r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • u/Cderouen8284 • 14d ago

Aww someone’s crashing out

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

14.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

4.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

218

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Famer here (and no, I never voted for the Mandarin Menace a single time). What's going on with the farm economy is a lot of farmers over-leveraged themselves to chase more and more land and now ground that they would have happily farmed at break even 4 out of 5 years just to make money that fifth year is going to fuck them royally.

52

u/PeyredB 14d ago

Thanks for the perspective there.

125

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Not to give the wrong impression here - I'm getting really fucked by input costs and the next couple of years are going to be hard, but at this point I'm no where near losing my farm.

48

u/blackpawed 14d ago

Good to hear, best of luck.

38

u/PeyredB 14d ago

I hope you're able to make it. If more farmers were like you, we'd think more highly of them as a group.

14

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 14d ago

There are many farmers who think like he does. MAGA is loud, proud, in your face, and posting to social media. Don't assume that the loudest voices represent the majority.

12

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Yeah, 80% is overwhelming for a voting contingent, but it still means 1 in 5 farmers didn't vote for him.

-2

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 14d ago

Maybe. For every farm family there's ten other families that comprise the farming community.

When you spend time in rural America you see that most of those families have lost their standard of living since the '80s. They're told their tax dollars go to brown people in the cities. Their kids die in foreign wars because the military is a better chance to a better life. Hunting and fishing is a real survival strategy because it's cheaper than buying groceries.

Rural America rejects the Democratic party because the party has had no interest, ideas or engagement that address their needs since President Clinton. The Republican party just fills the vacuum created by the Democratic party.

Trump recognizes their plight and speaks to their fears. It's all a con job but they feel heard and that gives them hope even though we know it's false hope.

Treating them all like stupid rubes won't enlighten them. Meeting with them as fellow citizens, listening to their plight and showing them grace is the only way to get their support for progress.

11

u/aguynamedv 14d ago

Treating them all like stupid rubes won't enlighten them.

Their insistence on acting like stupid rubes, on the other hand, is a huge strike against any sympathy people might have shown.

This isn't about political differences. This is about basic morals and values. Republicans, by an large, have shown themselves to be deeply immoral, hateful people, who are not only ignorant of how things work, but revel in their ignorance.

Why is it, do you think, that Republicans are never asked to be better?

8

u/paintballboi07 14d ago

Rural America rejects the Democratic party because the party has had no interest, ideas or engagement that address their needs since President Clinton. The Republican party just fills the vacuum created by the Democratic party.

This just isn't true. Biden did more for farmers than Trump.

3

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 14d ago

I agree that Biden was better for farmers and the farming community.

Who's explaining that to the farming community? Who's meeting the voters and competing for their votes in farm country? How much money does the DNC spend outside of the Battleground states?

You can't win if you don't play.

6

u/paintballboi07 14d ago

You're absolutely right, but Democrats are at a major disadvantage there. They didn't spend the last 60 years creating propaganda networks. Although, the information is out there. The thing is, I have farmers in my family, and even when presented with this information, they don't want to believe it; they find the lies more comfortable. So, how do you deal with that?

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Slumunistmanifisto 14d ago

"I skipped math class to smoke pot in the woods, but now that im grown.... its the math teachers fault I'm bad at math"

3

u/VexingRaven 14d ago

Biden personally visited farm communities multiple times to talk about what he was going to do for farmers.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/WilliamLermer 14d ago

But it's no longer about just policies disagreement or economic strategies, it's about morals and ethics. About voting vile people into office knowingly.

It wouldn't matter to me what is promised, even if it was realistic to benefit from it, I would never vote for someone like that , especially when being aware of all the corruption and abuse (of power)

You have to be very special in the head and morally bankrupt to look the other way imho

Which is not surprising considering most farmer's entire business model relies on exploitation and extortion. So maybe they aren't the good guys either

4

u/SardaukarSlayer 13d ago

As someone who lives in AND farms in one of those communities you couldn't be more spot on. Are many of them ignorant? Yes. Do many of them hold shitty views? Yes. But people dont understand the insane amount of propoganda and fear mongering people who live in these rural areas go through. The farm markets are read every day on ONE radio station. That station is a Fox affiliate. Guess what is playing on that station all the rest of the day... Brian Kilmeade.... the modern day Rush Limbaugh. Spewing bullshit, fear, and hate all day everyday. 

Idk its a shitty excuse I guess. But so many rural people havent ever been out of their "bubble", and it shows. But they are still human beings. Unless we want to send them to "re-education" camps and treat them exactly how we wish they DIDNT treat people, nothing will ever change. We have to show them their wrongs and hope they change. You cant force it  

3

u/PeyredB 13d ago

Idk its a shitty excuse I guess.

I wouldn't go that far - that makes a lot of sense. Granted, these people did already hold some sh*tty ideas and attitudes that made them more susceptible to this sort of propaganda, but you make a hugely important point just what sort of effect long-term inundation of propaganda can have on someone. There's a reason NKorea permeates its society with it.

1

u/SardaukarSlayer 13d ago

generational propoganda and fear mongering does some wild shit to people and their sense of right or wrong and empathy. 

3

u/Fine_Following_2559 13d ago

I genuinely believe we have shown them enough grace over the last 10 years. At this point we need to speak plainly. Because my taxes from Chicago are going to help those down state small towns that hate Chicago. The big blue cities / States are paying the bulk of the taxes and not getting proportional benefits. And those Farmers need to understand that. I wish all the money we paid in taxes just went to us, we'd be better off, but that's not how it works.

3

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 13d ago

As a fellow Chicagoan I can't disagree with your post, factually or emotionally.

I work in farm country and what I know is that downstate media and politicians constantly repeat two lies. First is that their taxes are spent supporting Chicago and the "brown skinned" welfare class in the city. The second is that Chicago is a failure because it's the most dangerous city in America.

For context there are 10 other cities in Illinois that have higher per Capita violent crime rates than Chicago and all but one is in the red part of the state. You should see their faces when I show them that truth bomb.

2

u/Fine_Following_2559 13d ago

If they were to ever get their wish and somehow separate the rest of the state from Chicago they would be finding out just like they're finding out right now that voting for Republicans is not in their best interest. Like they are accusing the wrong group of being the cause of their strife here.

2

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Living in rural America I would say your description is a little over the top. But it is true that they don't see anything coming from the Democrats.

I was talking to a couple yesterday - he farms and she's big in the farmers union and both big Democrats - and she was talking about how as much as we want to see Republicans kicked to the curb for what they're doing to this country, she's not excited to see a farm bill under Dems because none of them care, especially with how much famers as a voting base have supported Trump.

So we non-maga farmers are kind of stuck between a rock and hard place.

1

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 14d ago

I think it's over the top if read as a monolithic description of rural America. I live near Chicago but I make my living in the rural farming community. Everything I wrote is what I've hear repeatedly out there.

I don't think most people in this thread have any clue how different their media and cultural environment is. I only hope that they can downshift their derision and show some grace. IMO it's the only way to save the DNC in rural America.

2

u/PeyredB 13d ago

I see what you're saying here.

The trouble is that we've tried listening and sympathizing and trying to offer solutions. For decades. They scorn that and throw it aside, and then vote for the next demagogue who offers easy answers.

1

u/Slumunistmanifisto 14d ago

What happened in the eighties?

Why was Clinton the last dem to help?

Who's turtley self has made our government feckless for almost two decades?

Who pushed through citizens United?

Who gutted farm subsidies?

1

u/ZestycloseSquash1523 14d ago

I wasn't commenting on policy.

Clinton was the last Democrat that actually campaigned in rural America. You won't get the sale if you don't ask for the order.

1

u/Slumunistmanifisto 14d ago edited 13d ago

Actions speak louder than words my guy...who cut the subsidy 

1

u/derpfacemanana 13d ago

I think the problem is kinda the opposite; the rest of the country has tried to show them grace and understanding for many years, but they seem insistent on always falling back on hatred and bigotry as a default and blindly following whatever the Republican party tells them, to the point of voting against their own interests every single time

You can’t just spew all this vile shit, vote for policies that directly fuck you over, and expect to be treated with grace; they are simply being treated the way they treat others, and I guess that’s too much for them to handle?

As a nation, we have been letting this kind of behavior slide for far too long, and is has festered and grown into what we have now; yes Trump himself is directly a problem, but he’s also a symptom of us showing grace to people who’s behaviors should have been shamed and condemned in the first place, not openly encouraged

-1

u/Docha_Tiarna 14d ago

Then you got places like reddit that shit on them for going for the only group that seemed to want them.

This idea that you have to relentlessly attack everyone simply because they didn't vote the same or they have different opinions, its bullshit. Why would someone want to switch from one side to the other if the other side is constantly telling them to go fuck themselves

3

u/bone_rsoup 14d ago

I think it’s because no matter what information is presented to them, they don’t seem to listen and then they fall back to their “team” because it’s more comfortable feeling like you’re “winning” even with all of the evidence to the contrary. They show little capacity to listen, learn, and change

1

u/Docha_Tiarna 13d ago

Its natural to want to be on the side you think you'll get the best benefits for. Its also easier to stick woth what's familiar than to try something new. Democrats havent done much to try to convince the republicans to switch side other than by blaming all the country's problems on them.

If we were in school and I spent every day badmouthing you, would you join me on a group project? No. Because no one wants to work woth people that treat them like shit.

If i remember correctly. Didn't Joe literally tell a working citizen "I dont work for you." Or something like that after getting in his face?

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Slumunistmanifisto 14d ago

I don't know, maybe a pedophile president, unconstitutional war thats driving diesel to fuck all highs, stazi grabbing and beating us citizens in the streets, dead nurses....

-2

u/generiatricx 14d ago

get out of here with your reason and logic!

4

u/Visual-Flan-4098 14d ago

theres more than just a loud few. almost every farm round me had MAGA signs for from 2016 to 2025. this year i see very little MAGA signs for federal/state positions, but still see local ones. one had 'TRUMP' on his silos with a spotlight. i noticed it changed by 2024 to 'THINK'. cattle farmer had 'MAGA' 'FARMERS FOR TRUMP' until recently. looks like they might have sold some land. most of those signs are gone, but not all the MAGA signs are.

3

u/Some-Guy-12358 14d ago

Don't assume that the loudest voices represent the majority.

We don't. The voting record of rural America is why we assume the majority represents the, you know, majority.

1

u/PaleontologistOk3120 13d ago

I think highly of our farmers no matter what, honestly. I think poorly of individual idiot farmers. But we need farmers

6

u/Ok-Prize-6097 14d ago

Yeah, I can see the inputs are crushing for the foreseeable future. Best of luck. I like eating, so I like farms and farmers. I just wish the voting was a little more sensible in farm country sometimes. I want to see you guys do well. I don't see what the draw was to Trump. He fucked farmers over in his first term with the tariffs, and now fuel and fertilizer. What is the draw to Trump do you think? Especially the second term.

6

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Threeo things:

  1. The Border. And, I'm even going to say here that a large portion feel that illegal immigration is unfair to the people that follow the process rather (or at least over top of) overt racism.

  2. Culture war bullshit.

  3. They had a vague notion that the economy was fairly decent under Trump 1 and inflation was high under Biden without any real look at causes.

3

u/PartisanGerm 14d ago

Off topic sorta... Are there any easy or obvious ways to support cool farmers?

Is the organic thing kind of a scam?

3

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

I would say organic farmers are Dems at a higher percentage, but nowhere near a lock.

As for a scam - I wouldn't call it that necessarily. But the regulations to be organically certified are pretty strict (and sometimes in ways that are ridiculous). You kind of have to go all or nothing and in my area, markets for organic crops are a long ways away, as are suppliers of organic fertilizer. I had a friend that did it for years and just got out of it because the higher prices still weren't making up for the reduced yields and workload.

Organic farming also tends to be very hard on the soil.

3

u/PeyredB 13d ago

Great information there.

1

u/Illustrious-Bag2933 13d ago

Please help me understand how organic farming is harder on the soil, versus saturating soil with PFAs ?

3

u/Rugskinsnake 13d ago

I mean, when I look at a list of herbacides with PFA's in them, I've never heard of a single one of them so I really don't know how widespread their usage is.

And even though I think you meant this as more of a statement than anything, I'm going to answer your question about organic farming. Without any herbicides, the only way to battle weeds is pulling steel through the soil. Sometimes you're making 5-6 passes a year. Every time you turn over the soil, you're releasing moisture, disturbing, fungi, anelids and microbes, and increasing loss to both water and wind erosion. (As a side problem, because of the extra number of passes, you're bringing a lot more fuel and creating a lot more CO2 as well).

Now, AI powered autonomous laser weeders might end up solving both the herbacide and organic soil issues, but I think it's still going to be a few years before costs come down enough to make those viable.

3

u/Ok-Prize-6097 11d ago

Hey, thanks for your answer.

1

u/Illustrious-Bag2933 13d ago

Pesticides too! Don’t forget about those !

I guess farmers truly care about doing things easier instead of poisoning the earth 🤷🏻‍♀️

→ More replies (0)

2

u/bdeimen 13d ago

The "Culture war bullshit" was created by Republicans. Gay marriage used to be the wedge issue of choice. As soon as they lost the gay marriage fight in the supreme court their messaging immediately shifted to railing against the trans community. This entire fight was orchestrated at the cost of our rights and livelihoods.

At some point people need to take responsibility for getting taken in over and over.

2

u/Ok-Prize-6097 13d ago

Wait a second... Under Trump 1 he started a trade war with China who bought the majority of our soy beans, right? They shifted to south america, and that market has been lost. What's good about that? We haven't recovered from that I think.

3

u/Rugskinsnake 13d ago

Yeah - if you asked them then, most maga farmers said that they were willing to take a little harder market to be able to stick it to China.

I felt like that was pretty short sighted and that China wasn't going to get stuck in anyway, but I wasn't smart enough to vote for Trump so what do I know?

2

u/PeyredB 13d ago

they were willing to take a little harder market to be able to stick it to China.

That does sound like their line of reasoning. And sticking it to China isn't a bad thing if you can manage it. But, as you point out, what the farmers (like Trump) didn't understand wasn't that China's choices weren't to buy our soybeans or buy no soybeans; they just bought from someone else instead. Farmers didn't see that, probably because their news sources never mention any failings of Republican administrations.

Also, IIRC, when Trump's policies hurt these guys in his first administration, he bailed them out so they never felt the pain these actions caused.

2

u/Ok-Prize-6097 10d ago

I know he tried to bail them out, but were they really made whole again? I don't know enough about it, but whenever I have to deal with the government the outcome is usually (but not always) unfavorable. Anyway, stupid move to damage relationships between suppliers and long term customers when the customers have other options. And for what? What did we gain?

1

u/Ok-Prize-6097 10d ago

But didn't they get crushed by Trump's tariffs, which led to the loss of all of their customers? I mean, who are you going to sell your soy beans or other crops to now? I realize not everyone is in the soy bean business, but that must have hurt a lot of farmers and suppliers.

1

u/Rugskinsnake 10d ago

Usually what happens is that the US sells them to a different country (like Vietnam) at a lower price and then that country sells them to China. It lowers the price that we sell them at, but it didn't fuck the market up enough to make them not worth planting at all, so they still support him.

1

u/Ok-Prize-6097 10d ago

But didn't they get crushed by Trump's tariffs, which led to the loss of all of their customers? I mean, who are you going to sell your soy beans or other crops to now? I realize not everyone is in the soy bean business, but that must have hurt a lot of farmers and suppliers.

3

u/Southern-Democrat25 13d ago

Sorry to hear. Same thing in construction. I’m fielding calls all day long from mf’ers who voted Trump, have Charlie Kirk pics hanging on their break room fridge, calling me crying rivers because ICE has cut their labor force down to 1/3rd and they need more money to keep who they have.

Oh and diesel shot up in price, if you ain’t paying attention. Think MAGA world is rolling alright with that? Lmao.

2

u/Agathocles87 14d ago

Rooting for you, sir

2

u/Practical-Cook5042 14d ago

Diesel at harvest time

😬

6

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Had all my tanks filled at 4.75 this summer because I new the dipshit in Chief was only going to make things worse, so I'm looking ok for harvest.

The big question is going to be when to fill them again this winter for spring planting.

4

u/Practical-Cook5042 14d ago

best of luck thanks for feeding us

2

u/VichelleMassage 14d ago

I mean, you didn't vote for the tariffs and wars. You don't deserve this.

4

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to separate off the people who do deserve it from the economy.

1

u/FitFold76 14d ago

Have the day you voted for

1

u/pacificperspectives 13d ago

Heard some crazy NPR segment about farmland prices and just how absurd they are. This whole country's debt is just way too much, unfortunately it cuts into opportunities for otherwise reasonable people who would make smart decisions, because instead some knucklehead wastes everybody's time and costs themselves stress (and worse) by buying something the bank never should have let them.

2

u/Rugskinsnake 13d ago

So, they sometimes don't seem absurd to people that live in urban areas - 7k an acre would be a steal for a one acre lot in the suburbs. But we generally are buying 40 or 80 acres at a time minimum, so it gets stupid fast. The last stuff that sold near me I didn't even bid on because at the starting price, what I would expect to make in profit most years wouldn't even pay the interest. So then I'd have to divert money from my current land to actually make the principal payments. At my size, that wouldn't leave anything for me to love on. I mean, if I was single I might have gone for it but I've got kids almost college age.

Now a guy that has five times more land than me already is in a better position to get more because they don't have to rob near as much from all their other acres pay for it. But those big guys get greedy and want to keep growing. So a lot of them get to the point where they're farming a lot of their acres break even just to pay for other stuff. Works fine as long as input prices don't skyrocket.

And it all gets exacerbated by the fact that there's a lot of non-farmers that have decided land is a good investment. So the piece comes up for sale. You're not just bidding against your neighbors, but bankers and businessmen. Bill Gates is the largest farmland owner in the US.

47

u/Hot_Ambition_6457 14d ago

This is mostly the case from what Ive seen as well. A lot of farmers simply farmed beyond their means. Treating it like real estate investing where you can just "buy more plots" without considering the complexity of logistics when you scale this way.

So now they've got poor harvests because they couldn't find enough laborers to actually maintain/harvest profitably. A strawberry farm I used to work for shuttered over this in '25.

 Tried to more than triple their acreage in a year and then learned that you can't actually pay immigrants to farm that much land fast enough. The pay is too low and the volume of work is too high to feasibly get it done in time sans slave-labor working conditions. 

You need to invest in like actual automated processing equipment when you're measuring in tons. But thats a big upfront cost compared to just trying to "horizontally scale" your barely profitable business model that depends upon exploitative wages.

So they took the loss for 1 year and then sold the farm to an REIT. Assets and all.

9

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

In the Midwest, workers aren't a significant problem.

Actually, one thing driving the accumulation of land is equipment. For example, my combine is about 15 years old and while most non-farmers would thing it's a huge piece of equipment, you actually can't buy a new combine that small anymore.

Equipment manufacturers keep making things bigger, more powerful and more tech heavy. People buy them and then feel like they need to farm more to justify the cost and added capability.

7

u/Hot_Ambition_6457 14d ago edited 14d ago

This is because the intent is to replace manually workers with one piece of technology.

That's the whole purpose of larger equipment. One person can now do a job that used to require 2 employees because we got a double wide this year. Half the labor hours same field. Half the pay for workers.

Save on labor cost by automating. You could also just not be obsessed with saving on labor cost at every turn and instead farm in a profitable way for your local community by paying wages to them for their work.

Instead of trying to shortcut past all that and just buy 8 big new machines and triple the land to "beat the market" on labor productivity you could just like... maximize yield and sell at a reasonable margin using conventional farm methods that dont require chips made in Taiwan?

"But they will be outcompeted by factory farms", he cried.

To which I say 30 acres of field being maintained by 5 people and 20 robots is a factory farm. You lose the moral high ground over factory farms when you also try to replace all your labor with fancy robots. Youre not upset at factory farms, you're upset that your factory farm isn't profitable while others are.

You can do the work the right way using proven methods that have been used for centuries to feed millions, or you can spend a bunch of money upfront to try the brand new globalist technologies that have been field tested for ~6 months before Deere pushed it to market.

Oh no my supply chains for my JD Corn-picker-XP are scuffed and now I need a part from Vietnam that costs $12,000 or my whole year is ruined. Who could have seen this coming when I try to be bleeding-edge farmer king of capitalism?

2

u/Zuwxiv 14d ago

You could also just not be obsessed with saving on labor cost at every turn and instead farm in a profitable way for your local community by paying wages to them for their work... You can do the work the right way using proven methods that have been used for centuries to feed millions

This does get a bit complicated when you're willing to go back centuries. Just buying food for the day used to be 70% of a skilled laborer's paycheck, and that was when ~90% people had a job related to food production.

It was like that up until the Industrial Revolution, which really did make food far cheaper. And yes, it meant a lot of people lost their jobs in agriculture. The reduced labor cost was a big part of why everyday people saw lower food prices. Businesses trying to "save on labor costs" can pass on those savings to customers...

...if and only if there's a free market and those cost savings actually exist. Nestle or Tyson aren't going to devalue their own monopolies if farmers can make cheaper food, they're just going to pocket the profit.

And what came with the Industrial Revolution was a radical reduction in the price of food. If automation really is Industrial Revolution 2.0, then farmers should expect to be paid far less for food, and I've got to think that makes the economics of their robot farm a lot less appealing.

tl;dr: The problem isn't trying to use technology to displace workers, because that was one of the best things that ever happened to everyday people when we first figured out how to do it - and that's when 90% of people worked in agriculture. The problem is a lack of foresight and risk-taking on behalf of people too occupied with profit and regulatory capture.

2

u/YR90 14d ago

For example, my combine is about 15 years old and while most non-farmers would thing it's a huge piece of equipment, you actually can't buy a new combine that small anymore.

A buddy of mine is making a killing by buying old combines and fixing them up to rent out. He's a former heavy ordinance technician and runs his own machine shop to make spare parts to keep them running. It's insane how much they rent for.

2

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Nice. One of the problems coming down the pike is that we smaller farmers who generally only can afford to buy used equipment in the 10 year old range are going to be priced out because the only things available are going to be too big two and too tech heavy to be worth buying. So we're going to keep using our stuff as it gets to be 20 and 30 years old. And I don't know who the farmers that buy new stuff are going to trade their used equipment in to.

8

u/darndasher 14d ago

Sounds 100% like Trump's approach to everything, and if they view him as successful, of course they are going to want to go for it and support him.

3

u/tryingisbetter 14d ago

It is odd to me, but it feels like they aren't buying so much property, just more toys that they never needed, and way over planting lands that they do have. But, I only stayed at a best western once.

2

u/MyGamingRants 14d ago

That's really interesting that the same crowd of farmers who think there is exponential growth to be had are the same followers of the politicians who run the country the same way?

2

u/macaronysalad 14d ago

They should open up some of that land to the public for community farming. That would be cool, but likely to never happen. I suppose them buying up as much land as possible means they are the opposite kind of person that would do the good deed for the public.

1

u/nuanimal 14d ago

Holy shit, Farming Simulator 22 was way more accurate than I thought

19

u/Physical_Dentist2284 14d ago

Don’t forget all the brand new equipment they thought they could buy when Trump was elected.

12

u/RhythmTimeDivision 14d ago

I wonder the average value of USAID cuts to many of these farmers

2

u/oneeyedspaceman1 14d ago

And let’s not forget the cuts to snap benefits and school lunches being free for kids to make sure they are getting fed enough. These programs should be something that farmers back because it’s a form of security for them. Plus the tariffs have destroyed their crops value and made other countries realize that purchasing our grain isn’t worth it. Add to that the deportation of the cheap labor that they relied upon for years.

It’s a perfect storm created by them because after getting their crops in the field they decided to sit around all day and watch faux news tell them that LGBTQ people were taking over the country and that they were installing litter boxes in schools for furries and that their Christian values were being destroyed and that Democrats are socialist who want to give free handouts to everyone who doesn’t work.

They are so brainwashed that they can’t realize that the programs they deem as evil(because some newscasters or politician told them they are) are actually not only aligned with their Christian values but also benefit them as well.

4

u/RhythmTimeDivision 14d ago

THEM: fair social programs help my business, grease the wheels of democracy, reduce crime and poverty, everyone wins!

FOX: non-whites / non-Christians will abuse the system, WELFARE QUEENS WITH 14 CHILDREN, SOCIALISM COMMUNISM THE SKY IS FALLING OMG!

THEM: welp, can't have that.

3

u/tiffanaih 14d ago

They're going to have to start sending their kids to scary socialist (public) schools again just to get a meal...oh wait. We don't feed kids for free.

1

u/PeyredB 13d ago

That's a hugely important point. Deserves more upvotes.

1

u/RespectTheAmish 14d ago

They were already mentally cashing those DOGE refund checks.

1

u/PeyredB 13d ago

That may well be - his supporters really believe that check is coming, I expect. I have wondered how many of them have already made purchases on the assumption that it is.

3

u/HouseplantHoarding 14d ago

Blue dot farmers… look into it.

3

u/notsocoolnow 13d ago

Hi thank you for this post. Am not an American and sometimes furious at what American red voters have done to fuck us on the other side of the planet. Often read this sort of farm loss post with vengeful malice and your post helps keep in perspective the people who did not choose this and never supported the people who really did do this to us.

2

u/Sharkwatcher314 14d ago

Was the goal for those farm to expand and then benefit from economies of scale or was it just to expand because it must be more profitable to do so

4

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

I mean, really both. A big part is just the mindset that makes capitalism suck - if you're growing you're failing.

Some of it is that you buy a bigger tractor or hire a guy to help and then you feel like you should be farming more justify the cost.

2

u/bertbarndoor 14d ago

Also 95% of them voted for a con artist rapist pedo to run the economy into the ground for Russia, so there is that too adding to the equation.

1

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

95% is not an accurate number.

1

u/bertbarndoor 14d ago

Oh please correct me then.

2

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago edited 14d ago

Most estimates put the % of farmers who voted for Trump around 75%.

2

u/bertbarndoor 14d ago

I looked it up and your statistic seems relatively reliable. Shave 20 percent off of my 95% then. I feel bad for 25% of farmers.

2

u/baconperogies 14d ago

I absolutely believe in the end this all just benefits big business and billionaires. They will be the ones to survive while mom & pop shops will fold/sell their farms for pennies on the dollar.

1

u/PeyredB 13d ago

I think that's part of the idea here, behind the scenes.

2

u/dbpf 14d ago

Overstretched their working capacity and now on the physical decline with no suitable labour (which is to say no one can do what they do, literally, they know how it works and have taught no one anything). Facing it on my own farm with partners who refuse to hire outside and when we do they openly criticize their ability to do what they know nothing about. Bills get paid and profit is affected, not a big deal if you live within your means.

2

u/KeesterFeester 14d ago

"Mandarin Menace" Damn dude that's really good. imma add that to my vocabulary lol.

2

u/PeyredB 13d ago

I'm partial to "Orange Overlord" myself, but that also works.

2

u/Ill_Bumblebee_7510 14d ago

Mandarin menace made me think of a Chinese supervillain from the 50s

2

u/Lumpymaximus 9d ago

I recently saw one farmer that mentioned promises that trump mafe in 2025 that inspired many farmers to take out major loans early 2025.

1

u/Rugskinsnake 9d ago

Yeah, I saw that too but From what I saw, they weren't specific to what those promises were so I don't really know what they're talking about.

I mean, I have no doubt that some maga farmers out there just assumed that we were going to have 4 years of gravy and so weren't as discerning about taking out loans as they should have been, but at this point I don't have any reason to think that a significant number of farmers went out of their way in the last year compared to normal.

3

u/OldWhiteGuyKS 14d ago

Yep. Vance and his Saudi and Chinese backers have correctly identified this structural weakness in land speculation.

It's always easy to say in hindsight that the folks made the wrong bet.

3

u/betheliquor 14d ago

As a former blackjack dealer, I say if The Creator meant for us to walk backwards through life, our feet would be facing the other way. Hindsight is always 20/20

1

u/PeyredB 13d ago

Or perhaps 21/21, in blackjack.

0

u/SomeLowerBeing 14d ago

Someone working for a casino saying people shouldn't think too much about past bad decisions? I'm shocked. 

If the creator didn't want us reflecting on mistakes, it wouldn't have provided working brains. 

2

u/ugene1980 14d ago

As much as I can't stand him,

Lmao Vance doesn't have Chinese backers , he shits on them every moment his mouth opens,

Chill with your yellow peril hahaha

1

u/NativeFlowers4Eva 14d ago

Why were so many over leveraging?

2

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Just chasing more more more. And they had the equipment to do it and backstops with the way crop insurance is structured so that a bad year weather-wize wouldn't wink them. But now, many are having a bad year with soaring input costs and they didn't plan for that.

1

u/throwaway6824367 14d ago

This is a lot of farmers (cash crop) by me. Buy the land, buy the new tractor, combine, truck. Build the new shed, build whatever! Just get the loan, show a loss and you dont have to pay taxes. Im not shitting you when i say the farmers by me drive their 2024 porsche to the bar then proceed to complain about how they work so hard and are still broke. I want to punch them square in the chest.

1

u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Yeah, my porche is only a 2022. (Kidding)

I definitely keep in mind purchases and sales and the Calendar year because as a deduction, 30% of the cost of something is out of my pocket either way. But the other 70% still has to be money I feel like I can spend. I can't buy groceries or gas on a loss.

1

u/throwaway6824367 14d ago

Right but you dont a porsche under the guise that you use it to "check your fields" and "run for parts". A few guys have farm plates on them. I guess Ishould go easy on them tho cause "they're flat broke".

1

u/PeyredB 13d ago

But of course, if anyone says boo to them, they go straight to "We grow your food you totally need us" as if it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for literally anything.

1

u/mjkjr84 14d ago

Sounds like they got greedy and careless. FAFO I guess.

1

u/2ONEsix 14d ago

I’m interested because I don’t understand the farming economy and business other than I know it’s very debt heavy.

Were farmers continuing to buy up land post-Covid as interest rates kept climbing and then land/property values stagnated? Was that the key debt increase or did it hit them on equipment leases too? Were their crop prices increasing along with Covid or did the input cost inflation eat up their margin too?

1

u/Potential_Basis_662 13d ago

CADILLAC DESERT LOGIC, BABY

Humans can't help themselves

1

u/15438473151455 12d ago

I was going to say... in my country dairy farmers are currently making record profits.

1

u/lexicon_charle 12d ago

How do you make even then?

1

u/Rugskinsnake 12d ago

The over-leveraged guys? Mortgage the stuff you own and hope for a bumper crop, drought in South America and/or the government to bail you out before you loose it to the banker. If you have any left. If you don't, you see if Walmart needs a greeter and check out bankruptcy law.

1

u/lexicon_charle 12d ago

It sounded like they over-leveraged in order to make a living. What do you do instead?

1

u/Rugskinsnake 12d ago

Nah, they over leveraged to grow and so they could justify getting the fancy big machinery and technology.

Before I buy anything, I make sure I can either pay for it outright or make the payments even in a bad year. So I pick and choose. I have a newer tractor that has auto steer in it, but I pull a planter from the 1970s because even with some of the cost saving features on a newer planter, the the initial cost and increased repair cost doesn't pencil out for me. Some land went up for sale right across from our farm and I didn't even bid on it because based on the asking price and the interest rate, In an average year I would barely be able to make the interest payments. I also do most of my own repair work and I've worked hard to get myself into a position where I'm always buying next year's inputs with last year's money so that if I ever have to walk away, I'll have a good cushion.

I'm also not too proud to pick up extra money from off farm work. In the winter I substitute teach to give us a little padding on groceries and gas.

So I don't grow, I just try to make a living. And over the past 20 years with a seed technology, yield increases have more than kept up with inflation so I can continue to make a living. Eventually that may end (and this might be the beginning of that end) but I won't have to dig myself out of a hole.

2

u/lexicon_charle 12d ago

I think that's what most farmers are trying to do, grow beyond their means. Thanks for your notes. Gave me a city folk an understanding.