The Raiders Lounge IV

[BlackWidow]

No

[BigGuy951]

BW

[HILLBILLYBLACK]

Horse walks into a bar.

Bartender says, "WHY THE LONG FACE?"

[raider77]

In my opinion, you can partly blame the UC system for the state of agriculture in Cali. Back in the 60s and 70s they started getting up in everyone's business about how to run their farms, and that whole "Better Living Through Chemistry" thing they had going on, so people could grow MORE MORE MORE on less land, and not rotate their crops, and get those oh so lovely Monsanto seeds in there so you always have to buy new seeds each year and can't preserve any of your own. If it weren't for the UC knuckleheads out their in their white coats and clipboards telling people how to farm... people who had been farming for countless generations, California and the rest of the farmers of this country would have been a lot better off. UC was all about getting the agribusinesses in there and running family farms out of business and off the land. It happened all across the country. Now we're paying the piper for all that insane song and dance.

Some of those old dudes who worked in the UC system were darn near insane, too. I heard one of 'em PERSONALLY, say the biggest mistake Califonia ever made, was letting "the Mexicans out of the work camps". He said back in the day, they used to make 'em stay in work camps and get trucked back to Mexico as soon as they were done working, and how "back then" they "knew their place". Unreal, man.

Kinda bull**** too, when in the 80s, they started paying my uncle NOT to grow his soybeans,
so they could keep the prices up. He had a whole season's work they turned under. He had asked
'em if he couldn't donate it to help feed cattle or people. Nope, no way. Somethin' about all that
mess broke somethin' in him. It took away the honor and the decency of his life. I think he farmed
about two more years after that, and each time it was the same, so he just quit.

I just wonder how the **** people think we're gonna have any decent food to eat in the future.
I guess they just figure they can grow it in other countries and have it shipped here. Here in some
of the richest soil on the planet. But hey, you got to make room for those highways and strip malls!

I myself a little young to be that knowledge able about that far back but i agree with what your basically saying. Thats what has screwed us is people trying to control something they know nothing about. people have opinions and are trying to control agriculture when they have nothing to do with it. People in lab coats and suits want to tell us how to raise animals and grow things. Its crazy and those people know have the power and what they say goes. Doesnt matter what happens to the people growing things. Its just a piss off to me and thats insane about your uncle and the rest of that. Its a sad thing what its all become but we still make it happen and try and do it with less and less land and little help. I still love it jsut wish people would let me and everyone like me do our jobs and stay out of it. A thank you and thats all is all i need from people like that.

[HILLBILLYBLACK]

we still make it happen and try and do it with less and less land and little help. I still love it jsut wish people would let me and everyone like me do our jobs and stay out of it. A thank you and thats all is all i need from people like that.

I hear you brother, I hear you. Back in the day, (and I'm talking mid to late 1700s here!) my
family were all sharecroppers until they earned enough to have their own little farms and
try to make those farms grow. But between the banks and corporate intervention into
agri-business, most of the farmers in my family have thrown in the towel. The few who
do still farm, mostly sell corn to bourbon companies or grow burley (tobacco). Kinda crazy
that the only two things you can still make money at... aren't food, they're luxuries.

I guess that kinda says something about our society too. People want food to be cheap
cheap cheap and all of it pretty as can be and shiny and no dents or blemishes, but they
will pay all kind of money for single-barrel bourbon and a carton of smokes.

America: We Got Our Priorities All Messed Up, And We're Proud!

[raider77]

Haha its very sad but what can you say farming is lookied at in a bad light anymore. I mean people think most of us our stupid rednecks who cant read. haha its just how it is anymore. My family has been farmers most of their lives. Its hard to make a living doing it anymore now though. especially in this damn state. Ive always wanted to start my own in a few years but im just not sure its gonna be worth it. everyone eats but very few appreciate or even know what goes into making their food. They just want to watch a youtube video and assume all of us our like that. its a shame. So part of your family grows tobacco? how is the money in that. Ive always been interested in that crop.

[HILLBILLYBLACK]

So part of your family grows tobacco? how is the money in that. Ive always been interested in that crop.

Yeah... but to be clear, we're farming in Kentucky, not Cali. I did grow up between SoCal
and KY and had some experience with the ag. dept. at UC Riverside (thus the diatribe,)
but all the farming that happens in my family is in KY.

But tobacco is good money. It's messy as hell. GAWD it's messy stuff. But you still
get a good price for it no matter what the economy, cause damn if people can be starving
to death, but they gonna buy them smokes! In fact, weirdly, in a bad economy, tobacco
and corn (for bourbon) are two crops you can count on to stay at a good price. But, we
got killed on corn this past season. Drought. Anybody who didn't have crop insurance
just lost the farm. One good thing about tobacco though it it's so hearty. 'Not as fragile
as corn, wheat, soy, etc. A'course, out here, we're not growin' the super fragile stuff like
you all do out there. No smudge pots or anything like that has to be done. Tobacco's
a good crop though. You can always sell that ****, no matter what corn, cattle and
hogs are doin'.

[raider77]

O ya we dont do tobacco out here but have talked with a few guys who grow it out there and just seemed like a interesting crop. Dear god i hear you on corn tho. See i am a poultry guy born and raised. Turkeys are my specialty but had alot of experince in chickens and pigs as well. The corn priced killed us this year and the last few years now. Are feed cost have tripled almost the last few years and the drought just made things worse. Especially be so far from the corn we have to train it in from so far away which just adds to the cost of things. Tobacco seems like a real hands on crop and just wondering if you guy were still making money on it. Your righ tho people will always buy there smokes haha. DO you sell to a major tobacco company or what?

[HILLBILLYBLACK]

God, chickens and hogs. Two of the hardest things to raise! We used to raise some turkeys just for eatin' on the farm. You don't mess with those suckers! *laughing!

How it works here with small-farm tobacco is they have buyers who will come around to your
farm, look at what you got, and make you an offer. Usually they are kind of like... they represent
several "interests" aka tobacco companies so they are almost like tobacco brokers or something.
If you like the price, they'll send a truck out to come get the stuff. 'Used to be you had to take
it all into town and take it to the buyers but now it's the other way 'round. Same thing with
cattle. Buyers will come look and come get 'em now.

Tobacco is crazy though cause when you cut it and hang it, you get that tar all over you.
Man that stuff is worse than pine tar, for real. You get it on your clothes you never get
it out, so you mizewell just have some tobacco cuttin' clothes and that's it. But you can
always tell cuttin' time cause people got it on their hands, their hats, everything. *laughing*

Corn though... the other thing is, when ethanol started getting really pushed, corn farmers
were made all these promises of what a boom it was gonna be, and you know how those
banks are. Out there tellin' people Heyyy, it's gonna be great! You're gonna need a new
tractor or two and this and that and why not a new dualie and we'll loan you all this for the
low, low rate of...[fill in total b.s. interest rate] and then people say Yeah yeah! Right! Let's
do this! Then, woops, people aren't buyin' the ethanol, there are problems about the
emissions, blah blah yadda yadda, then drought comes, prices are sky high but the demand
isn't there. And you well know what happens when you miss a payment on that loan.
Interest rate they quoted you is GONE, DADDY GONE. So, a whole new round of people
are losing farms.

Sad thing is, here, they're all selling to housing developers who are playing 2K an acre for
farmland in nowhere Kentucky. WTF? Weirder still, there's people buying up old farms,
razing all the barns, and building these HUGE houses like castles. Who ARE these people?
Where did they come from? What are they doing here? When someone finds out, it's
usually some Widget Magnate from another country. It's just weird to see 'em buying
up "flyover country" and building houses bigger than our whole courthouse. Strange days.

[HILLBILLYBLACK]

Everyone else in the lounge is now going WTF... http://youtu.be/f_nrfpPcxQw

[BigGuy951]

Um yeah hi guys. Sorry to interrupt the lovely crop conversations but. Hello. O_O

[Proximo]

God, chickens and hogs. Two of the hardest things to raise! We used to raise some turkeys just for eatin' on the farm. You don't mess with those suckers! *laughing!

How it works here with small-farm tobacco is they have buyers who will come around to your
farm, look at what you got, and make you an offer. Usually they are kind of like... they represent
several "interests" aka tobacco companies so they are almost like tobacco brokers or something.
If you like the price, they'll send a truck out to come get the stuff. 'Used to be you had to take
it all into town and take it to the buyers but now it's the other way 'round. Same thing with
cattle. Buyers will come look and come get 'em now.

Tobacco is crazy though cause when you cut it and hang it, you get that tar all over you.
Man that stuff is worse than pine tar, for real. You get it on your clothes you never get
it out, so you mizewell just have some tobacco cuttin' clothes and that's it. But you can
always tell cuttin' time cause people got it on their hands, their hats, everything. *laughing*

Corn though... the other thing is, when ethanol started getting really pushed, corn farmers
were made all these promises of what a boom it was gonna be, and you know how those
banks are. Out there tellin' people Heyyy, it's gonna be great! You're gonna need a new
tractor or two and this and that and why not a new dualie and we'll loan you all this for the
low, low rate of...[fill in total b.s. interest rate] and then people say Yeah yeah! Right! Let's
do this! Then, woops, people aren't buyin' the ethanol, there are problems about the
emissions, blah blah yadda yadda, then drought comes, prices are sky high but the demand
isn't there. And you well know what happens when you miss a payment on that loan.
Interest rate they quoted you is GONE, DADDY GONE. So, a whole new round of people
are losing farms.

Sad thing is, here, they're all selling to housing developers who are playing 2K an acre for
farmland in nowhere Kentucky. WTF? Weirder still, there's people buying up old farms,
razing all the barns, and building these HUGE houses like castles. Who ARE these people?
Where did they come from? What are they doing here? When someone finds out, it's
usually some Widget Magnate from another country. It's just weird to see 'em buying
up "flyover country" and building houses bigger than our whole courthouse. Strange days.

Its tough to make the margins work in tobacco farming, very labor intensive crop, and labor costs keep appreciating. Ethanol is a farce, work the numbers on how much petroleum based fuels are used in the nitrogen production required to fertilize it and the diesel needed to plant, cultivate and harvest it. Its the law of diminishing returns on an exponential basis. It doesn't pencil. If a corn [grain] farmer goes broke in the United States right now, that farmer has issues. Even last year in the drought stricken Midwestern United States the margins where there. Agriculture is one of the few shining stars to today's economy. Its a good place to be. I am very sympathetic to the tobacco farmer however, that crop is fairly oblivious to the efficiencies of mechanized agriculture and its demand has fallen drastically.

[chipurmunki]

hi bg

[BigGuy951]

Whatsup chip!

[chipurmunki]

had a glorious nap. i was in atlanta this weekend and couldn't stay for the football game... DOH!

if i were to farm something, i think i'd wanna try my hand at skunks. when all our guns get taken away, i think we'll find that more people protect themselves with smells, so there will be a market.