Rent

We rent about 250 acres from a few different people, and today Kris took them their rent checks. We own acres ourselves, but we also rent them to grow crops we need to feed the cattle, and we spread manure nutrients on them.

Buying land has become cost-prohibitive here, due to the fact that there are lots of dairy farms. As a result, land regularly sells for over $4000/acre and has sold for $6000/acre a few times since we’ve lived here. As you add more cows to a dairy, the more land you need to grow crops and spread manure on, so you’re not over-fertilizing the land.

We use our rental acres to grow alfalfa (hay) and corn. A lot of people out here have ties to their land – like their families used to farm it. They don’t want to sell it but they don’t farm for a living, so they’re happy to have it used for farm land. It’s the best of both worlds – we can rent it, they can own it and look out on crops!

One of the people we rent from put it very nicely in her Christmas card. She wrote, “Thank you for taking care of my land!”