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If you ever get away from that site here is an update on the rent and straw issues I've been embroiled in.
I discovered how everyone's little friend is able to rent/buy ground and so totally anger the previous renter that he will never bother the former landlord again.
Our little friend makes an offer which is 20 to 50% more than current land rents. Current rent is pretty low because most people are farming using conservation ideas and do not make as much money as if you were farming intensively with maximum tillage and fertilizer use.
Our little friend develops a relationship with the potential landlord. This includes phone calls, and multiple visits where he builds up empathy and projects an image as a struggling young farmer that is oppressed because of his success. He also puts forth the idea that landlords are being taken advantage of by their tenants.
This leads up to the pitch for purchase or rental. However, because he is oppressed he does require a confidentiality agreement. If this is violated then the whole rent up front and really good deal is over with.
But here is the rub.
He moves in the day the previous tenant is done with his harvest. This appears to be a calculated attempt to provoke confrontation.
It usually works.
He uses the confrontation as an excuse absolve himself of guilt or responsibility to work with the old tenant.
A rather clever plan and it is working because none of the farmers will stick together.
Everyone talks a lot but no one will actually band together to confront him or former landlords or locals who supply him.
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So he makes his offer after the current renter has put a lot of time , work, and money into the land. Maybe a handshake isn't a good enough contract anymore. Is it also possible that the landlord flat out doesn't realize the improvements that have been done by the previous tenant, which allow the new guy to offer more rent with less work? Doesn't anyone ever attend grange meetings anymore where this kind of thing can be brought out into the open?
ReplyDeleteDoes our little friend's initials rhyme with those of a famous British oil company?
No it is not your friend with the cute and now legal girlfriend. He crashed due to a change in his bank's lending practices.
DeleteThere are no Grange meetings. It is a square dance club or a Mexican dance club or something.
However, since we have on a handshake agreement you can terminate me at anytime. You do have to allow me to take my crop off and provide access. Nothing else.
If I gave you the guy's phone number there wouldn't be much point in the top secret agreement...
Terminate? Why would I want to do that? Heck, I feel guilty collecting rent from you.
DeleteBears in Denver
ReplyDeleteThings are maybe worse in Colorado than Oregon.
Not just the farmers, even the wildlife is stealing. Candy store break-ins? Lets hope the bears don't discover the Denver mint!
http://www.nytimes.com
I don't think that would work back here in the Midwest because of the November 1 notification rule and the 'acquire possession' the following March 1 rule.
ReplyDeleteHere if you rent the ground you've got it till the following First of March and you HAVE TO be notified by the previous November 1, or you can contest in court your loss of the lease and subsequent eviction.
Pretty straight forward and it eliminates this kind of foolishness...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
According to my friend's attorney we don't have that in Oregon.
DeleteThe whole secretive nature of the agreement insures the transition will be as mean and bitter as possible.
This particular transition would have gone fairly smoothly otherwise. My friend new the property was for sale at a pretty steep price. He was working without a contract because the landlord assured him he would be "taken care of."
He was taken care of all right. The little weasel plowed right up to his sweet corn field. Don't really know how he is going to turn the big trucks around.
Some of us are going to help him, especially if we get rain and have to haul it a mile and a half in dump boxes behind FWA tractors and load on the county road.
I mean "knew"
DeleteFurthermore this incident I am talking about is practically a conservation tillage crime.
DeleteMy friend who was renting the ground was doing minimum tillage and no-till. Plus leaving residue. He overhauled the irrigation system and applied lime. He was working on grassy waterways to prevent erosion. AND this place had been farmed that way clear back to the late 1970's or early 80's.
The new guy diskripped and plowed the whole thing. I suppose the folks downriver will be happy for the silt...
I was down on that riverbottom one time when they were trying out strip-tilling corn. The organic matter was absolutely amazing. It has had sweet corn for a number of years and so there have been some compaction problems but he almost always left full straw loads and all the corn stalk residue and the ground was really in top condition.
DeleteThis should never have happened. It is a long story...
Machiavelli still lives. It seems all the jerks are not living in the big cities.
ReplyDeleteGrace and peace.
But it is sort of Machiavelli lite. Too many "Just do it slogans," and "get er done" and self absorption.
DeleteI guess it is just standard human nature
Don't let the bastards get you down. Bumper sticker for our times.
ReplyDeleteBumper stickers I prefer:
Delete"Back off! I chew"
"if You can read this you are too close."
My other car is a Ford Pinto
You can't hug a kid with Nuclear Arms
"My kid is an honor student at Vince Lombardi High" (sort of obscure)
Banjo Playing is not a crime (made that up)
If you don't like the way I drive stay off the sidewalk
Honk if you heart Polka Music
The value of good conservation practices is hard to measure, whereas the value of a higher rent is very easy to measure. I suppose every land owner who doesn't get that has to learn the lesson the hard way.
ReplyDeleteIn a time of rising rents, the renter who wants to keep the ground may have to broach the subject of increasing the rent himself. Otherwise, it's too easy for the landlord to say yes to the new offer and avoid the awkward conversation of asking for a rent increase from the current tenant.
You can hide a lot behind confidentiality agreements, like having rent obligations higher than you're telling your various banks and not always paying your rent on time.
I don't think conservation means anything to a absentee landlord.
DeleteWe have increased our rent before. But, we are notoriously cheap farmers. The new guys have a lot of funding. They can out bid us any time. So yes you are very correct.
It is more and more important to have a relationship with your land lord.
And/or a good contract.
I think the confidentiality agreement is mostly just a cheap shot to provoke conflict. But, those are really good points I had not thought of. These guys are always working some sort of angle. It is not just the love of the land that drives them.
Thanks for your comment.
Most farmers won't band together because most of them are farmers to begin with because they are fiercely independent. (and sometimes just downright obstinate)
ReplyDeleteA man's word and a handshake used to be sacrosanct in the farming community, but not so much anymore. Not that I want to paint everyone with the same brush, but our community has found out the hard way that immigrant farmers just don't seem to adhere to that principle. A case in point. A neighbour had hay bales for sale and this immigrant farmer went to see him about purchasing it. The neighbour said what he wanted and this fellow made a counter offer. The neighbour said no, so this farmer begrudgingly agreed. He came and loaded the hay up and took it home, and then paid the neighbour the counter offer. He said if he didn't like it, he could sue him. As you can imagine, legal fees and no formal contract to prove the "agreed" upon price precludes this type of action. What this immigrant farmer can't seem to fathom, is that others in the community would have gladly helped him in any way possible, but now he's out in the cold on his own.
I just shake my head.
Not much is really new. Forty years ago a well established, respected farmer in my community came by and wanted to buy a hundred feeder pigs out of the field. Showed him what I had and he wanted to buy the lot at so much per head for a forty pound pig. I know well enough when I have an eighty pound pig by the leg and told him they'd have to go over the scale at the co-op. He said no, he paid for forty pound pigs as he saw them. I declined the transaction, came away with a bit of distaste for established and respected.
ReplyDelete