Hanging On
one Iowa farm family and the price bust of '98 and '99
Our Story · The Numbers · What's Helping · For Other Farm Families · Harvest Journal

Hello from west-central Iowa, between Carroll and Denison. I'm Deb Paull. My husband Wayne and I farm 640 acres of corn and soybeans, about half our own ground and half rented, and until this spring we ran a farrow-to-finish hog operation with 120 sows. Our son Brady is 17 and our daughter Kelsey is 14. The home place has been in Wayne's family since 1911.

I started this page last winter because I needed somewhere to put it all. My sister in Des Moines said, "Write it down, Deb," so I did, and she helped me put it on the computer. Since then I've heard from farm families in Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas, even Saskatchewan. We're all in the same boat. It helps to know that.

Our Story

1996 was a good year. Corn went crazy high that summer and we had some old crop to sell. In 1997 we did what everybody said to do: we expanded. We borrowed to build a new finishing barn so we could finish all our own pigs instead of selling some as feeders. The banker was happy, the hog market was good, and we thought we were being smart.

Then 1998 came. Grain prices slid all year. Then in the fall the hog market didn't just slide, it fell off a cliff. There were more hogs than the packing plants could handle, and the price went down, and down, and down. The week before Christmas we sold a load of market hogs for about nine dollars a hundredweight. It cost us something like forty to raise them. We lost money on every single pig that went on that truck. Wayne didn't say a word the whole way home from the sale barn.

We hung on through the winter. In April we sold the sows. That was one of the worst days of my life, and I've buried both my parents. Wayne's dad raised hogs on this place and so did his grandpa. The barns are empty now. We rent the new finishing barn out to a bigger outfit that owns the pigs and pays us to feed them, and that covers the loan payment, just about. I don't go out there much.

Now it's September and the beans are turning and we'll be in the field any day. The prices are the worst they've been in a long, long time. We'll plant again next spring. That's what we do.

The Numbers

Here's what we actually got, or what the elevator was bidding, off my own books. Your prices might be a little different depending on where you are, but you'll see the picture.

Meanwhile seed, fertilizer, fuel, machinery parts, cash rent and health insurance did not go down one penny.

What's Helping

• A job in town. In January I went to work in the billing office at the county hospital, mostly for the health insurance. I never thought I'd be glad to have a desk job. I am. So are about half the farm wives I know.
• Talking to our banker early. We went in before we were behind, laid everything on the table, and restructured the barn loan. He's known Wayne since grade school. He didn't like the numbers any more than we did, but he appreciated us coming to him first.
• Loan deficiency payments. Under the 1996 farm bill, when the price at harvest drops below the government loan rate for our county, we can get a payment for the difference. This year that's been a big share of what our beans are worth. Our county Farm Service Agency office walked us through it.
• The emergency money Congress passed last fall helped us get through the winter. There's talk of more this fall. We'll see.
• Iowa State Extension. Our county's farm management specialist sat down with us at the kitchen table and went through our whole operation, no charge. It was hard to hear some of it. It was worth it.
• Church and neighbors. Our church had a potluck in February that turned into three hours of farmers finally talking to each other. We've kept it going every month.
• Brady. He got a job at the elevator this summer and gave me half his first paycheck "for groceries." I cried in the pantry.

For Other Farm Families

I'm a farm wife, not a lawyer or a loan officer. Please check with your Extension office, your lender and your own lawyer about your own situation.

1. Go see your lender before you're late, not after. Bring your records. They have more options when you come early.
2. Get your records in order. If you don't know your cost of production per bushel and per hog, find out. Extension can help.
3. Know about farm mediation. Iowa and several other farm states have a mediation program where farmers and lenders can sit down with a neutral person before anything goes to the courthouse. Ask Extension or your lawyer how it works in your state.
4. Look into health insurance for the kids. If you've dropped your family coverage to save money, there are new state programs for children in working families. Ask at the county.
5. Watch out for each other. Farmers don't talk. Farmers, especially the men, just go out to the shop and stay there. If your husband, your dad, your neighbor has gone quiet, go sit with him. Take a pie. Say something.
6. If you or someone you love is in a dark place, please call your doctor or your pastor or a crisis line today. Iowa State Extension has a free hotline for farm families, for money questions, legal questions and just plain stress, and other states have them too. The farm is not worth a life. Nothing is.
7. Remember the kids hear everything. Tell them the truth in a way they can carry. Kelsey thought we were going to lose the house. We sat her down and showed her the plan, and she slept better that night.
8. Take a day off. Go to the football game. Go to the county fair. It'll all still be there when you get back.

Read about this fall's harvest in my Harvest Journal.