re: Starting a buisness (farming) and curious where to start

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OP if it's just a hobby that you'd like to put on your tax return add it to a sch c

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Reading between the lines and trying to figure out what the OPs goals are, this is probably the best answer

Farming has been financed that way since forever. A lot of businesses with high up front costs operate that way...like car dealerships.

There are still a lot of small farms in this country. But for staple crops like wheat, economies of scale make size a necessity.

A good many husband/wife owned farms are set up as general partnerships.

Like others have said, you need to find out who the local accountants and lawyers who are most familiar with agriculture. You said you already have financing in place, but it wouldn't hurt to pick an ag lenders brain either. You just have to piece enough info together from different sources and go from there.

Good luck to you and keep us updated.

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How much money can you make from selling what you grow?

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Depends on the price of the crop. We're rice, crawfish and some years soybean farming family. We've never lost money but we have many years have had all bills paid and had money to put in our retirement account. Some years are better than others BUT you don't spend that "extra" money -- you keep it to start the next years crop so that you don't have to borrow as much which equals less interest on the loan.

I'm super thankful that my husband is a great farmer and a great business man.

eta: we have a little more than 2000 acres of land; we own a little but the rest is either family land or land that we rent. This year he'll be planting about 1200 acres of rice and is undecided on soybeans at this point. He often gets calls from a landowner asking him to pick up their land. If it's a good situation location and water source wise he'll consider it. It can be a good life -- but it can also be a difficulty one just like any job. It has its good and bad days.

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Cattle prices are down from a few years ago. If you're gonna buy some now is the time

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Now, or in the next couple of years is the time to get into row crops also if it's the right situation. There's a lot of positives right now despite lower grain prices. Cotton is up, for one. That's the biggest thing for us. I'd rather be on a cotton/corn rotation than a corn/soybean rotation... Land isn't really getting cheaper, but seed/fertilizer/chemicals are backing off. We own our equipment, but for someone starting out, Deere and Case IH have attractive lease deals if that's the route they'd want to go. Lots of new technology coming along.

We have the land and its way less stressful to let someone else do it and collect the check

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We own our equipment, but for someone starting out, Deere and Case IH have attractive lease deals if that's the route they'd want to go.

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While I can see the attraction of leasing, I'd always recommend buying cheap, used equipment and building equity instead.

Land availability is the real limiting factor for getting in. At least, good land is. There's just not a lot of it. Plenty of high-priced garbage dirt that will break you, though.

Read an article recently on organic / niche markets and apparently water buffalo's are pretty good. The real water buffalo mozzarella is ridiculously expensive.

We've bought tractors ... leased combines which included any repairs at THEIR expense and it ended up being worth it. Think he bought a combine last year that is larger than previously and they can better keep up with harvest. Still have the combine from when we started in 1997 as a second/backup when needed.