Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

chicagotribune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 284 posts

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#121

Post by fundad »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #88
libraryofbabel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred acres (maybe worth $5M) will only churn out a few hundred grand in profit -- not even better than holding t-bills. Non-judgmental curious question: why do you keep doing it? (As opposed to selling the land and buying tbills.)

> the ick that comes with running other businesses Also non-judgmental curious question: what is this "ick" related to non-farming businesses?

I think it's the way the original poster looks down people running other businesses.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#122

Post by LastTrain »

harmmonica wrote: post #93
leptons wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad there aren't books that describe the meaning of words, so this website will have to do... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/most No, "most" does not mean "80%" or any other made up number.

Not the friendliest way to reply, but are you saying 65% does not mean most? Just wondering if we're violently agreeing. I shouldn't have said 80%. Was just trying to articulate that most is a high threshold and also not defined as an absolute number.

You have a misconception about what the word means. Most has a meaning: more than any other quantity. > 50% meets that definition every time, but even 2% could mean ‘most’ if everything else in the comparison is less than 2%.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#123

Post by ElevenLathe »

quantummagic wrote: post #106
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college was invented in part to increase the ability slave states at the founding of the country keep a certain amount of control - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slav... . It set up the critical vulnerability that we have today, that in states where the votes are close at the state level, switching just a handful of votes completely moves the votes in the electoral college. Thi…

How does any of that change anything I've said? They explicitly negotiated the electoral college to protect their ability to not be overwhelmed by more populous states, and forever maintain their voice in the union. It is working exactly as intended, and is essentially a contract we are all a party to. We don't let one party unilaterally change other contracts, why should we here? It seems you'd have to be a very big…

For one thing, the social contract among the states was already changed in the 1860s. We're no longer some loose confederation of independent states. The Feds are in charge, whether you like it or not, and the states are effectively administrative divisions, whether you like it or not. We literally fought a war about this and the "states' rights" people lost.

For another, we're not bound to contracts between people who are long dead.

For another, the constitution (little c, not the actual document) is not a literal contract. That's a methaphor.

Finally: Why do you, as a person, want a system where land can vote? Or are you a parcel of land pretending to be a person?

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#124

Post by yieldcrv »

arbor_day wrote: post #62

I own the farm and farm it in Illinois. I owe the land through an LLC, because farming is dangerous and I don't want to go bankrupt if somebody sues me. Farms are expensive and hard to subdivide, so people will put them into a legal entity and pass down to the next generation via a trust. All of my neighbors are doing the same, so we're all counted as "not farmers" here Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred…

> all without the ick that comes with running other businesses

can you elaborate on this perception?

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#125

Post by travisennis »

arbor_day wrote: post #62

I own the farm and farm it in Illinois. I owe the land through an LLC, because farming is dangerous and I don't want to go bankrupt if somebody sues me. Farms are expensive and hard to subdivide, so people will put them into a legal entity and pass down to the next generation via a trust. All of my neighbors are doing the same, so we're all counted as "not farmers" here Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred…

I was just looking at a GIS map yesterday for my area and noticed that nearly every field was owned by an LLC and/or trust. Didn't think much of it at the time until I read this.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#126

Post by yieldcrv »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #103
jckahn wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine there's some satisfaction in feeding people that money can't buy.

There’s an exceedingly strong cultural drive to keep farmland “in the family” even if it impoverishes or otherwise inconveniences the descendants. I had a coworker once who lives in this region and owns some amount of farmland in a similar situation. He could have sold it and moved his family to at any point; even now I think it would be easily done, if not as easy as in the past. But of course he still lives there,…

I used to date a woman in Germany who was trying to shake her farm roots for corporate aspirations. I didn't understand German that well but apparently other Germans could tell her accent. No different than someone from Appalachia being assumed to be uneducated, and how we debate the validity of poor English versus "dialect". It seemed like an unnecessary distraction to her life.

Eventually I met the father, and he was big into the farm life. running a small but industrial farm. I still didn't understand, he mentioned a love of feeding people, why is he doing this and why is he putting his family through this, my girlfriend was translating the things he said but I didn't get it, so I assumed language barrier. They did seem to be respected in the town though by all the shopkeepers. But given the options, they were quite liquid and wealthy, it seemed contrived.

Then I met the grandfather, now, I liked that guy. The grandfather had a diversified portfolio, golf ranges, restaurants, farms, different siblings and children running them all. There was no "I just love feeding people" bullshit, just revenue streams and property. The farmer son just got the short straw and had to adopt that persona.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#127

Post by 9rx »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #88
libraryofbabel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred acres (maybe worth $5M) will only churn out a few hundred grand in profit -- not even better than holding t-bills. Non-judgmental curious question: why do you keep doing it? (As opposed to selling the land and buying tbills.)

> the ick that comes with running other businesses Also non-judgmental curious question: what is this "ick" related to non-farming businesses?

I own both a farm business and non-farm business. I feel the "ick" he talks about.

I don't know how to exactly describe it, but I'd suggest it has to do with more autonomy in non-farming businesses, where you are always trying to balance between trying to make the business work and not taking advantage of people. Or if you end up taking advantage of people...

In farming, it is all laid out for you. Prices are already set in Chicago. The buyer is always there. You grow the product, deliver it, and that's that. These days, with the way technology has gone, you might not even interact with another person in the process.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#128

Post by dismalaf »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #82
arbor_day wrote: post #62

I own the farm and farm it in Illinois. I owe the land through an LLC, because farming is dangerous and I don't want to go bankrupt if somebody sues me. Farms are expensive and hard to subdivide, so people will put them into a legal entity and pass down to the next generation via a trust. All of my neighbors are doing the same, so we're all counted as "not farmers" here Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred…

> Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred acres (maybe worth $5M) will only churn out a few hundred grand in profit -- not even better than holding t-bills. Non-judgmental curious question: why do you keep doing it? (As opposed to selling the land and buying tbills.)

Land can be financed over long periods and held forever. So a few hundred grand will pay off $5 million in about 20 years and then that's steady income forever after (as long as you keep farming).

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#129

Post by lotsofpulp »

travisennis wrote: post #125
arbor_day wrote: post #62

I own the farm and farm it in Illinois. I owe the land through an LLC, because farming is dangerous and I don't want to go bankrupt if somebody sues me. Farms are expensive and hard to subdivide, so people will put them into a legal entity and pass down to the next generation via a trust. All of my neighbors are doing the same, so we're all counted as "not farmers" here Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred…

I was just looking at a GIS map yesterday for my area and noticed that nearly every field was owned by an LLC and/or trust. Didn't think much of it at the time until I read this.

In richer parts of town, many houses will be in trusts also.

It’s a no brainer if you have a couple thousand dollars to spare for an estate lawyer to do some estate planning and spare your heirs probate court.

Plus in the states and wealth levels that many people on this website have, it is also a no brainer to save on taxes.

Re: Most Illinois farmland is not owned by farmers

#130

Post by ImJamal »

quesera wrote: post #90
harmmonica wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to nitpick, but I guess I am. Does "most" really mean 65%? I tend to think most needs to clear a pretty high hurdle. I bring this up not to attack you, but I've noticed this behavior in journalism or when folks are trying to win arguments where instead of quoting the actual number they'll use a term like most, which I don't think has a hard and fast threshold. I guess, for me, most would have to be somethi…

I do not. For me, "most" is 50% + 1 (Edit: or more).

I think most would usually mean plurality not 50% + 1. If there are 3 people and 2 of them have $5 each and the third has $6 it would be correct to say the third has the most money despite not having 50% + 1.

Regardless, the majority is also the plurality so using most when it is over 50% would also be acceptable.

Post reply on HN