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Home > The Off Farm Income Podcast > OFI 429: What Farmers & Ranchers Have In Common With Musicians, Actors & Baseball Players
Podcast: The Off Farm Income Podcast
Episode:

OFI 429: What Farmers & Ranchers Have In Common With Musicians, Actors & Baseball Players
Category: Business
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2018-03-30 01:30:17
Description: SHOW NOTES KEY IDEAS:  Hi everybody.  This episode is intended to applaud farmers and to demonstrate that those of us that want to make our livings from the land and live this lifestyle are as dedicated to our way of life as anyone in the United States. This dawned on me a while back, but the only other career subset I can think of that do what farmers and ranchers do are celebrities.  Stick with me for a second on this. Depending on the year 80-90% of farmers in the United States are relying on some form of income from off the farm to support their households.  When we go through low milk, low beef or low commodity prices you will see off farm income account for over 90% of all household income. The dream is to farm or ranch and to do nothing but farm or ranch.  But the reality is that most folks in the United States are working at least two jobs to make this happen.  The cost of medical insurance and the volatility in input and commodity prices forces us to do this if we want to stay in this profession. I spoke with a professor at Texas A&M a while back, and she told me that in the great State of Texas they are having a very difficult time getting young people to return to the farm and don’t even think about getting non-farm kids to choose farming or ranching as a career. Why?  Well, the young people who grew up on farms or ranches see better options elsewhere.  They can go to the oil fields and make $60,000-$80,000 of guaranteed money right off the bat with no risk.  Or, they can take a lot of risk, work a lot more hours and make a lot less money in farming and ranching.  The choice for them is simple.   The only thing to pull them back to the farms or ranches is their heritage and the way of life they grew up in.  Other than that it just does not make sense.  This is why it is so difficult to get young people who did not grow up in farming to choose this as a profession. On top of all of this, these young people see that they will likely have to work a second job in order to be able to farm.  Who else does this?  Who else in the United States of America loves their chosen profession so much, that they will work a second job just so they can work the first? The only other people are celebrities.  I am talking about musicians, actors and athletes.  Minor league baseball players will work 2nd, 3rd and even 4th jobs to pay their living expenses while chasing the dream of making it in the big leagues. Check out this list of celebrities and what they did in addition to their chosen profession in order to pay the bills: Sheryl Crow: she worked as a music teacher during the day and sang in a band on the weekends. Chris Pratt: was a waiter at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company while waiting for his big break. Sandra Bullock: she also waited tables to pay the bills while trying to turn her chosen profession into full-time work. Eric Church: he worked the graveyard shift as a call taker at the “Shop At Home Network” while he was trying to get noticed in Nashville. Tim McGraw: he and a partner cleaned shopping carts in Nashville while he was trying to make it in his career. Other than farmers and ranchers, what other profession does this?  Who else has the passion for their profession that they are willing to double their work just to keep a certain job? Do accountants do this?  Police officers?  School teachers?  How about attorneys?  Insurance professionals?  Hotel managers? Now, I will give you that a lot of people starting out in their chosen professions have worked second jobs at times.  School teachers are a good example.  At first if they are hired by a district that does not pay much, they might work a second job until they either bump up on the pay scale or move to a better paying district. The difference with farmers and ranchers is that they will work a second job for their entire careers and just think that it is normal.
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