I have farmed for 20 years.
To get my start, I received help from my dad in the form of exchanging use of equipment for labour provided. I needed to raise my own capital to invest in land and equipment.
In my experience, it is difficult to grow the farm and take capital for living at the same time. Especially early on when every dollar was so important and the base from which I started so small.
In order to help raise the needed capital, I chose to work off farm for the first 16 years. The last eight were in the financial industry dealing directly with farm lending. I started lending in 2006 just as we were coming out of some really tough years on the farm. Commodity prices had been low for awhile. In 2004, we had a mid-August killing frost; in 2005, we had so much rain it drowned the entire crop.
In the spring of 2006, the only conversations farmers seemed to have were about how to get out of the industry. Lending was difficult, mostly extending operating funds. Some farmers were only able to make the interest portion payment on their debt.
