Should Farmers Make A Profit?

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 27 December 2024…

Hey Y’all!

Good afternoon and happy Fast-jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms!  The fast jet today is the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle flying low in Wales with sheep grazing in their stone-fenced pastures in the background.  Today is our youngest daughter, Makaylah’s, birthday.  Happy 13th birthday, Makaylah!  The weather is soggy but not frozen.  It’s hanging out in the 40s-50s and switching from raining to foggy with drizzle.  EVERYTHING is muddy and soggy.  The animals are all doing very well.  The top pic is the group of 28 feeder pigs enjoying new feeders that my dad put together and fresh forrest ground.  The following one is a shot of them enjoying a new bale of hay.  They burrow into the hay and turn it into a nest and then all pile up to stay warm.  The next two pics you can see them rooting the acorns from under the leaves. The group of 6 bigger feeder hogs are also doing well and will go to the processor in a few weeks.  The next pic is of the new beef calf I introduced last week.  I now know it is a heifer calf and has a white belly and tail to go along with the white dash across its forehead.  She is doing well and is keeping up with the herd.  We made the decision that we were not going to keep a Jersey bull for breeding purposes so we castrated and ear-tagged Griz (our Jersey bull calf) this week.  He hasn’t been in the best of moods since but is doing well nonetheless.  He’ll be back to his normal self in no time and we won’t have to worry about the inevitable transition that dairy bulls undergo when they reach sexual maturity.  They morph from gentle pets into aggressive giants seemingly overnight when testosterone reaches its peak.  They are commonly referred to as the most dangerous animals on any farm and we just don’t need that around here.  So, Griz will continue to grow until he goes into our freezer and we will continue to breed our dairy cows to our gentle beef bull.  Air2Ground Meats continues to do well also!  We are consistently amazed at the support we receive from our local community for our meat store.  We are currently sold out of ground beef and bacon, two of the staples of the store, until the second week of January and we are sold out of chicken breast and whole chicken until May!  Given the absence of a year-round farmer’s market in Ava, the store is the key to making the farm profitable.

Are farmers allowed to make a profit?  Almost 75% of small farms operate in the less than 10% profit margin category.  That is an important data point because in the less than 10% profit category, farm businesses are at high risk of failure.  I’ve mentioned before that over 80% of small farmers have an off-farm job and that is the only way the farm stays open because the farm business is operating at such a low profit point--less than 10%.  Notice I said farm business and I did NOT say farm non-profit organization?  We had a comment on one of our podcasts that stated: “Your local farmer wants $38 for a cut chicken.  This is why buy local is a load of crap.  Farmers need to be fair and not try to get rich off everything they sell.  This is the reason I will never buy local.  Based on prices, and what you get in return, local farmers hate your and my guts.”  We appreciated the comment and replied thanking them for taking the time to provide such a thought-provoking comment.  Nevertheless, it reignited a conversation we have been having over the past 3 1/2 years of doing this farming gig.  For many the thought process goes like this—food is a basic human necessity, therefore food should be cheap and readily available, therefore farmers are responsible to make it cheap and available, therefore farmers should not make a profit off of providing food which is a basic human necessity.  That, however; is not the way keep a business going.  We often hear about how the average age of farmers increases every year and is now over 58.  A thriving industry should have an average age of less than 35.  Somehow we need to overcome this conundrum.  If farming continues to be a stressful, barely hanging on due to a thin profit margin, physically demanding, no-time-off, demonized for attempting to make a profit industry, the small farmer will slowly die off and we will be left with the industrialized food system the government wants us in. Thus, I ask again, should farmers make a profit?

Should farming be profitable is the topic of this weeks Dust’er Mud Podcast which I hope to get edited and posted later today.  Subscribe to the Dust’er Mud Podcast channel, turn on notifications, and you will be the first to know when it’s up and ready!  https://www.youtube.com/@DusterMudPodcast

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley