Agriculture

From 1959 to 1997 (the last year figures were available) full time farms in Nemaha County dropped from 1,038 to 328. The average farm size increased from 276.8 to 495 acres. The days of needing large families to work the farm no longer exists. Thus children leave, there is no one to take over the home place, and the neighbor buys or rents from the retired older generation.

There is obviously less total acreage in farm production than forty years ago. But the decline in farm population (fewer but larger farms) is not the only cause because government programs have encouraged farmers to take land out of production.

In 1960 the support price for corn was $1.03 per bushel, not far from the figure for 2000 while prices for land and machinery have escalated exponentially. Advanced technology has been both a boon and a bite for farmers. As they increased yields through better hybrids, narrower rows, and the advent of no till farming (with herbicides and insecticides) farm surpluses mounted. The law of supply and demand held prices down. Yields increased measurably but the total dollars per acre barely kept up with costs of farming.

The situation prompted the federal government to step in and buy huge amounts of grain and either ship it to countries with starving populations or destroy it. Other programs paid farmers for taking land out of production. Over the 40 years of this study it has allowed the American farmer to feed a large portion of the world, but done little to improve the lot of Nemaha County farmers. The result has been that bigger farms are producing more but have seriously damaged the “family farm”. The American consumer has gained from lower food prices, but the American tax payer (basically the same people) has an increased burden by paying for farm subsidies.

Some agricultural institutions have faded from the landscape over these 40 years. In 1960 small feeders brought their cattle to local markets, such as the Dovel Sale Barn in Auburn. In the mid 1960s Carl Dovel sold out and quit. A few small auction barns at Humboldt and Tecumseh still served the small feeder. The bigger feeders went to Omaha to sell on the largest auction in the country. By 1970 Missouri Beef Packers, near Rock Port, Missouri, across the river from Nemaha County, were buying cattle directly on the farm. Their buyers, using radio cars, were able to give instant quotes and provide the beef for their company without the middleman auctioneer. Later, Missouri Beef left the area, but the trend in direct buying signaled the demise of the Omaha Livestock Yards.

The Omaha stockyards are now empty and are being considered for designation on the national list of historic buildings. Feeders now sell almost exclusively to packers directly.

By eliminating the cost of the middleman auctioneer, the new trend in selling cattle was first hailed as a boon to the feeders. But now there is controversy over this practice with concerns that the absence of the “honest broker” (read middleman auctioneer) stifles competition. In hearings before Congress, one feeder said, “We have never seen the market as closed and noncompetitive in the history of our business.” It is also said that supply and demand no longer determine live cattle prices. Instead, feeders believe that prices are increasingly being determined by whether or not packers have large numbers of cattle (owned or under contract) that can be scheduled for slaughter if the supply and demand factors are pushing cattle prices up. The legislation being considered would prohibit packers from owning livestock 14 days before slaughter.

A similar change in hog production also affected Auburn. With corporate ownership of mega-sized hog farms, the small operator was virtually forced out. The local hog buying station, operated by Wilson & Company, closed in March of 1989.

On the other hand, the story on the grain side is a little more encouraging. Not only did government grain programs establish grain bin storage sites to hold the surplus grain it bought, individual farmers were given money to build storage units on their own place. After a certain period of time, and the required amount of grain storage, those bins became the property of the farmer. Eventually the plan worked and the surpluses were gone. The now unneeded structures at the bin sites were sold at auction. They now serve private enterprise and store everything from old cars to furniture. The on-farm bins are now used to temporarily store grain until it can be sold for the best price.

Farm land prices rose to extremes in the 1970s and then dropped off, causing bankruptcies. Although it was much more complicated, essentially what happened was the value of farm land was so high, loans for new equipment were easy to get. When the land prices fell, the collateral decreased and loans were called in. An example of high land prices came in 1976 when the McIninch farms sold for $1,372,000. The top price, for one of the farms, was $1,290 per acre. Later in that decade some farms with good improvements sold for as much as $2,000 acre. From 1970 to 1980 farm land values more than tripled, much more than inflation for the period.