Land leasing

Greg Judy of Green Pastures Farm talks about what he thinks is the best strategy to get into farming and ranching.

Talking about leasing land, which is I think is a very important topic when it comes to grazing business, starting out especially, I think it's pretty hard for anybody, whether a young person or an old person who just getting into grazing and setting up a farm to go out and spend your equity. If you've got a nest egg that they're working at, saved up some money and put all that onto land for. When you do that, you've taken all your money. You don't have any money left now to build fence, maybe put some water where you need it, buy animals, which is number one. So just a really tough way to get going.

And I did that. And I want to save you all the pain of that. Back in 1989, I bought my first farm and I went to the bank. I had a very good job in town and I thought, you know, heck, I can pay this thing off with my town job even if I can't make it on the farm with the cattle part. Well, it didn't work out that way for me. During that period, I started looking at land differently, leasing it. And the sole purpose in life should be not to own the land, but to control it. The highest cost in the cattle business or the sheep or goat, whatever, is the land. You've got to have something to put your animals on. And so if you can take that variable out by leasing it.

And Greg now leases and controls thousands of acres.