# A Good Time To Quit.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

AgWeb.....I have disagreed with John Phipps so many times that I cannot number, but this time he may be right for the real farmers out there.

Regards, Mike

https://www.agweb.com/mobile/article/this-is-a-good-time-to-quit-naa-john-phipps/


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I agree.

One of the luckiest moves I ever made was to sell my software business in the fall of 1999. Sold it at the peak of the dot com era. Six months later the S&P dropped from over 5000 to 2200. I had a partner in that business who wanted to keep going--He and I had the biggest legal battle you could imagine. I prevailed.

A lot of people told me I was making a bad decision because the market was just going to continue to go up.

I had to take a part of the buyout in company stock. I watched it go from 2 to 6.65--made me a nervous wreck! I sold the stock in Feb, 2000. It went to over 7.50. Then it dropped to .72. by Apr, 2000. I came out ahead but I don't know if I was smart, scared or lucky.

Right now, I am scared s**tless about the stock market. With the Dow above 23,000 after having been at 6,000 in 2008/9--something just ain't right!! There is no earthly reason I can see for values to be that high.

Ralph


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## 2ndWindfarm (Nov 11, 2014)

Pretty somber reading... Very glad I'm not tracking commodity prices in my sleep!

More consolidation of BTO's (although 2,000 acres is NOT hobby work) and even greater pressure on start-ups and mid-age farmers.

Good thing we've got forward-thinking leadership that will scrap ethanol and bio-fuels as well as those "bad, very bad" trade agreements!

Yup.. Lease it all out to a BTO and drink coffee every morning at the local cafe. Then, feed cows for said BTO in the evening, etc.

Sit back and ride those coming interest rate hikes...


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

You tryin to tell me something Mike? I don't need a whole lotta conjouling.....


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I’m gonna quit farming and go sell $100k trucks.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Is John Phipps quitting?


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

I am just getting started! I am no bto. And the off farm income sure helps. Can't imagine trying to start up these days without that!


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I just read a real estate ad in the local paper--171 ac., $1,950,000 ($11,400/ac) after price reduction.

Ralph


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Who quits farming?You quit when you die usually.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

OhioHay said:


> Is John Phipps quitting?


Great question....he does like to give free advice.

Regards, Mike


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

swmnhay said:


> Who quits farming? You quit when you die usually.


Probably. 

Regards, Mike


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

I felt the same way when we quit row cropping and went all cattle and hay. Dad and Grandpa paid for the Shiner farm baling and selling hay after nearly losing it trying to grow cotton up there in the 50's... When they finally paid it off and could save money, they stopped baling hay up there and started building a beef herd. It's been in cows virtually my entire life (since the late 60's early 70's), save one year Dad grew grain sorghum on the back quarter when I was a little kid.

Needville, OTOH, had been in mostly cotton and grain sorghum (with occasional corn and soybeans thrown in the rotation now and then) since, well, forever... We've been here 115 years and most of the farm had been in row crops for most all of that time, save for a little pasture in the middle that also served as hay meadow. I grew up on cotton pickers and combines and growing crops... cattle was just something we did "during the off season" so to speak. BUT, by the late 90's, the handwriting was on the wall... First fertilizer prices went through the roof, then seed prices (with the widespread adoption of GMO's in the mid 90's), and machinery prices and fuel costs were skyrocketing as well. Our stuff was getting REALLY old but without adding a ton of acres, it was impossible to justify updating the machinery, and that wasn't in the cards. To top it all off, as I've said on here before, when I was a toddler riding standing up on the front seat in the Dad's 72 Chevy pickup, cotton was about 70 cents a pound. When I took over the farms when I was in high school after Grandpa died in the early 80's, cotton was about 70 cents a pound. And when I was row cropping in the late 90's, cotton was STILL about 70 cents a pound (if you were lucky-- some years cheaper!) It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you're making as much if not more off the calves on the second farm than you're making off the row crops on the main farm, and only spending a few thousand a year on the cattle operations (baling and hauling hay, feed, fencing, etc) versus many tens of thousands on the crops, and dedicating maybe a third to half of the amount of time to the cattle operation that the row crop operation requires, it becomes patently obvious that the row crop operation was a losing proposition. The farm program payments on the cotton and sorghum bases under "Freedom to Farm" meant we could take the payments and use that to pay for building fences and switching the operation over to 100% cow/calf and phase out the row crops entirely... So basically, Uncle Sam picked up the tab for the switch.

Grandma (whom I ran the farms for) took a little convincing, but she saw the writing on the wall as well, and was tired of fighting a losing battle (against prices, costs, and "the system") and was ready to make the change, especially with the program payments paying for most of the costs of fencing and stuff.

The first couple years, I thought I'd go nuts... I'd see the neighbors in the field and look at the calendar, and think, "I should be in the field getting the ground ready to plant!" or planting crops or spraying or fertilizing or harvesting or doing fall tillage or whatever... But then we'd get into a rainy spell where guys were chomping at the bit and NEEDED to get in the field and COULDN'T, or we'd have a dry spell where the crops were burning up, and I'd think to myself, "man am I glad I'm not having to deal with THAT anymore!" Cattle have "four wheel drive" and handle the mud pretty well most of the time; dry spells can be more problematical especially if they turn into full blown droughts, but careful management and modest stocking rates can usually handle it...

Course, the main thing I've learned is that "you always should have a 'Plan B'" Course those are getting harder and harder to find...

SO, maybe it's not so much about "knowing when to quit" as it is "knowing when to shift gears"... If crop prices are crap, maybe something besides the typical corn/beans and/or cotton is in order... alternative crops, livestock, or other such things (like sesame, popcorn, or sunflowers, stuff like that) is a better fit... times change and sometimes we gotta change with em...

Later! OL J R


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> Who quits farming?You quit when you die usually.


I can't say as I've ever seen someone keep farming after they died.... lol


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## 2ndWindfarm (Nov 11, 2014)

stack em up said:


> I can't say as I've ever seen someone keep farming after they died.... lol


Who knows... Maybe land prices are more favorable in heaven?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

OhioHay said:


> Is John Phipps quitting?


No&#8230;but if enough people follow his advice and retire, his next article will be about what a great time it is to get into farming or expanding your current acreage with the reduced competition from all the guys retiring. Of course I don't know what world he lives in nor the color of its sky, but here the big guys gobble it up before a newcomer even hears about it.


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

Vol said:


> Probably.
> 
> Regards, Mike


I plan on living forever ........ so far so good!????


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