How much impact are Factory Farms? Really?

[haypoint]

I've heard lots of folks claim that Big Ag, Big Dairy, Big Business are all out to shut down the family farm and also have focsed on non-pasteurized milk as a way to do it.

I just discovered that in Michigan, a big dairy state, 98% of the dairies are family owned.
Makes me wonder how many other small farmers, homesteaders and hobby farmers that read HT know that Factory farming is a small part of the dairy production in their state?

DayOnTheFarm.org

YouTube.com/MichiganDairyNews

[Darren]

It's like anything else. The devil is in the details. Once you start pigeonholing or lumping what looks to be the same together, you lose the details.

[Dreamfarm]

can Big Ag be family owned? when I get the dairy and beef mags in the mail that are all advertising and definitely big ag..many farms are portrayed as family owned..

[G. Seddon]

Until the estate taxes hit...............

[MO_cows]

Factory Farm is a derogatory term with no real definition other than the negative images it conjures up in people's minds.

If you have 50 cows in your dairy, but you are old and stove up and you hire out all your labor, are you a factory farm? Or if you have 1000 cows in your dairy, but you are partners with your brother and between the two of you and all your kids you do all the work yourselves. However, the dairy is incorporated for succession and tax purposes. So, are you a family farm or a factory farm? Or both?

[FarmerDavid]

how many farms are there in the 98% compared to the number of family farms 10,20,30 years ago. There are only 2 family milkers left in our area. There are also 2 of what i would call factory farms.

On the row crop side there are just as many acres in family farms as there were 20 years ago but there are alot fewer families farming those acres.

Im am trying to find different enterprises to be able to maintain a family farm. The bigger farmers in the area make it hard. They have the $ to pay more for land if they want to, and they want to, i had a hard time scraping together the money to put a downpayment on 50 acres. My dad owns 260, we share crop the rest and together we row crop 1300. Anymore thats a small row crop operation.

I stumbled on this site reserching other enterprises to start on my 50 acres. I dont have any ill will towards the bigger farmers, i just want to be able to work and rais my fmaily on the farm and "big ag" is making it harder and harder.

On the other hand i am finding that there is money to be made through other enterprises. There are a growing number of people that are willing to pay more to know where their food comes from. I think that trend will continue to grow. I see the farmers markets, csa's and other similar enterprises to thrive. On our row crop operation fuel is one of our top costs along with commercial fertilizer. With these costs continuing to increase i see cost of grocery store food increasing to the point that locally grown food isnt much higher, despite its increased quality.

[Shayanna]

I think this has to do with being able to get Grade-A status. You can't sell raw milk unless you do herdshares, which sound like a pain in the patootey. Yet to get Grade-A status you have to have crazy amazing facilities, which I know for a fact are not in my budget. I think the problem is getting to Grade-A status is such a big investment.

[sammyd]

"factory farms" are not the problem. They are a result of the problem.
Back in 79 you could buy 235 acres with 140 tillable, stocked and equipped for around a quarter million pay 14% interest on the note and still make money.
Now you are lucky to find 100 acres with 40 tillable and they want 400,000 for the bare farm.
Seed corn was 17 bucks a bag, gas was 70 cent or so, baler twine was 7 bucks a bale and you were selling milk for 14 bucks a hundred.
Here it is 33 years later and average milk price was still 15 or 16 till this fall. Twine is 33 bucks a bale, seed corn is 120 bucks a bag (or even more), and gas is 3.50.

[FarmerDavid]

Where can you still find seed corn for $120

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by sammyd

"factory farms" are not the problem. They are a result of the problem.
Back in 79 you could buy 235 acres with 140 tillable, stocked and equipped for around a quarter million pay 14% interest on the note and still make money.
Now you are lucky to find 100 acres with 40 tillable and they want 400,000 for the bare farm.
Seed corn was 17 bucks a bag, gas was 70 cent or so, baler twine was 7 bucks a bale and you were selling milk for 14 bucks a hundred.
Here it is 33 years later and average milk price was still 15 or 16 till this fall. Twine is 33 bucks a bale, seed corn is 120 bucks a bag (or even more), and gas is 3.50.

Back in 1978, my neighbor was milking 150 cows and farming 3000 acres. He also sold fertilizer, seed and herbicides. He said he was earning less than when he was milking 40 cows back in the 1950s. He figured his whole operation was worth 3 million. If he were to sell, the banks wanted 10% down. At that time you could earn more in interest on $300,000 than you by farming the land.
In 1978, I bought a new pickup truck, which gave me 200,000 trouble free miles, for $4000. I didn’t have a phone, TV , internet or cable.
Times have changed. But family owned farms still prevail. Perhaps less attention on the phantom bad guy Big Ag/Factory farms and more attention on educating the public.

Just before Thanksgiving, a local upscale grocery store advertised Amish raised fresh turkey. The ad said it had no growth hormones, antibiotics or MSG. I’m afraid some folks assume that “regular” turkey has growth hormones, antibiotics and MSG. Not true.

In the same ad, they had New York Strip steaks, “ pasture raised”. Virtually all beef is pasture raised, but when you use it to advertise, it causes people to believe other beef is confinement raised.

Or should we be promoting these “half-truths” to help build a niche market for ourselves?

[ycanchu2]

It is not so much the factory farms as it is Big Agribusiness like Monsanto. With the GMO seeds they own the rights to every grain farmers crop that grows it which is most bigger farmers. Sure the farmer gets to sell it to an elevator or feed it but you better not plant it. Some of the GMO corn seed is going for well over $200/bag.Sounds a lot like " I owe my soul to the company store". You can't hardly grow any non-gmo corn anywhere in the world without it getting contaminated. But we farmers have always been looking for an easier way to do something and we got it. Sorry to get on my soapbox, however I do think that the days of GMO crops are numbered.

[sammyd]

Originally Posted by FarmerDavid

Where can you still find seed corn for $120

I bought my seed corn for next year at 110 a bag this year with the early buy discount of 10%. It is not from Monsanto and it is not GMO. Plenty of non GMO hybrids around.
I still get yearly package from them with news on their stuff from when I bought 3 years ago.
Monsantos GMO contracts have little to do with anything.

[chamoisee]

You haven't seen the beef feedlots, have you? I have. I've driven past them. Steers up to their hocks in manure, packed so tightly that it's no surprise they get antibiotics- they'd need to, living like that. It's not what I want to eat- deal with it.

[ycanchu2]

Originally Posted by sammyd

I bought my seed corn for next year at 110 a bag this year with the early buy discount of 10%. It is not from Monsanto and it is not GMO. Plenty of non GMO hybrids around.
I still get yearly package from them with news on their stuff from when I bought 3 years ago.
Monsantos GMO contracts have little to do with anything.

I don't disagree with you about the availability of conventional corn and in your area planting conventional corn may be more common. but here in my county and surrounding areas it is almost exclusive GMO beans and corn except for the Amish.
If you want the most nutritional feed of all......plant you some open pollinated corn........I planted some a few years ago that tested 13% protein....no fertilize, just plowed and planted it.
The powers that be do not want independent, self sufficient, sustainable farmers, because they can;t be controlled as easily. Just my opinion.

[sammyd]

the powers to be have little to do with it.
Farmers want and need to be more efficient. Planting GMO hybrids with the ability to spray once with glyphosate instead of going round and round with a cultivator or spraying gobs of atrazine is one way.
Planting a strain of corn that is resistant to the corn borer instead of having to spray for that is another.

[sammyd]

Originally Posted by chamoisee

You haven't seen the beef feedlots, have you? I have. I've driven past them. Steers up to their hocks in manure, packed so tightly that it's no surprise they get antibiotics- they'd need to, living like that. It's not what I want to eat- deal with it.

You could see the same thing years ago when the steers were yarded up for the winter on small places.

[chamoisee]

Originally Posted by sammyd

You could see the same thing years ago when the steers were yarded up for the winter on small places.

It's bad management either way. But when it happens for miles and you can hardly breathe as you drive by....sorry, that ain't a family farm, it's a factory farm, even if it's owned by a family.

[Tad]

We are family owned, milk 70 cows. I know of a farm, family owned that milks 6,000+ It's all an image thing, I bet his cows are cleaner than our tiestall cows in the winter, but his don't get pastured half the year. Every system has it's tradeoffs.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by haypoint

Just before Thanksgiving, a local upscale grocery store advertised Amish raised fresh turkey. The ad said it had no growth hormones, antibiotics or MSG. I’m afraid some folks assume that “regular” turkey has growth hormones, antibiotics and MSG. Not true.

In the same ad, they had New York Strip steaks, “ pasture raised”. Virtually all beef is pasture raised, but when you use it to advertise, it causes people to believe other beef is confinement raised.

Or should we be promoting these “half-truths” to help build a niche market for ourselves?

It's the flip side of the advertising coin that the big companies use. You know, the picture on the egg carton that shows a flock of hens free ranging across green grass... there's no lie in the picture (because it's not a legal claim), but it's also not representative of the truth.

I'm unsure if there's a legal definition to "pasture raised", "grass fed" has one though. Most ranchers around here feed some amount of grain along with that pasture, and that's what some consumers are trying to avoid when they look for the "pastured" animals.

"Factory farming" isn't about who owns the farm, it's about how it's run.

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by ycanchu2

It is not so much the factory farms as it is Big Agribusiness like Monsanto. With the GMO seeds they own the rights to every grain farmers crop that grows it which is most bigger farmers. Sure the farmer gets to sell it to an elevator or feed it but you better not plant it. Some of the GMO corn seed is going for well over $200/bag.Sounds a lot like " I owe my soul to the company store". You can't hardly grow any non-gmo corn anywhere in the world without it getting contaminated. But we farmers have always been looking for an easier way to do something and we got it. Sorry to get on my soapbox, however I do think that the days of GMO crops are numbered.

Monsanto is sort of a straw man. The farmers that saved their seed prior to GMO was less than 1%, so not saving seed isn't really an issue.

It isn't just the big farmer that is growing GMO crops, nearly every farmer that is making his living farrming takes advantage of GMO.

Crop contamination is hooie. Corn pollen will drift, yours does, so you've got to expect theirs does, too. But if you are afraid of it, grow corn that tassles out at a different time or plant a different rotation. When he grows corn, grow soybeans. When he grows soybeans, grow corn. Easy to simply grow your crop away from his fenceline, too.

But this thread isn't about Monsanto or GMO crops. I hear so much about Factory Farms and truth be known, they have had very little impact on agriculture, because there are so few of them.

The loss of GMO corn and GMO soybeans, without anything to replace it, would likely shove most small farmers out of business. The price of corn and soybeans would shoot way up. The land values would go up with them. Only the rich could afford to farm. Be very careful what you wish for.