Feed prices

[HornyToadAcres]

There may be lower input "costs" because of not using ag-chems on say organic crops..... BUT..... the input in either manual labor or mechanized labor with these crops needing more frequent things like weeding...... do you have any idea of the number of times a crop needs to be weeded before it gets big/tall/large enough to shade out competitor weeds???? So any farm that is organic is going to be paying more out in wages if they do things manually.
The cost of machinery to do the mechanized weeding is more expensive comparatively because of the specialization of it. It costs more to put out an organic crop from start to finish than for a crop that uses some ag-chemicals. And the yields are lower 90% of the time, because of some plants succumbing to pests and other plant diseases. There is more compaction of the soil by having to make multiple passes down the fields too. No matter the size of the farm; if you do all manual work, there is a limit to what one person is capable of doing.... so you need more people to cover larger areas or multiple crops....Increased wages paid..... or you need mechanical equipment.

If you go mechanical, then your costs will go up with increases in gas/fuel/oil etc for normal useage.

We have to hire some help to do things like make sq bales. With my knee issues, we hire some help to work cattle through the chute before taking to pastures for the summer. We have help to also gather them all in and bring back in the late fall to wean calves, preg check, and do what needs to be done. We trade off help with others so that it is not so much out of pocket.... but when people do stuff to help us and they don't need any help in return, we try to do something else for them..... sometimes it is something as simple as buying a roll of net wrap for them to use in their baler.... but that is out of the pocket cost for us.... even though it is not anything we would ever begrudge for the help... it is in a way "paying for the help".....and they will do the same.... I have hauled cattle for a couple to the stockyard and not charged them.... time or fuel.... told them to work it out with DS in trade down the road....
And my comments about having to keep tightening the belt was in part directed towards thing like dairy farmers.... because that is who I work with all the time. I have one that is organic and his production is abysmal in comparison to a "conventional" farm that grows 90% of all their own feed.... because organic grain and hay is 4 times what "conventionally grown" feed is.... and the price for the milk is only about 2 - 2 1/2 times what conventional milk is but the production is 1/3 without the expensive inputs of feed grain. He is no better off.... and then there are the restrictions that if a cow gets mastitis, she cannot get a "conventional" drug to treat it.... so often they will lose a quarter or have to be culled if her somatic cell count can not be brought under control.
The thing that gets to me is that everyone that professes to want all organic.... does not stop to take into account that there is no anti-biotics tolerated in the milk supply. Every tankful that goes off the farm is tested.... and they are penalized and the milk IS DUMPED if it is found to have anti-biotics.... and if it is co-mingled on the truck/tank, the farmer with the anti-biotic reaction IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WHOLE TANKER LOAD of milk.
If a cow gets sick, you are not allowed to use anything not on the list to treat her.... if she gets coliform mastitis, you have a 12 hour window to save her with anti-biotics if she gets real sick. Coliform (e-coli) is ENVIRONMENTAL.... they can get it from laying down in a nice green field that is wet from excessive rain.... but, if you treat her, she cannot EVER go back in the tank....
If your kid or your parent or grandparent or cousin gets a bad infection.... and you cannot get ahold of it in a reasonable time are you going to just say tough..... or give them an anti-biotic????? There are cases where anti-biotics are lifesavers. Do I think they have been overused..... YES CERTAINLY..... but there is a point of common sense too. So that is why I do not wholly promote organic farming when it comes to animals..... I grow an organic garden... have for 40 or more years.... and I do not like all the pesticides and herbicides being used. I think that we can do better with more WHOLISTIC type farming and gardening... But ... I also realize that there are trade offs for every type of farming.... and the cost may be too much for many farmers to pay if the input costs keep going up and the return does not. People are not going to be able to afford the increases... like was said, the increased wages will cause everything to go up as it will trickle down into everything that is sold one way or another.
I don't think that they will get the $15/hr minimum wage passed; but I do think it will go up some. If more businesses say they cannot afford to pay it, or scale back then there will be more out of work; more unemployment, more strain on the businesses that stay open..... and a lowering of quality of life for many more than will benefit from it.

When I lived in the Charlotte NC area and was still homeschooling, I knew many folk in the Grow Local movement (I think that was what they called it then). I didn't so much disagree with their aims or with the base of what they were about as they didn't seem to realize that not everyone in America lives in a mid-upper class suburb. The sheer amount of food produced by American farmers is hard to grasp.

I'm not adding a lot but I want to second the idea of something in between what is currently considered organic and totally conventional farming for a lot of our foodstuffs. The dairy example is sublimely appropriate. I don't want antibiotics in my milk but I could care less if antibiotics were used somewhere along the way providing it was for an event vs general use to increase production.

Nearly all of the problems we have in America today are caused by either/or positions and thinking. Well, and other things I will not mention but you probably get the drift. And I am forcing a stop here lol.

 

[CrealCritter]

Unfortunately crypto is no longer a way to avoid T as they ask about it directly. I played the crypto market in 2017 for about 8 months and made enough to buy the acre next to us. Not from trading skills but from simply good timing for once in my life. Crypto markets are highly manipulated by the big owners called "whales" who can do a pump and dump anytime they want so that turned me off a little. Plus the constant new coins. I do think the blockchain tech it is based on could be used for good - it is basically a form of triple accounting and could secure, among other things, our vote (possibly).

2 things that are certainties in life, Death and Taxes.

 

[CrealCritter]

The thing with us and might apply to some here as well. Is we live 21 miles to the nearest gas station . So we try hard to have at least 1/4 tank of gas all the time. If the power is out in town the next town with a gas station is 37 miles away. Yep I live in the boonies of corn cob.

 

[Hinotori]

Oh I grew up on the fill it at a quarter tank philosophy as well. I've never ran put of gas. Actually the only time my hubby has is when the gas tank float broke and he didn't know it.

 

[farmerjan]

I am lucky that I live within 5 miles of 2 different exits off the interstate so available gas/fuel.... and a couple of those places have generators to be able to run the truck stops in event of power outages. I am still in the countryside, but not as far away as I used to be. Still, I don't run the tanks below a quarter either.... you neve know when you have an emergency that you might not have time to stop and fill up. In fact, I usually try to fill up at a 1/2 tank just as a precaution. Plus, psychologically, a half tank fill up is not so painful money wise, as a nearly empty tank fill up.
The little 4x4 's gas gauge doesn't work.... ALWAYS hit the "trip" button so I know how many miles and never run it past 200 before I fill up. Better than having to go get gas on a MINUS 10 day or a blowing snow storm.... or get stuck in the back field that I had to go help a cow calve and a cold calf in the floorboard getting warmed up with the heater going full blast.....
Saw a 2.99 price on diesel today too....

 

[CrealCritter]

I am lucky that I live within 5 miles of 2 different exits off the interstate so available gas/fuel.... and a couple of those places have generators to be able to run the truck stops in event of power outages. I am still in the countryside, but not as far away as I used to be. Still, I don't run the tanks below a quarter either.... you neve know when you have an emergency that you might not have time to stop and fill up. In fact, I usually try to fill up at a 1/2 tank just as a precaution. Plus, psychologically, a half tank fill up is not so painful money wise, as a nearly empty tank fill up.
The little 4x4 's gas gauge doesn't work.... ALWAYS hit the "trip" button so I know how many miles and never run it past 200 before I fill up. Better than having to go get gas on a MINUS 10 day or a blowing snow storm.... or get stuck in the back field that I had to go help a cow calve and a cold calf in the floorboard getting warmed up with the heater going full blast.....
Saw a 2.99 price on diesel today too....

$2.99 for a gallon of diesel is flipping robbery. Care to guess how much stuff we purchase that sees the back of a semi at least once, before we buy it? What does that mean to the price of what we will buy?

PS... Please don't make me break out common sense again. I'm starting to loose confidence in the human race.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Gas: given where we live and hubby's (and my) potential for medical issues, I never want to be below 1/4 tank. And, we always make sure to keep the gas cans filled up so we can run the generator. It's not pretty when power gets knocked out by a blizzard or ice storm. One doozie we had left us w/o power for 13 days. This was BEFORE we had a generator. I remember one year when I was a kid, we had a blizzard, followed by an ice storm that left 1/2" of ice on top of the snow... followed by a vicious cold snap that lasted a couple weeks. The roads were rutted with massive piles of ice, the trees sounded like wind chimes, at least those that were left standing. And it was so cold for so long that the ice and sand spread by the town crews did absolutely nothing to help clear the roads. Schools were closed for 2 weeks. We survived by blocking the kitchen off with blankets and sheets of plastic, and running the gas oven.

No thank you. There is absolutely no wat that I would ever consider letting Pedo Joe force us into a dependence on electricity for heat, utilities, or transportation.

 

[CrealCritter]

Perhaps completely off topic here but I keep hearing of Millions, Trillions and Billions. I must admit theses amounts of money, are thrown around so frequently. I don't even think twice about what, they really mean anymore.

For fun and because I was bored and just so I could bring myself back to reality... I said what if 1 dollar equaled 1 second of time? Well let's see what we have...

1 Million seconds = 11 1/2 days
1 Billion seconds = 31 years
1 Trillion seconds = 31,709 years

How's that for an eye opener? Are we having fun yet?

 

[Hinotori]

We had a nasty cold snap in 1989-1990. The Columbia River froze solid enough that people were driving across it. It's the only time it's frozen solid there since the McNary Dam was built, and only once before that when it was rapids. It was high winds and -23°F.

The main building of the high school was a bunch of temp buildings the town bought that were leftover from when the Army built the chemical storage igloos out at the Depot. There were these wimpy little baseboard heaters that didn't do much. It was below freezing in the classrooms and we took classes in those rooms sitting on the floor on books leaning against the heaters. No one could wait to get into the classes held in the old thick concrete school that was built in 1909. It had a large good old fashioned coal boiler in the basement and large radiators in the classrooms. It was warm there. The middle school that is part of the campus was attached to the main gym and cafeteria used by both schools. They also had radiators but were off a natural gas boiler. It wasn't as warm and coats had to be worn in classes. That building was built in the 50s and leaked too much air in comparison to the oldest one.

 

[CrealCritter]

Here we go again... I opened the news this morning and wham 1.9 Trillion Dollars is staring me in the face.

If 1 second equaled 1 dollar. 1.9 Trillion seconds is a little more than 60,247 years.

The world has gone plum nutty!