and destroyed, lots of farmers. It was a bad decision for Jimmy Carter.
On a different note as I watched your video. I saw many of the old farm equipment catalogs my grandfather picked up at the dealerships for my cousin and I.
Yep. Busted our ass in the 80’s trying to make it on $3 corn and $5 beans all the while paying 14% interest on money. Finally through in the towel, sold the land and have never looked back!
Most of this is true.. alot of the bigger farms you see today are a result of having debts erased and able to "play the game" . Not alot of honest farmers came out ahead durring the crisis. But guys that could rob Peter and file bankruptcy on pual did pretty well
If you were borrowing money to expand the farm from 1978 to 1994 you were in trouble. Crop prices were one third the price. Just like now over the last 18 months things have tripled in price for the consumer. Try the opposite fot the producer, drop their pay by two thirds and if your in debt you weren't making it. Those not it debt still had to get a small side job just to keep farm going, unless they had thousands of dollars in family money in the bank, or wife went out and became a nurse bringing in &50,000 a year, tough times.
I did too in my earlt teens..Sad Sad stuff...I was center of attention at one when Dad sold the 4440 JD..Brother and I were in the paper sitting in the dual at auction.
Farming commodity prices are garbage now. Buying at retail, selling at wholesale. I heard last year only 13% of the farm land in iowa is paid off. Everyone wants 200-300 bushels per acre, what we forget is the more we produce the less its worth. We farm too good.
No 99 cent corn and 3 dollar beans. With farmers that did not believe in government handouts and a country that was importing grain from South America that the taxpayers paid to plant. My dad and plenty of farmers I grew up died from the stress of 99 cent corn and 3 dollar beans.
''Most of the great problems we face (were &) are caused by politicians, bureaucrats, financiers, elites, bankers, pharma, MIC, big-agri, big-bus, msm, and kindred.....; creating solutions to problems they created in the first place." - Walter E. Williams
Nixon opened up the farming with China. To help out this crisis. I wanted to farm but my uncles said there is no money. Soil bank come to and end. Farm fields stayed producing more. And big money got involved. Farm machinery show in Louisville Kentucky. Shows at lot. First time I was at the show was in 1978. 2 nd time. 2024. Big difference. In the industry. Now China has stopped buying grain from US. What will the end result. Later.
In Canada it was Trudeaus liberal government and the 19 % interest rates. Thank god my mother worked in a bank in younger years and knew how to manage money and we survived after buying the farm in 1979 . God bless all
It's a decent attempt at a video. You need to actually include something interesting. What you covered factually is not wrong but you need to do a lot more research before you make a video like this. You are treating the topic like it was just a macro movement, conditions changed and all went to shits. Which, while being true, is not really particularly informative. There are a lot of shady buisness practices on the part of banks to explore. Legislation intended to aid (if by force) agglomeration of farms. Last but not least, this was very intense for a lot of people. Skyrocketing suicide rates and economic depression in some areas that haven't yet come to an end. Also, normally I wouldn't write a comment like this but since these issues are current right with huge problems for a lot of farmers all over the world. You will have viewers who are looking for answers, living a farming collapse again. Do them justice, put in the work.
I agree with you, definitely would have been a lot better video to go in depth with but i was trying to make this video for people that haven't ever been involved in farming and possibly never heard of the crash in the 80s. Thanks for the feedback and watching.
Nobody ever addresses that over production plays a major role in commodity pricing! Roosevelt new this hence is crp program in the new deal! It's simple economics supply and demand! More is not always better but farmer's always think more harvest more money not the case!
Too many big & centralized buyers of those commodities & products. Big business processors, like dairy, feedlots, etc LOVE all the govt regulation. They even help Congress write the laws. Intent is to stack on so many regs & requirements so that no new entrants into the mkt come online & compete against entrenched big biz.....AKA "regulatory capture". Ask who & why smaller local slaughterhouses shut down...ask why so few cheese processors now.....ask why such vertical integration of broilers & hogs...all the "big guys" in those endeavors co-write the costly regulations
We want producers to be prosperous but, not at the soil, water, and wild resources expanse. If we’re gonna ask farmers to steward the land, we all need to help cover this cost.
Now we got all these experts running around like chip flory telling us our yields in july, august before the crop is even in the bin. He should go count JD tractors or Winnebago motor homes coming out of the back door of the factories.
@@willbass2869 The Reagan tax cuts stimulated the economy and the Fed did not intervene as the economy superheated. The farm crisis was simply bad monetary policy based upon "trickle down" economics. The billionaires of today and their inherited wealth started their journey at that point in time.
@@GeigerFarm "fed didn't intervene" What kind of id!it are you? Paul Volker jacked up fed rates so high that interest rates got up close to or at 20% in an attempt to kill Carter's inflation. What f'n-planet are you from? This is like the most well documented text book case of how to stop inflation Gtfoh
I lived it. The board of trade, Cargill, Indiana grain and the politicians made the money. Now lets talk giving the steel industry to Japan and South Korea. Wasn't it Ronalds Reagan's speech with don Regan on the white house lawn. Im going to make this a service county. Manpower temporary service became the number one employer.. yes lets blame the farmer. Shall we.
Several things: Carter grain embargo of 1980; all medium term loans were not at fixed interest rates which went from 6% to 20%; bigger, more expensive equipment meant farming more acres to pay for it which caused land prices to rise unsustainably; then the droughts of '83 and '88. I started farming in '83 and still at it 41 years later. However, it was much easier for a beginning farmer to make it then than it is today.
“Banks lending money like candy” dident the do the same thing all over again in the 2000s, Iend money for over priced houses, then the housing market collapsed, and some one that borrowed 1 million for a house, a few years later, worth only $540 thousand? Mortgage was for more than the house was worth, same thing happened in farming.
The choice of video clips and images is a complete joke. The narration is also leaves quite a bit to be desired, not to mention the mispeak on several words. Is there anyone reviewing these videos and their content, before they are published? It seems quite AI driven. I will not subscribe any longer.
