- 3 months ago
History's Biggest Wealth Transfer Forced Us To Buy Farm Land
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Today we paid $850,000 for this 80 acres of farm ground that you see me standing on because we had
00:08to. That math comes out to about $10,625 per acre. For comparison, one acre is just a little
00:17bit less than the size of a football field. I know what you're thinking, how did I purchase this?
00:23Well, the simple answer is we financed it and we're going to be paying for this over the next
00:2830 years of our life. I'm in my 20s now and I'll be paying for this well into my 50s. It's very rare
00:35that you make a purchase and you know without a shadow of a doubt that you are never going to sell
00:39or get rid of that item. Now, a piece of ground is a little bit more than an item, but I am willing
00:46to pay so much money for this because I will never sell this ground. I'm going to be farming this
00:51ground until eventually I stop farming and pass this on to my kids, which feels pretty special.
00:57You might be noticing that that is my house in the background, which is one of the reasons why
01:02I felt like I had to buy this farm ground. Several years ago, a farmer in our area approached myself
01:08and my husband Grant and he said, hey, I'm kind of getting out of the farming game and I know that
01:13you guys just got married and you're interested in farming for the rest of your lives. Would you like
01:17to rent this piece of ground? And that is a piece of ground that we are standing on right here.
01:22He rented us this 80 acres for $275 an acre, which felt very, very cheap, but that was $275 profit off
01:32of this ground that I was just giving away to somebody else. Now he approached us again and
01:38he said, I am ready to sell this piece of ground and I am interested in selling it to you guys.
01:44We felt very fortunate that he approached us. Because of the internet, we have seen a huge spike in
01:49interest and accessibility of outside investors purchasing farm ground. 50 years ago, farm ground
01:55was sold by word of mouth or paper flyers. Now everyone in the country has access to farms that
02:02are put on auction, which has led to a huge increase in big companies and big investors buying up US farm
02:10ground. So instead of farmers like me and Grant owning the ground that we're farming, a huge company
02:16located somewhere out of the state would own it. And that really scares me. In the next 20 years,
02:22the United States is going to experience one of the largest wealth transfers in history. And I would
02:28much rather see that wealth be passed on from generation of farmer to generation farmer or to see new
02:34farmers getting into farming rather than a bunch of big companies. In Nebraska alone, over a million acres of
02:42farm ground is owned not by farmers, but by Bill Gates, the Church of Latter-day Saints and Ted Turner.
02:49Yeah, the guy that founded CNN. I think I would rather my neighbors and myself on the farm ground than
02:54them. I did not have the cash to buy this ground. And frankly, if you put it out on a piece of paper,
03:01purchasing this ground really does not cash flow. Certainly not in my lifetime. But like I mentioned,
03:08this ground is right across the road from my house. And if this ground was to go up to auction,
03:13I don't know who I would get for a neighbor. And it most likely would not be another farmer around
03:18here. It would probably be bought by somebody far away. I would rather know my neighbors, especially
03:23people that I have to live right across the road from. This is the third piece of ground that Laura and I
03:29have been able to buy together. And it's been really special because it's very local. We don't
03:33have to drive our tractors all the way across the county, which I'm very thankful for. But land just
03:38keeps getting more and more expensive. Over the last six years, we've been able to buy three pieces of
03:43land. The first one was $6,000 per acre. And the next one was $8,500 an acre. And now this, the most
03:50expensive one is over $10,500 an acre, which is just mind blowing. I am excited to see where the price of
03:59farmland goes in the future, but I am not excited to pay for it. We hope to continue buying more farm
04:04grounds so we can continue our farming career and also pass it on to our kids someday. The average
04:09age of a farmer in the United States is 60 years old. Less than 10% of farmers in the United States
04:17are under the age of 35. Because of that average farmer age, that means over the next 30 years,
04:23almost 70% of US farmland will change hands. That's over 300 million acres. This just needs to be
04:31planned very carefully so that we can continue farming the ground and it doesn't get bought out
04:37by big developers. That also means that now is the time for young farmers. If you have an interest in
04:43farming or homesteading or the country lifestyle, now is the time. In 2017, there was 900 million acres
04:53of US farmland. Just a couple years later, in 2023, that number has decreased to 879 million acres.
05:03The amount of farmland is decreasing while the amount of people that needs to be fed are increasing.
05:09So purchasing this land is really special because it means I get to play a small part in keeping US
05:15farmground in the hands of the farmers and continuing my family's legacy as I am a fifth generation farmer
05:21and Grant is a sixth generation farmer. I can't imagine what our kids are going to be experiencing
05:26someday.
05:41One of the stipulations when it came to us first renting this piece of ground was that we had to
05:45purchase the pivot. So we actually already own this pivot and the well and the motor out here that
05:52pumps the water. We also recently installed another new pivot. We just moved a couple spans from another
05:59field and now we have a totally irrigated 80. With the pivot, as you know, comes the joy of repairs.
06:06And that leads us to today's video sponsor. As you know, I have a lot of pivots on my farm,
06:13meaning I have a lot of problems. It seems like something always needs to be fixed or upgraded.
06:19Luckily, Universal Motion Components or UMC has been a longtime faithful channel sponsor.
06:26Together, we are slowly replacing every gearbox, center drive, knuckle and booster pump on our
06:32farming operation for the sturdy, reliable ones that UMC offers all of its customers.
06:38They are truly products built to withstand the test of time, wear and weather. They have the
06:44widest selection of irrigation solutions and pivot powertrain parts in the industry. And they maintain
06:51their industry leading position by offering global distribution. So be sure to pick up your UMC parts
06:57from your local pivot parts distributor. If you do any type of pivot irrigation, UMC is the company for
07:04you. They have been revolutionizing the industry for over 40 years, and it is my privilege to be
07:08partnered with them. Thank you so much to UMC. And now back to work. This field was planted to soybeans
07:15last year, which means this year in 2025, it will be corn. For the most part, the 80 is pretty flat.
07:23There's this corner spot where some water does run in. There's a little bit of a groove to it.
07:28You can see where we had to leave some beans on the ground because our draper head didn't quite flex
07:33enough to pick them up. But besides this one corner, it's a pretty nice looking piece of ground.
07:40Here's a good example of where our pivot track closer went through and we closed this pivot track.
07:45Pivot comes and waters right along here and we got this all smoothed up. Everything is ready to be
07:49watered again next year. Our house is right across the road from here. And like any used thing that you
07:55purchase, there's always just a little bit of work that needs to be done. So our plan is to remove some of
08:01these weedy trees here. There's some stumps here. We can level all of this out. There's also a couple
08:07different junk piles that we've been looking at for quite some time that we are going to be able to
08:12clean up, sell for scrap, and hopefully this will all be a very nice looking ditch when we're done with
08:18it. All smoothed up and ready to be mowed this summer. It's been a dream of ours for some time now to
08:25actually be able to plant a tree line. So now that we have ownership of it, our long-term goal is to
08:31make a tree line in that ditch to provide a little extra wind blockage. Here's our junk pile that needs
08:37to be cleaned up. The cement pad will be left exactly how it is, but all of these tires will be recycled
08:43and the pipe is going away. I've been farming around this pile for a couple years now, so I'm kind
08:49of excited to get rid of it. We owe all of you guys watching a big thank you because without you
08:55watching this video and all the other videos that we post, we would not even be able to dream
09:01about purchasing this piece of farm ground. I don't love doing advertisements and sponsorships,
09:07but that on top of the YouTube viewership that you guys are providing me with and the crops that we're
09:13going to grow and then sell off this ground, it almost makes it affordable. The corn we produce
09:21off this ground will come out to be about a little over $80,000 a year at the current crop prices and
09:28that will pretty much cover our mortgage payment and the taxes on this ground. We get taxed almost $70
09:34per acre on this 80 and so that comes out to be a little under $6,000 per year and that doesn't even
09:42cover our seed that we have to plant, which is close to a hundred dollars an acre, our irrigation
09:49expenses, our fertilizer expenses, and the diesel fuel we have to put in our tractors. So this year
09:56we are actually losing a ton of money. So not only is this costing us $850,000 to buy, we are going to
10:04lose money operating on this ground. But this is where the gambler's mentality of farming comes in
10:13we are just hoping that next year or the year after corn hits $7 and all of a sudden boom we're
10:19profitable and all the meanwhile this ground is appreciating so not that we're ever going to sell
10:26it but it'll be worth more someday. So here's to losing more money and thank you for watching this
10:31video because we need all the help we can get. Speaking of fertilizer expenses, like we said before
10:36we're going to be planting corn out here this year. A big part of land ownership is maintaining the soil
10:43it is a living organism and it needs things to keep producing a good crop. So our plan is to apply
10:48dry fertilizer this winter and we'll sit out here we're going to plant corn and then the corn is going
10:53to use those nutrients from that dry fertilizer that we spread and hopefully grow even more than 240
11:00bushels an acre. I have to say winter in Nebraska gets to be pretty bland and I am very excited come
11:06spring and summer time when this whole field is green and there's nothing but corn and soybeans
11:11as far as the eye can see. It's a really beautiful sight to behold and sooner than you realize we are
11:17going to be out here in a tractor we're going to be cultivating we are going to be irrigating and
11:23eventually harvesting. There is something very special about driving a combine and harvesting a crop
11:29on ground that you own. It feels very similar to walking into an apartment that you are renting
11:37versus a home that you own. There's just something very special about it. Let's clean up this junk file.
11:55so
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