A mixed harvest

Information not clerly stated in this editorial:
Number of farms in 2006 was 6,300. Net Farm Income in 2006 was 93,592
Number of Farms in 2007 was 6,200. Net Farm Income in 2007 was 263,248

Want to learn more about VT Farming? Http://ww.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/VThtm

Also not mentioned was that IBM's anual payroll is 300 million dollars.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/VT.htm

I always forget at least one .

Looking at the huge jump in net farm income, one must wonder exactly what is responsible for such a big gain.

Fools Paradise wrote:

Information not clerly stated in this editorial:
Number of farms in 2006 was 6,300. Net Farm Income in 2006 was 93,592
Number of Farms in 2007 was 6,200. Net Farm Income in 2007 was 263,248
Want to learn more about VT Farming? Http://ww.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/VThtm
Also not mentioned was that IBM's anual payroll is 300 million dollars.

so they made on average $42.00 each and get tax breaks and how much state aid ? welfare, food stamps ?

Is there any point of keeping the industry on life support if it's dead ?

Fools Paradise wrote:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateF acts/VT.htm
I always forget at least one .

Farms by sales (percent)
Less than $9,999 60.6
$10,000 to $49,999 15.7
$50,000 to $99,999 6.0

so 82.3% don't have gross sales that can even begin to justify the investment in land & equipment, never mind the labor and aren't viable opperations.

Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
so they made on average $42.00 each and get tax breaks and how much state aid ? welfare, food stamps ?
Is there any point of keeping the industry on life support if it's dead ?

I learned a new word while looking this up, "agritourism". I think that would be the word to describe the new Grafton Cheese co at the Retreat Farm. It is a very nice shop that has a nice variety of goods. Stonewall farm in Keene would be another fit for agritourism don't you think? As a young college student I went to shelburn farm with my animal science class. The outside was quintessential picture perfect Vermont. The inside of the barn however, was packed full of steer standing in black mud & shit up to their knees.

Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
so they made on average $42.00 each and get tax breaks and how much state aid ? welfare, food stamps ?
Is there any point of keeping the industry on life support if it's dead ?

I see it's in thousands, so a small percentage of farmers are making huge money to make the average work out to $42,000

Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
Farms by sales (percent)
Less than $9,999 60.6
$10,000 to $49,999 15.7
$50,000 to $99,999 6.0
so 82.3% don't have gross sales that can even begin to justify the investment in land & equipment, never mind the labor and aren't viable opperations.

I think that is why so many sell to the land trust. I wonder what percentage of Vermont farm acers are land trust acers?

As the US economy completely collapses. Its going to be fun watching the "screw the farm" crew start abandoning their McChristian principles and resorting to crime to feed themselves and their family.

During the Great Depression, Americans remembered how valuable those local farmers are. In a BIG way.

Just wait, wealth takes many forms. I submit that most farmers are going to prove wealthier than most bankers.

Reality wrote:

As the US economy completely collapses. Its going to be fun watching the "screw the farm" crew start abandoning their McChristian principles and resorting to crime to feed themselves and their family.
During the Great Depression, Americans remembered how valuable those local farmers are. In a BIG way.
Just wait, wealth takes many forms. I submit that most farmers are going to prove wealthier than most bankers.

where are these "screw the farm" people ?

The only people out there I hear about about the ones that are blindly saying save the farm at all costs.

The same scare the public logic could have been used to save the blacksmith, fisherman, candle maker and countless other people that became obsolete in the modern world.

It's evident many of the so called farmers aren't really farmers at all, they are just hobby farmers or trust funders exploiting the farm tax breaks.

Looking at the VT Dairy article in this weeks paper, it was printed that VT dairy farmers can not compete with the tons of milk produced out west. The example used was surplus dry milk pushing the price of milk down. Clearly the niche for VT farmers is in specialty milks. The difficulty is developing a market for water buffalo milk.
Vermont's niche farms and agritourism will add to farm vialability. However, did we just not witness a $7 jump in maple syrup? So I wonder if our farms are even sustainable. The reality is that VT farms are increasingly being sold to land trust because they are not viable operations. The question is, what price are Vermonters able to pay to preserve them.

Reality wrote:

As the US economy completely collapses. Its going to be fun watching the "screw the farm" crew start abandoning their McChristian principles and resorting to crime to feed themselves and their family.
During the Great Depression, Americans remembered how valuable those local farmers are. In a BIG way.
Just wait, wealth takes many forms. I submit that most farmers are going to prove wealthier than most bankers.

Ahh yes, the good old days of the dust bowls. Keeping everything as it was is ignoring the importance of improving the practice. When people speak of keeping things the way it used to be, they are really talking about how they remember it and not historically. Shall we clear cut all of Vermont and rebuild stone fences by hand? shall we tear up the pavement and find out what mud season is really all about? Shall we freeze, starve and die of disease living off grid in cabins without plumbing or heat? Shall we live holistically without modern medicine, pasturization and live with polio, rickets and scurvy?

You need to study history "Born".(Born "again" per say? Earth 6,000 years old instead of billions?)

Dust bowls were the result of POOR indstrial scale agricultural practices. Everybody having a garden at least, and TONS of small farmers everywhere has worked well for hundreds of thousands of years on various continents.

Lose the blinders boy, the universe is a big place. History is long. And the last couple of hundred year history here is America is a minuscule slice of the big picture.

Never criticize a farmer with a full mouth at least. And widen your stereotypes. I'm a proud meat eating, gun owning AMERICAN small farmer - who *knows* stuff like homeopathic medicine is just as idiotic as Astrology and prayer. Its a big universe kiddo, it doesn't all fit in your little images.

Reality wrote:

You need to study history "Born".(Born "again" per say? Earth 6,000 years old instead of billions?)
Dust bowls were the result of POOR indstrial scale agricultural practices. Everybody having a garden at least, and TONS of small farmers everywhere has worked well for hundreds of thousands of years on various continents.
Lose the blinders boy, the universe is a big place. History is long. And the last couple of hundred year history here is America is a minuscule slice of the big picture.
Never criticize a farmer with a full mouth at least. And widen your stereotypes. I'm a proud meat eating, gun owning AMERICAN small farmer - who *knows* stuff like homeopathic medicine is just as idiotic as Astrology and prayer. Its a big universe kiddo, it doesn't all fit in your little images.

Settle down son and read the thread from the beginning before shooting off at the mouth.

Born is the name I used for another site, I am "Fools Paradise" on this site. I am not a born again anything, I was born but once. I am not anti farming, but nor do I want to turn the whole of Vermont into the shelburn museum as proposed by the person who wrote the editorial. It does not sound as if you have read the editorial? The land trust is nothing more than buying farms out of bankrupcy. I'm not ok with the land trust gobbeling up public lands for the purpose of freezing VT in time. I think that Vermont happens to have a future besides being a National Park.

My mistake, should read "gobbeling up private lands..."