One More Year On The Family Farm (1977)

this country started out as an agricultural country essentially the productivity of Agriculture uh back in the uh 19th century and before was such that it took about one farmer or one Farm family for each family in the United States in order to create the food uh that was necessary to live what has happened in our in our agricultural productivity is that uh the productivity of an individual Farm has increased to the point uh that we're now up to somewhere uh around the one farmer is needed for something like each 40 families uh in the United States what this says is that uh we just haven't got enough demand for agricultural uh production at that uh at that level for everybody to be able to make their living as a [Music] farmer the real difficulty facing the small farmers today is that they must expand their Farms if they're to remain in farming some of these Farmers have been able to grow more easily than others Bill Hughes and his family have worked this Farm a long long time but now they've got to expand and it's not going to be easy my grandfather was born on the farm and uh served in Civil War after the Civil War he moved to South Dakota for several years returning here in 1889 and purchasing another Farm a few miles away where my father was born and he returned to this the original farm and where I was born and I've lived here ever since we have a a trailer across the road from my mother and father's house where my wife and I live with our children we rent the farm from them we own a a 2 acre plot of ground where our trailer is and hoping to buy the farm someday is the vet coming today well I guess he's coming today he called last night and saidy to get over basically the problem is that we have to get bigger to survive and there's a lot of obstacles in the way of doing that we have to set up our priorities and whether we're going to buy additional land or try to to rent that land well we're pleased that our son is wants to take over the farm we only have two grandchildren I guess if he didn't want to farm it we would probably sell it try to find another young farmer who would buy it on a contract or something in order to keep it in land use it's very important that we have additional land in in relation to what we own ourselves or rent from my in-laws uh because we need to have enough pasture and enough crop land in order to feed the cows that we have now renting the additional land allows us to to keep the 45 cows and 40 head of young stock with further improvements on the the rented land we will'll be able to go to 60 cows and 40 or more headed young stock well we're really cramped for space and we really couldn't pack another cow into our barn it's just kind of bursting at the seams new barn would probably run in a neighborhood of 25 to $30,000 all built we have to build the things before we can become more efficient well the land developers have uh practically doubled and even tripled the price of of land in the area and it's made it completely out of the reach of people who have to work the land to make a living off of it people have given up they got Mighty poor prices for the product and they sell off a piece here and a piece there for city folks come in and buy the land they like to come here where it's quiet and clean peaceful an important resource person for farmers and for our farm in particular our County Extension agents um we've uh had the Agents come and visit and talk about buying Farms on contract we've talked about uh how to keep records for the farm uh they help us with testing our soil and it's a resource for the farmers to improve what they're doing with their animals and their land in the in the Hughes family situation they are one of the last farms in the area and uh they they're biggest problems at the present time I would say are going to be the availability of some of the services that they need to operate that farm for example it's very difficult to get a veterinarian into the area uh those that are available travel a long long distance and when they get there there are not many other Farms to also go visit while they are there that's one of the pressures uh that is upon them this is the reason I bought the helicopter in ' 61 because I always imagined I could just fly over the top of the next Hill I could get to the farm in just a few minutes whereas driving around for instance coming down here to bills uh it takes 30 40 minutes of fast driving the main problem I have now I think within the last maybe 10 years since the Family Farms have been uh disappearing is that cover such an enormous distance I don't think that it needs routine antibiotics at all I'd rather not use antibiotics unless you absolutely have to it's a rugged job it's a it's 24-hour Duty and I had this whole area for myself since since I practiced within the last few years but there's still a lot of uh gratification in being able to serve these people that need help and I think that's maybe where I get my reward do it need what you give it well sometimes it doesn't clean up its milk how much milk are you giving ity about 5 lb but some of these people some of these young people some of these Farmer Boys farmer girls too in fact I have a lot of women that do just as good a job as farming as the men do in fact I would say better supplemental vitamin mineral and of course you can see on this Farm here when they all work together they have to work together it's always been this way essentially what's happening is that we're having a tremendous decline in small farms I can tell you that in this County uh during the first six months uh of the year uh we have had a decline of approximately 40 to 45 uh Farms actually the interesting thing is that in farms of 50 cows or more there is actually an increase throughout the United States Chuck Benson's Farm here is an example of a farm that is continue to grow ever since it began we've been buying land and adding on cows I know my dad has been expanding ever since he started we have numbers for all of them and they're not uh they're definitely not pets uh I you might even say they were machines as it turns out uh a cow when she's treated the best and is content in every way she'll she'll give her most milk she'll she'll be at her best as far as production so we treat them treat them very well but we certainly don't regard them as pets they're they're a business money makers we're presently milking in a a Four Stall crossover parlor uh this milks about 40 cows an hour and right now it's taking us with 160 cows a little over 4 hours to milk uh we're trying to speed this up or we are speeding this up by building another parlor very similar to the one we have and putting another man in that t who cut down on the time that we actually spend milking the cows this will free up the labor force for whatever we have to be doing whether it's harvesting or planting crops uh the old method of of keeping cows was in a stanion barn and this had the cows locked in each individual stall and all the feed was brought to them uh the new system is called the freestall barn and this has a number of stalls in it that uh that have no restraints in them of any kind the cow only goes in when she wants to lay down and rest otherwise she's walking around on the cement slab uh she goes to a bunk where it's convenient for us to dump in the feed by uh an automatic dump wagon and uh we we don't spend a lot of time taking feed to individual cows it's just uh everything is speeded up because we don't have to to uh mess around going around each each cow she comes to us instead I know one thing that impressed me a lot was that each animal is worth quite a bit of money and when one of our c one or many cows get out no matter what time the day it is we have to go chase them make sure they don't get on the road and bring them back to the barn because because they're worth $500 to $1,000 and I know a number of people have come up some Andrew's relatives from from around New York and people aren't connected with it and they're just uh they say you actually make a living at this uh I mean you you earn money and and you don't have to work at something else and they they they just don't think of it as a business you have to borrow money at times for improvements you want to make make land to buy but you have to be very very careful to be sure that when you borrow the money you're going to be able to pay it back by making the improvements to make the more money to pay back I don't like to be in Deb uh I don't like to owe anybody money I I think we'll always be in the situation of of investing other people's capital or borrowing money however you want to put it and uh I think we'll have to be that way just to keep ahead with the mechanization as I said this this piece here was was quite expensive the actual debt on the farm is about $100,000 and we don't we don't actually uh worry about that as as uh a debt hanging over our heads it's it's invested Capital uh just like in any other business what we look at is our Equity or what we own over what we owe and uh that is is now it's it's well over 50% and it's growing and as as long as as long as that's the case we figure that's healthy there is Machinery I would like to buy I'd like to have a new disc which would increase my ability of to till the ground a new disc is about $2500 the model that I would like and at the moment I can't afford expensive piece of Machinery this is our our most expensive piece of Machinery because it's uh we Harvest everything with it the whole set is probably close to 40,000 the alphalpha comes in with this it's chopped up as haage and the corn silage also comes in in with this and the high moisture corn the farm is becoming more and more mechanized but instead of cutting down on the labor we're putting on More Cows and so we have to be able to get more and more more feed for the cows and have uh and there's more to take care of for the herdsman there's sometimes 10hour days and sometimes there's 20 hour days that it's dependent on what you're doing at the time but mostly they're long 12 14 hours or more a day in the Family Farm situation if it requires 15 hours a day to get the job done you put it in or if the cow or the Sheep is going to Cave or lamb at 3:00 in the morning the farmer or a member of his family gets up at 3:00 in the morning and goes out and tends to her on a corporate industrial type of structure which you get in many of these situations where nonfarm corporations have come into agriculture you put the P the time clock on the wall and you punch in and you punch out and you work your eight hours and when you're done you leave and you go home in California there are a number a very large farms uh three and 4,000 cows per farm and a lot of those are conglomerates uh kind of big corporations but some of them are individually owned family operations it's they're they're operated a lot different than we do here in the East they're actually just milk factories and I I wouldn't hpe of farming because first because I wouldn't enjoy milking that much I I suppose I'd have have that work done for me if I had that many cows but also at uh part of the appeal to me of this type of farming is that I am outside a lot and uh each season brings quite a change in in the type of work I do farmers um like to be independent but I think that they really need to um work together I don't think that there's a really a way for a farmer now to Market his milk unless he were a member of a co-op we really you know these are the the people who come and pick up our milk deliver it to the milk plant um come up with the ideas for marketing take it to the stores and sell it and I can't see that you know any of us are ready to go out on our own maybe uh the bigger farmer you know who can have his own Dairy right there at the farm and can hire his truck drivers and and do his marketing that's fine but not for us the need for some government action in the area of milk prices came about because first of all keep in mind you have an extremely perishable product compare it with let's say wheat you can put the wheat in the bin and you can hold it and you can hold it for a considerable period of time something over a year uh if need be milk has to go to the plant uh presently every two days or uh it just won't keep uh that's I think obvious to the housewife as well as to the Dairy Farmer it's a highly perishable product if the milk isn't pasteurized within about 48 hours there is a a fat enzyme that starts breaking down the fat and causing a rancid flavor and because of certain labor union rules in New York City they they won't handle milk that's pasteurized it has to be what they call crude and they pasturize it in the city which would' be all right if they would do it right away but too many times they wait and hold the milk in a crude State because there's a lot of milk on the market on the shelves in the grocery store and it has a certain shelf life so then they'll uh after the milk's been whole for quite a few days then they'll pasteurize it and put it on the Shelf but the this the fat enz's already started to work so that the children get to to taste milk that's rancid and then they grow up not liking milk and this doesn't help us at all because we don't have a market if the children you know have a dis dislike for milk and then as adults won't drink it either the government uses exports as a a tool to get their own way in various countries throughout the world because if people want the food they they're going to have to pay for it one way or another and and the farmer is used and his product is used you're either told to produce more or told to produce less and it just just seems that you're a pretty much of a political footballs oh the environmental impact uh legislation now is another thing that's that that's uh it's starting I think to get a little out of hand let's say the wetlands act a number of streams will pass through farms and they have to be cleaned out regularly or the bottom eventually fills in and and it cause a tremendous flooding problem on a lot of fillable land where a lot of crops are grown and under this legislation that stream couldn't be touched because you would be disturbing a natural resource we have two fellas that work for us and uh I don't like to call them hired men that that kind of refers back to the old idea of a fellow that worked on the farm he uh he had a strong back and he was willing to do any back breaking task and not complain too much and and that was all the talent that was needed but now it's uh everything's becoming more and more mechanized and it required somebody with a few specialized skills operates machinery and repairs it he originally was an EG mechanics teacher he did teach school for a year and I guess decided that he liked this better we hired ited about 3 months ago as a herdsman his job would be to to take uh take care of the herd he watches the breeding chart to make sure they're all getting Bread on time so we don't have a lot of dry cows uh just eating feed and not giving milk uh he watches watches them for any any sickness they might need the veterinary for and uh handle some of the treatment himself there's only there's only four people here running uh oh probably a $600,000 operation and uh and you aren't going to have these people taken up with tasks like uh shoveling out a stall with a pitchfork or something like that well Brian my son means a great deal to uh us as far as being able to work the farm um he's um 17 and able now to do much of the milking on his own bill has trained him very well and uh he's going to be graduating from high school this year and right now our farm supports two families because my in-laws are here also a Hired Man Would again mean someone probably with a family and we really couldn't afford another family right now they couldn't hire afford like a Hired Hand because well his M puts it on cheap labor I stay here and live here and go to school and I only make $60 a month but you know I don't have that much to spend my money on so it's plenty for me at this point in my life we're want to expand and get bigger through the years if like if I stay around here we can do it sooner than like if I went to college it would be two years Brian has to make up his his own mind about what he wants to do I want to expand the farm and make it possible for him to stay here if he wants to do that I also want to make it as easy as possible for for him to to go away somewhere else if he decides to do that I don't want to have him obligated and feel that he has to stay here because I want him to or his mother wants him to you can't get anybody to come and work unless you pay them a high salary and the farm margin of profit just isn't high enough to afford to pay a Hired Man union wages let's say today Family Farm therefore is disappearing as young people grow up they leave to go to the city where they think they're going to get good pay and the old man and old lady are left with the farm yes I think expansion is the only way we can go if we really want to continue to be a farm family we have other choices but I don't think we want to make those choices later I think the reasons that Bill and Linda stay there on that farm is that uh first of all there are very close family ties to that piece of real estate that farm and not everybody in this world Works solely to make as much money as they as they possibly can and I think that's the case here we had to decide whether it was more important for us to make a fantastic living and you know try to reach the ideal or whether we should just put people as more important in our life and our family and Our Roots and and um you know what we have behind us to work with and I think we we struggled a lot with the the decision and I'm kind of glad that we've made the one we did and that I'm here I really enjoy working with animals growing crops and feeding my cows and watching the cows give milk uh you have to have something to to hang on to you have to like the work that you're doing [Music]