If anyone thinks farming is for simpletons, come fucking try it. Bring your tickets in heavy duty mechanics, welding, fitting, instrumentation, and millwrighting. An accounting degree with minors in veterinary science, commerce, soil biology, animal science and mychorrizhal studies will be an asset. Also, you’re going to need a CDL and the ability to operate about 30 types of heavy equipment without dying because there aren’t a lot of safeties on anything. If you’re slow, you’re dead.
Now take all that and add a credit score sufficient to borrow about $2 million for operating line, inputs, salaries, land rent, equipment maintenance and leasing and custom work. Then come talk to me about talents.
On the accounting, I’ve done taxes for a few cattle ranches. They do their bookkeeping with literal pencil and paper. The handwriting can be difficult to read, but lemme tell ya, they are always accurate to the penny and absolutely no nonsense. Far better than most of the urban small businesses out there.
Well, I end up at year-end balancing all the forward grain contracts and put/call options against actual sales, with dockage and off-cheque charges for the various commissions, and have to figure out crop insurance receipts and outlays against their audit and my sales. Then you need to reconcile the cattle sales at auction with all the shrinkage, auction fees and cattle commission charges. Because chem gets ordered but not all is used, I’ll often have to build a ledger showing where the refunds come from, and that will set off a cascade of reversals for various incentive programs and grant money we get to reduce nitrogen usage that all have to be explained. Don’t even get me started on the various environmental grant programs we are a part of in order to try to build a sustainable land base.
I’ve tried to just let this stuff go straight to the accountant, and it was an utter shitshow, and these accountants have worked with farms in our area and size for decades. And I completely understand, because I deal with these things all year and I still end up scratching my head how a lot of these companies build statements, and catch them in errors just because I’m so used to dealing with this stuff.
I tried growing a bed of veggies during the pandemic and miserably failed lol. I’m someone who has been growing 100+ houseplants for years so I’m not a novice.
I have deep respect for farmers, not just because of the talent and hard work but also because of the courage it takes to do it (like your life can be ruined if there isn’t enough rain one year).
I have been growing beds of veggies for years and I don’t have a fucking PhD in whatever the fuck dude said above. Large scale farming is a whole lot different than a backyard garden. Behold the fruits of my labors as a simpleton
If anyone thinks farming is for simpletons, come fucking try it. Bring your tickets in heavy duty mechanics, welding, fitting, instrumentation, and millwrighting. An accounting degree with minors in veterinary science, commerce, soil biology, animal science and mychorrizhal studies will be an asset. Also, you’re going to need a CDL and the ability to operate about 30 types of heavy equipment without dying because there aren’t a lot of safeties on anything. If you’re slow, you’re dead.
Now take all that and add a credit score sufficient to borrow about $2 million for operating line, inputs, salaries, land rent, equipment maintenance and leasing and custom work. Then come talk to me about talents.
On the accounting, I’ve done taxes for a few cattle ranches. They do their bookkeeping with literal pencil and paper. The handwriting can be difficult to read, but lemme tell ya, they are always accurate to the penny and absolutely no nonsense. Far better than most of the urban small businesses out there.
Well, I end up at year-end balancing all the forward grain contracts and put/call options against actual sales, with dockage and off-cheque charges for the various commissions, and have to figure out crop insurance receipts and outlays against their audit and my sales. Then you need to reconcile the cattle sales at auction with all the shrinkage, auction fees and cattle commission charges. Because chem gets ordered but not all is used, I’ll often have to build a ledger showing where the refunds come from, and that will set off a cascade of reversals for various incentive programs and grant money we get to reduce nitrogen usage that all have to be explained. Don’t even get me started on the various environmental grant programs we are a part of in order to try to build a sustainable land base.
I’ve tried to just let this stuff go straight to the accountant, and it was an utter shitshow, and these accountants have worked with farms in our area and size for decades. And I completely understand, because I deal with these things all year and I still end up scratching my head how a lot of these companies build statements, and catch them in errors just because I’m so used to dealing with this stuff.
I tried growing a bed of veggies during the pandemic and miserably failed lol. I’m someone who has been growing 100+ houseplants for years so I’m not a novice.
I have deep respect for farmers, not just because of the talent and hard work but also because of the courage it takes to do it (like your life can be ruined if there isn’t enough rain one year).
I have been growing beds of veggies for years and I don’t have a fucking PhD in whatever the fuck dude said above. Large scale farming is a whole lot different than a backyard garden. Behold the fruits of my labors as a simpleton
And this is the argument I give people who complain that we give farmers subsidizes…food is cheap and plentiful for a reason.