Put farm jealousy aside and focus on your own operation
For farmers, it’s tempting to compare your progress to that of your neighbours.
You can see their crops, their equipment and their bin yards. You likely compete against them when buying or renting land. Rural communities also like to gossip about who is doing what.
You don’t really know the inside story of their actual financial performance, but visible success is typically gauged by how quickly a farm has expanded. For those of us with smaller farms, it’s easy to feel a twinge of jealousy. For some, it’s much more than just a twinge; it can be all consuming.
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Here are some of the top rationalizations for why your farm might seem less successful than a neighbour’s.
For some reason, it always rains more over there on the other side of town/the river/ the coulee. No wonder they do better; they almost always have better yields.
They have better land than we do. It’s just a function of where families originally homesteaded. If only our ancestors had chosen to settle on that land rather than where we are.
Timing is everything. They bought land before the big boom in prices, so their balance sheet looks a lot better than ours.
It takes money to make money, and there was a lot of old money available to that farm. We had to make our own way.
He worked off the farm on the oil rigs for years, earning big bucks, and she was a nurse at the hospital. That’s why they were able to expand so quickly.
Everyone says that farm has outside investor money, probably Chinese financing. No way they would be able to expand that fast otherwise.
That farm took a huge risk, steadily borrowing the maximum amount of money possible. It’s paid off for them so far, but just wait until times get tough and interest rates increase.
Those corporate farms have a big tax advantage. It just isn’t fair. The playing field isn’t level for smaller farms.
They are so lucky. They always grow what ends up being in demand, and they somehow manage to sell near the top of the market.
Although each of these rationalizations could potentially have merit, it’s also possible that more successful farms have better agronomic practices, work harder at marketing and employ more business acumen. They may also hire great advisers in accounting, agronomics and marketing.
It should also be noted that looks can be deceiving. Sometimes operations that appear very successful are not the picture of financial success that they portray.
In other instances, there can be family strife that outsiders don’t know about. How often do you see apparently successful family farm operations split apart with members going their separate ways?
Or perhaps all the hard work needed to make the farm successful has taken a great toll on the quality of life. The farm is financially successful, but many of the people aren’t really happy.
It’s best to put jealousy aside and try to adopt the practices that make sense for your operation.
It’s also important to acknowledge that success can be defined in many different ways. If you’re completely fixated on how many acres you farm, the size of your equipment and your net worth, life may be passing you by.
As well, no one should take good physical and mental health for granted. Without that, nothing else seems very important.
Source: producer.com