Sure. The acreage needed to make ends meet keeps getting bigger. Also, in the article I linked to, one particularly scary chart is this:Topper wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2019 1:28 pmLook at the size and cost of the machinery being used and how many days/weeks a year it is used for, you know the independent family farmer is doomed.
Return on assets for the American farming industry has been below 2% for the past six years!
It hasn’t really looked healthy since the 1970’s. I mean, no board of directors at any company would accept such a horridly low rate of return. You’d be looking for at least 5% over time.
The forecast for 2019 is a lousy 1.3%. This means the farmers have absolutely no margines. Anything that goes wrong will turn their figures red. And then their government goes and picks a fight with their main export market, a country that buys 22% of American soy beans and also a substantial part of the corn and grain production.
Absolutely not a good time to be a farmer.
Btw, remember the farm crisis in the 80’s?
Look at the chart.
That would have been caused by the dip between 1976 and 1983, right?
A far rosier return rate than the last couple of years...
SL.