I myself do not farm/ranch but my family does. My parents still farm/ranch, and my younger brother does so full time, and my older brother does part time. ( I purposefully put myself in the medical field because I know how much a 24/7 job farming/ranching is!!!) So I can't speak some details but instead generalities.

Overall, my family is extremely happy with what Trump is doing. Yes, the tariffs hurt in the short term but they are looking ahead to the long term. In the end, it should help famers to get paid more. It's sad if you think about it. The price for a bushel of grain has hardly changed in 50+ years. Farmers are forced to farm more land in order to stay in business, which is why you see small family farms selling out to corporations. You just can't stay small anymore if you want to make ends meet.

Farming has overall sucked in 2019 (excuse my language). We had no spring with lots of late snow and barely got the crops in. Then it did nothing but rain this fall and couldn't get all the crops harvested. My family was lucky that the small grains got done (flax, wheat, etc) but just ran out of time to get the corn off so it's still standing. This is the WORST YEAR my dad has ever remembered for farming, just dealing with the weather.  Even those that did get the corn out of the field, you couldn't take it to the elevator because the moisture was too high. (and how do you dry corn that is FROZEN?) Of course, the weather has nothing to do with Trump. I was chatting with my brother how he had to remove the header from the combine three times on one field, just to get some of the MUD off that was caking up and clogging it. This shouldn't happen in harvest season. Just frustrating.

Hay crop was good this year for the cattle (if you could get it baled up in-between the rain). Corn prices I believe are still down and often times then the cattle prices are down.

Either that or you are cooler online.  

The last few years have really changed how our marketers have approached their daily advice and commentary. We deal in wheat and corn for export, domestic feed and mills. I was actually just talking to my boss about this last week. He has been merchandising grain for close to 40 years and said before it was fairly predictable as far as watching the weather and disasters around the world. Now the trade wars have made it really hard to guess if we will be up 2,5,20 or down 30 just in the course of a trading session.

I would say that the vast majority of our producers are very much in support of President Trump's approach to the trade situations. Most have positioned themselves coming off the 2007-2012 prices to weather the downturn of the effects from the trade wars and are looking at the long term results of these trade deals. The agreements we made many years ago no longer benefit us and have needed to be revisted for a while now. Our bank does a fabulous job of getting some very intelligent and entertaining speakers on Ag Econ. One of my favorites has been Dr Dave Kohl. He puts out a weekly blog (not sure that is the appropirate name for it) but they are always an interesting read I think its called the Ag Globe Trotter. Another one who does a great job is Peter Zeihan, he actually has a few books out available on Amazon. I heard him speak at a conference last month and while some of his points were a bit dark overall he paints a pretty promising picture for the future of Ag revolving around the demographic and geopolitic changes both our partners and rivals will be facing in the near future. Interesting topic, will be fun to follow along with this discussion  

I guess it's a good thing your dad owns the bank. 

Huh?

That's what I think as well.  It took a lot of guts to tackle the China trade imbalance.  He knew there would be some serious fallout from this, at least in the short term.  

I'm still interested in hearing opinions on what, exactly, politicians should do to stabilize the farming and ranching economy.  Should they do less (ie: hands off) or more?  In the latter case, what can/should be done?  Has government been too meddlesome?  Ethanol is one example of government muddying up the water.
It seems to me that if ethanol had economic merit, no government assistance would be needed. Investors would pour money into the ethanol business and profits would be made, even as alcohol displaced oil in the markets for liquid fuels.  This seems to be a policy motivated by demagoguery and politics, rather than sound fiscal policy. If ethanol lacks economic merit, however, no amount of subsidy is likely to provide it. And now we are stuck with it, because any politician is committing political suicide if he/she suggests phasing this out.  This is the brainchild of the climate change hysteria.  Like Reagan said, "The closest thing to infinity on earth is a government program."

Ethanol subsidies are here to stay, and this is an excellent example to illustrate our increasingly bloated deficits....one of many such examples.  This is what happens when politicians try to create a hybrid form of economy...Statism and free market capitalism.  

dang!!!! Why so mean!!!!!

Interesting topic. I come from a farming background and work as a crop insurance adjuster. It has been challenging for farmers for several years. I think there are several different factors- some that the government affects, and others that it has nothing to do with. 

My thoughts in no particular order

1) Tariffs - yes its hurting them. But farmers understand cycles and swings better than any other part of the population. They look to the long haul and will weather short term swings. The subsidy money is a god send right now. Its helping the ones that are good managers already. Those that aren't good managers were already on the downhill spiral. Overall, there still seems to be major support for Trump. They believe that he is trying to work for them for the long term.

2) Many farmers have gotten away from the lessons they learned in the 80s. You can google “farming in the 80s” to get an idea of what was going on to create that storm. Some of the same factors are happening again. Then it was Jimmy Carter's Russian Grain Embargo coupled with lots of banks calling in loans - So many farmers today are running on borrowed money and the banks keep giving it to them. Many are just a bad year away from going under.

3) Technology.  Farmers are on a treadmill of technology. New seed genetics keep upping the amount of production from the same acreage- causing a surplus in product- and thusly a drop in prices. Farmers need more acreage to keep the same income at lower prices. Gone are the days when a small farm can support the family. If the farmers that are farming less than 1000 acres aren’t diversifying with other forms of income (poultry, cattle, outside jobs) - they are just scraping by. Larger acreage demands larger equipment. Implement prices are ridiculous. More technology in equipment costs more money. Land is high. Seed, fertilizer, chemicals keep going up – all the while grain prices keep going down. Farmers have to be exceptional managers and marketers to make it these days.

4) Weather   I’m not getting into global warming or anything like that. But the weather patterns are changing. There are more and more incidents across the US of bad farming conditions. It used to be that the crop insurance industry would have a busy year every now and then – but some slow ones too where conditions were good for farming. Now, there is no down time. I’ve worked more claims in the last 3 years than I have in the previous 10 years combined. This is true across the US.

I don’t know the answers. Hopefully, more markets can be opened up to create a demand again and keep the price steady. If they don’t, the farmers, and thusly the US, will be in a world of hurt.

Thanks for your input.  That helps a lot.  I agree with most of what you said.  I'm still looking for some answers regarding the role of government, outside of dealing with trade imbalances.  I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head when you suggest that successful farming today requires more acreage, more science, and more technology, combined with savvy.  That's just a harsh reality.  It boils down to intense competition, when you think about it. 
As to the climate, we haven't seen anything that compares to the infamous "dust bowl" of the 1930's. Many areas had as much as 8 years of extreme drought.  We haven't seen that kind of "climate change" in our lifetimes. Back then, there was no crop insurance.  I can't even imagine.

This really spoiled a lot of cattle ranchers. When the price of cattle leveled out all you could hear was cattle aren't worth anything, even though when the market went back down it was still higher than it had been before.

So true. They still complain. We saw a few go under too. They went out and bought things they didn't need. Ranches that had been in the family for generations went under years later from bad business practices. 

I just now saw this, haven't signed on in a while.

Re:  trade war support.  
I tend to believe (from what I know) that it could have been handled differently in the beginning.  Rather than jumping straight into a tit for tat trade war, IMO we should have waited for the results of our WTO case against China, which we won.  That would have been an excellent jumping off point if we had just waited a bit longer.  That said, something absolutely needed to be done about China.  We had been told by politicians for years that China was too big to stand up to so we just had to take whatever BS they threw at us (like defaulting on contracts because they didn't like the price).   This is why you see so much Trump support among farmers--we were very aware of the problem and most are glad it's being addressed even if we question the methods.

Those MFP (market facilitation program) payments have saved a lot of our asses.  It's a big part of why we have a little money in the bank right now to get by until our 2020 operating loan is approved.  Because of the way the averages are figured for ARC/PLC payments, most program payments are down from where they were when the markets first nosedived.  We got a decent cotton PLC payment this year from 2018, the first year cotton has been a program crop since 2013 and also the first year seed cotton was included instead of just lint.

Had we rather have good markets or government subsidies?  Is that a rhetorical question?  

The ethanol subsidies were abandoned several years ago and as far as I know haven't been reinstated, but the RFS mandate is still in place.  We run a soy diesel blend in our farm equipment and pickups.  It's not only cheaper, the engines run better and cleaner on it with no mpg penalty.  Cold weather gelling is the only downside.  As for ethanol, it can actually raise the octane level of lower quality gasoline.  It does attract moisture which can be a problem in small engines, but there are ways to manage that, like using SeaFoam.

Good years?  We thrived 2012-2014.  The markets started falling off pretty badly in 14, but we had forward contracted most of the crop when prices were higher so it was still a great year for us.   There were some local guys who couldn't pay out at the bank that year, but I'm going to blame that on management.  The driver behind that price runup was the major drought in the midwest, but we also had strong exports in that time period because the dollar was weaker.  Not only is the ag economy cyclical, it tends to run counter-cyclical to the general economy.

tl;dr version

Yes, farmers mostly support Trump and what he's trying to do.  Yes, we're hurting, but we were already hurting.  Government programs are helping keep our heads above water, the safety net is working, but strong markets would be vastly preferable.  The fact that China lost a large percent of their swine herd at the same time the trade war kicked up was hugely unfortunate for us and likely helped prolong this deal, but hopefully it will be resolved ASAP.

Bear - my opinion and mine only - the less government would stay out of the markets - perhaps better.  so much of the highs and lows are determined on market

reports,  the stock market, USDA market reports weekly and quarterly.    I feel some of this is manipulated by the gov't on prices.  Cattle prices when steers

were brining 1200 -1500 head was good on the selling end, sucked if you were the buyer or didn't have a good protection.  Personnally, I wish the gov't would

stay out of marketing which they do a point in the livestock market.  We don't have subsidies as the crop producer, so as a double edge sword, those subsidies can be good or bad.  And as a poster commented, Crop insurance adjustors are working more due to weather extremes.   I also agree with another, we have not learned

the lessons of the "dust bowl" era.  We have more and more producers, requesting to breaking out beautiful pristine native meadows to be torn up to plant more row crops.  Those hay meadows will never be replaced,   so we keep breaking out ground to produce more  to pay for the high $$ equipment, cover our overhead costs, and

as I said early it all goes back to supply/demand.   We have the most efficient producers in the world,  and we produce a surplus of commodities. 

Giving this a bump back up since its a intersting read.

this would be a great idea if you could convince the rest of the world to do the same. 


Want to see American farmers and ranchers go out of biz quick? 

Stop protecting them from foreign competition that is gov. supported. 

i head chuck bad mouthing  this trade argreement say how little or no good it was doing and last night in the debates shees  they all thought the tarriffs and such were terrible and saying how bad they are  

i read on here that most of the one that do farm and ranch are good with it

also my thought on corn based fuel is ethanol  is why ? and my own belief that its run the cost of feed up  i may be showing my ignorance but  i trust you guys and gals won/t call me stupid

No one has brought up interest rates ..... Yes, larger operations have more input and acres to break even, however almost all farmers utilize some form of bank payment - operating notes, land loans, equipment loans, etc.  When the fed increases the interest rates, the bottom line gets chopped as well. Think the 80s farm crisis if you need examples. 

We run a smaller operation for our area of KS - diversified with livestock, hay, and row crops.  We're building and thankfully are set up pretty well to do so.  The lean years in the past, always revolved around high interest rates and terrible weather.  BUT, that terrible weather can also be beneficial depending on the area it happens - snow storms wipeing out cattle populations in the north drove cattle prices higher (believe it was around 2014/15) which benefitted some stockers and cow/calf operations in the south when the packers still needed numbers. 

Similarly, watching trends - when the government protects its producers on a global scale, we do better. Trump and his trade war are setting us up to be able to market to China - so we don't have a previous situation like the recent soybeans and South America driving us from $11 beans to $8 or less at some points.  

Viruses and disease also play a major roll - right now its ASF allowing us to export more pork while the Asian markets can't keep up with the demand.  Anyone remember the Foot and Mouth outbreaks back in the early 2000s? Beef exports also went up because of demand for product that wasn't available. 

Anyone looking for really good information on market trends of the past can look at the USDA Stats Reports - Economic Research Service doesn't predict, they only report what happened and how much was in trade - Foreign Ag Service has open reports for trade as well. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-international-trade-data/ 

For those interested in COOL - the Capital Press had a great article explaining its current state - https://www.capitalpress.com/ag_sectors/livestock/country-of-origin-labeling-resurfaces-in-senate/article_591b2e84-fce1-11e9-97f7-9f7f814b3361.html 

So, since this thread started, what is the consensus on the recently signed "Phase 1" trade deal with China?

We have cattle and have had for many years and we also raise barrel horses.  So much of the farming depends on mother nature...rain, drought, fire.  Several years ago when we had the drought we had to sell off over a third of the cattle just so we could feed the others.  We had to buy hay at a very high cost....many price gougers out there.  Then we prayed we could make hay the following year.  We still to this day have not been able to fill all of our hay barns.

We totally support our President on the trade deals.  If the President didn't work on the one sided trade deals we would soon all suffer.  

Hopeful but still waiting to see something positive at the CBOT.  The only sign I've seen so far is Bunge is offering even basis on soybeans and +.08 on corn right now. That means they aren't charging us for transport of beans and are offering a premium on corn, which means they're trying to buy acres to make sure their expected sales are covered. But the futures market is still wobbling around on the low side for now.  Same for cotton, we are being told it's going to come up, but are still waiting.