Land. It always comes back to the land. Scratch the surface of a successful farm on the northern Plains, and you will find land passed along from one generation to another. Land is not just the retirement fund. It is the bank. Large debts are accrued against the land to survive hard times, and then paid off in years like this. Thirty-five years ago, secretary of agriculture Earl Butz challenged American farmers to “get big or get out.” He promised that if farmers would adopt an industrial approach to farming, abandon romance, abandon the intimacy and diversity of the small family farm and plow commodity crops fence row to fence row, the government would expand markets around the world. Butz’s approach required expensive machinery. It required elaborate protocols of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. The more farmers stretched the ecological carrying capacity of the land, the more they had to spend on inputs. And they bankrolled the whole enterprise by borrowing against the land. Those who failed, lost their land, sometimes to speculators, but more often to neighbors who had worked just a little harder, saved a little better, dodged a hailstorm, or missed an aphid infestation.
Dale Hargens will pay down debt on his land and machinery this year. After a lifetime of renting the family farm, he bought his land this year from his mother at the county-assessed value. Around $700 an acre. On the open market he would have to pay at least twice that much. But he suffers no illusions. It was only four years ago that his crops failed and the bank wouldn’t loan him money. Better to store this year’s profits in the land and working machinery. This is going to be a great year. A bad year is just around the corner.
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