History's Biggest Wealth Transfer Forced Us To Buy Farm Land

Today we paid $850,000 for this 80 acres of background that you see me standing on because we had to. That math comes out to about $10,625 per acre. For comparison, one acre is just a little bit less than the size of a football field. I know what you're thinking. How did I purchase this? Well, the simple answer is we financed it and we're going to be paying this over the next 30 years of our life. In my 20s now, I'll be paying for this well into my 50s. It's very rare that you make a purchase and you know without a shadow of a doubt that you are never going to sell or get rid of that item. Now, a piece of ground is a little bit more than an item, but I am willing to pay so much money for this because I will never sell this ground. I'm going to be farming this ground until eventually I stop farming and pass this on to my kids, which feels pretty special. You might be noticing that that is my house in the background, which is one of the reasons why I felt like I had to buy this farm ground.

今天我们花了85万美元购买了我身后这片80英亩的土地，因为我们必须这么做。这样算下来，每英亩大约花费10,625美元。为了便于理解，一英亩的面积比一个足球场稍小一点。我知道你可能会想，我是怎么买下这块土地的呢？答案很简单，我们是通过融资购买的，我们将在未来30年里逐步偿还贷款。现在我二十多岁，这笔款项会一直还到我五十多岁。很少有购买行为能让你毫无疑问地确定永远不会出售这个物品。而一块土地远不止是一个普通物品，但我愿意为此花这么多钱，因为我永远不会卖掉这块土地。我会一直在这片土地上耕作，直到我不再种地，然后把它传给我的孩子们，这感觉很特别。你可能注意到背景中有我的房子，这也是我觉得必须买下这块农业用地的原因之一。

Several years ago, a farmer in our area approached myself and my husband Grant and he said, Hey, I'm kind of getting out of the farming game and I know that you guys just got married and you're interested in farming for the rest of your lives. Would you like to rent this piece of ground? And that is a piece of ground that we are standing on right here. He rented us this 80 acres for $275 an acre. It felt very, very cheap, but that was $275 profit off of this ground that I was just giving away to somebody else. Now you approached us again and he said, I am ready to sell this piece of ground and I am interested in selling it to you guys. We felt very fortunate that you approached us because of the Internet.

几年前，我们这里的一位农民找到我和我丈夫格兰特，说：“嘿，我打算退出农业。我知道你们刚结婚，而且有意终身务农。你们愿意租这片土地吗？”我们就站在这片土地上，他以每英亩275美元的价格把这80英亩租给了我们，当时感觉非常便宜，因为如果不是租给我们，他本可以从别人那里得到每英亩275美元的利润。现在他又找到了我们，说他准备出售这片土地，并希望卖给我们。我们觉得非常幸运，尤其是在互联网时代，他能主动找到我们。

We have seen a huge spike in interest and accessibility of outside investors purchasing farm ground. 50 years ago, farm ground was sold by word of mouth or paper flyers. Now everyone in the country has access to farms that are put on auction, which has led to a huge increase in big companies and big investors buying up US farm ground. So instead of farmers like me and Grant owning the ground that we're farming, a huge company located somewhere out of the state would own it. And that really scares me. In the next 20 years, the United States is going to experience one of the largest wealth transfers in history. And I would much rather see that wealth be passed on from generation of farmer to generation farmer or to see new farmers getting into farming rather than a bunch of big companies.

我们注意到，外部投资者对购买农田的兴趣和可及性大幅增加。50年前，农田是通过口头传播或纸质传单出售的。现在，全国各地的人都可以参与农田的拍卖购买，这导致大型公司和投资者大量购买美国农田。因此，不再是像我和格兰特这样的农民拥有我们耕种的土地，而是某个州外的巨型公司成为土地的所有者。这让我感到非常担忧。未来20年，美国将迎来历史上最大的一次财富转移。我更希望这些财富能在农民世代间传承，或是让新农民进入农业领域，而不是落入一群大型公司的手中。

In Nebraska alone, over a million acres of farm ground is owned not by farmers, but by Bill Gates, the Church of Latter-day Saints and Ted Turner. Yeah, the guy that founded CNN. I think I would rather my neighbors and myself on the farm ground than them. I did not have the cash to buy this ground. And frankly, if you put it on a piece of paper, purchasing this ground really does not cash flow, certainly not in my lifetime. But like I mentioned, this ground is right across the road from my house. And if this ground was to go up to auction, I don't know who I would get for a neighbor.

在内布拉斯加州，仅有超过一百万英亩的农田不是由农民拥有，而是归比尔·盖茨、后期圣徒教会和泰德·特纳所有。对，就是创办了CNN的那个人。我宁愿我的邻居和我自己拥有这些农田，而不是他们。我没有足够的资金来购买这片土地。坦率地说，如果算一笔账，购买这片土地在财务上真的不可行，至少在我有生之年是不现实的。但就像我提到的，这片土地就在我家对面。如果这块土地被拍卖，我不知道将会有谁成为我的邻居。

And it most likely would not be another farmer around here. It would probably be bought by somebody far away. I would rather know my neighbors, especially people that I have to live right across the road from. This is the third piece of ground that Laura and I have been able to buy together. And it's been really special because it's very local. We don't have to drive our tractors all the way across the county, which I'm very thankful for. But land just keeps getting more and more expensive. Over the last six years, we've been able to buy three pieces of land. The first one was $6,000 per acre. The next one was $8,500 an acre.

这段话翻译成中文，以表达其意思，尽量易读如下： 而且这块地很可能不会被附近的其他农民买下，而是被远处的人买走。我更希望认识我的邻居，尤其是那些住在马路对面的人。这是劳拉和我一起买的第三块地。这次非常特别，因为这块地就在本地附近。我们不用把拖拉机开到县城的另一头，我对此感到非常感激。但土地价格却不断上涨。在过去的六年里，我们买下了三块地。第一块每英亩6000美元，第二块每英亩8500美元。

And now this, the most expensive one is over $10,500 an acre, which is just mind blowing. I am excited to see where the price of farmland goes in the future, but I am not excited to pay for it. We hope to continue buying more farm grounds. We can continue our farming career and also pass it on to our kids someday. The average age of a farmer in the United States is 60 years old, less than 10% of farmers in the United States are under the age of 35. Because of that average farmer age, that means over the next 30 years, almost 70% of US farmland will change hands.

现在这个最贵的地块每英亩超过10,500美元，真是令人惊叹。我对未来农田价格的走势感到好奇，但不想为此买单。我们希望继续购入更多农田，这样不仅能继续我们的农业事业，将来也可以传承给我们的孩子。美国农民的平均年龄是60岁，年龄在35岁以下的美国农民不到10%。由于农民的平均年龄偏高，这意味着在未来30年内，美国几乎70%的农田将易主。

That's over 300 million acres. This just needs to be planned very carefully so that you can continue farming the ground and it doesn't get bought out by big developers. That also means that now is the time for young farmers. If you have an interest in farming or homesteading or the country lifestyle, now is the time. In 2017, there was 900 million acres of US farm ground. Just a couple years later in 2023, that number has decreased to 879 million acres. The amount of farmland is decreasing while the amount of people that needs to be fed are increasing.

这超过3亿英亩。这需要非常仔细地规划，以便您可以继续耕种土地，而不是被大型开发商买走。这也意味着现在是年轻农民的时机。如果您对农业、田园或乡村生活感兴趣，现在就是行动的好时机。在2017年，美国有9亿英亩的农田。仅仅几年后的2023年，这一数字已经减少到8.79亿英亩。农田面积在减少，而需要养活的人却在增加。

So purchasing this land is really special because it means I get to play a small part in keeping US farm ground in the hands of the farmers and continuing my family's legacy as I am a fifth generation farmer and grant the sixth generation farmer. I can't imagine what our kids are going to be experiencing someday. One of the stipulations when it came to us first renting this piece of ground was that we had to purchase the pivot. So we actually already own this pivot and the well and the motor out here that pumps the water. We also recently installed another new pivot. We just moved a couple spans from another field and now we have a totally irrigated 80. With the pivot, as you know, comes the joy of repairs. And that leads us to today's video sponsor.

购买这块土地对我来说意义非凡，因为这意味着我可以为保护美国农田继续由农民掌握贡献一份力量，同时延续我的家族传统。我是第五代农民，并将把这份责任传给第六代。我无法想象我们的孩子将来会经历些什么。我们最初租用这块土地时，条件之一是我们必须购买灌溉设备。因此，我们实际上已经拥有了这里的灌溉设备、水井和抽水马达。我们最近还安装了另一套新的灌溉设备。我们刚刚从另一个田地移了一些跨度，现在我们有了一个完全灌溉的80英亩土地。有了灌溉设备，就少不了维修的乐趣。这也引出了今天视频的赞助商。

As you know, I have a lot of pivots on my farm, meaning I have a lot of problems. It seems like something always needs to be fixed or upgraded. Luckily, universal motion components or UMC has been a long time faithful channel sponsor. Together, we are slowly replacing every gearbox, center drive, knuckle and booster pump on our farming operation for the sturdy, reliable ones that UMC offers all of its customers. They are truly products built to withstand the test of time, wear and weather. They have the widest selection of irrigation solutions and pivot powertrain parts in the industry and they maintain their industry leading position by offering global distribution. So be sure to pick up your UMC parts from your local pivot parts distributor. If you do any type of pivot irrigation, UMC is the company for you. They have been revolutionizing the industry for over 40 years and it is my privilege to be partnered with them. Thank you so much to UMC and now back to work.

正如你所知，我的农场有很多枢轴系统，也就意味着我有很多问题。似乎总是有东西需要修理或升级。幸运的是，UMC（Universal Motion Components）长期以来都是我们忠实的合作伙伴。我们正在逐步用UMC为所有客户提供的坚固可靠的产品，替换掉我农场中的每个变速箱、中置驱动、万向节和增压泵。这些产品确实能够经受时间、磨损和天气的考验。他们拥有业内最广泛的灌溉解决方案和枢轴传动系统零件，并通过提供全球分销来保持其行业领先地位。所以一定要从你当地的枢轴零件经销商那里采购UMC零件。如果你做任何类型的枢轴灌溉，UMC就是你要找的公司。UMC在过去的40多年里不断革新行业，我很荣幸能与他们合作。非常感谢UMC，现在继续工作。

This field was planted to soybeans last year, which means this year in 2025, it will be corn. For the most part, the 80 is pretty flat. There's this corner spot where some water does run in and there's a little bit of a groove to it. You can see where we had to leave some beans on the ground because our draper head didn't quite flex enough to pick them up. But besides this one corner, it's a pretty nice looking piece of ground. Here's a good example of where our pivot track closer went through and we closed this pivot track. Pivot comes and water is right along here and we got this all smoothed up. Everything is ready to be watered again next year.

这块地去年种了大豆，这意味着今年，也就是2025年，将种植玉米。这片地大部分都很平坦。有一个角落有些积水，有点小洼地。你可以看到我们不得不留下一些大豆没收上来，因为我们的割台没有足够灵活来拾取它们。不过除了这个角落，这块地看上去整体不错。这里有个很好的例子，展示了我们的灌溉轨道填平器经过时如何平整轨道。灌溉设备来过，水沿着这里流，我们已经把地面整平了，一切都准备好明年再次进行灌溉。

Our house is right across the road from here and like any used thing that you purchase, there's always just a little bit of work that needs to be done. So our plan is to remove some of these weedy trees here. There's some stumps here. We can level all of this out. There's also a couple different junk piles that we've been looking at for quite some time that we are going to be able to clean up, self-prescrap, and hopefully this will all be a very nice looking ditch when we're done with it. All smoothed up and ready to be mowed this summer. It's been a dream of ours for some time now to actually be able to plant a tree line. So now that we have ownership of it, our long-term goal is to make a tree line in that ditch to provide a little extra wind blockage.

我们的房子就在这条路的对面，像任何你买的二手物品一样，总会有一些需要处理的地方。我们的计划是把这里的一些野树去掉。这里还有一些树桩，我们可以把这一片土地弄平整。还有一些垃圾堆，我们已经关注很长时间了，计划清理掉、自动拆解，希望到时这里能变成一个非常漂亮的小沟，平整后今年夏天可以修剪草坪。我们一直梦想能够种植一排树。现在我们拥有了这块地，我们的长期目标是在这条沟里种一排树，以提供一些额外的挡风效果。

Here's our junk pile that needs to be cleaned up. The cement pad will be left exactly how it is, but all of these tires will be recycled and the pipe is going away. I've been farming around this pile for a couple years now, so I'm kind of excited to get rid of it. We owe all of you guys watching a big thank you because without you watching this video and all the other videos that we post, we would not even be able to dream about purchasing this piece of farm ground. I don't love doing advertisements and sponsorships, but that on top of the YouTube viewership that you guys are providing me with and the crops that we're going to grow and then sell off this ground, it almost makes it affordable. The corn we produce off this ground will come out to be about a little over $80,000 a year at the current crop prices. And that will pretty much cover our mortgage payment and the taxes on this ground. We get taxed almost $70 per acre on this 80, and so that comes out to be a little under $6,000 per year. And that doesn't even cover our seed that we have to plant, which is close to $100 an acre.

这是我们需要清理的垃圾堆。水泥地板将保持原样，但这些轮胎会被回收，管道也会被移走。我已经在这个垃圾堆附近耕作了几年，所以能够把它清理掉让我很兴奋。非常感谢大家观看这个视频以及我们发布的其他视频，因为如果没有你们的支持，我们连梦想购买这片农田的机会都没有。我并不热衷于做广告和赞助，但有了YouTube上大家的观看支持，再加上我们计划在这片土地上种植并出售的农作物，这才让买下它变得几乎可以承担得起。按现在的作物价格，我们在这片地上种植的玉米每年能带来大约8万多美元的收入，这基本上可以支付我们的房贷和这块地的税费。我们这80亩土地每亩的税将近70美元，所以每年税费不到6000美元。而这还不包括我们每英亩近100美元的种子成本。

Our irrigation expenses, our fertilizer expenses, and the diesel fuel we have to put in our tractors. So this year we are actually losing a ton of money. So not only is this costing us $850,000 to buy, we are going to lose money operating on this ground. But this is where the gambler's mentality of farming comes in. We are just hoping that next year or the year after corn hit $7 and all of a sudden boom, we're profitable. And all the meanwhile, this ground is appreciating. So not that we're ever going to sell it, but it'll be worth more someday. So here's to losing more money. And thank you for watching this video because we need all the help we can get.

我们在灌溉、化肥和拖拉机柴油上的支出，今年我们实际上亏了很多钱。不仅花了我们85万美元来购买，我们还会在这块土地的运营上亏损。但这就是农民的赌博心态所在。我们只希望明年或者后年玉米价格涨到$7，那时我们就能突然盈利了。同时，这块土地的价值也在升值。虽然我们不打算卖掉它，但将来它会更值钱。所以，敬我们亏损更多的钱。谢谢大家观看这段视频，因为我们需要所有能得到的帮助。

We can get fertilizer expenses. Like I said before, we're going to be planting corn out here this year. A big part of land ownership is maintaining the soil. It is a living organism and it needs things to keep producing a good crop. So our plan is to apply dry fertilizer this winter, and we'll sit out here. We're going to plant corn and then the corn is going to use those nutrients from that dry fertilizer that we spread. And hopefully grow even more than 240 bushels an acre. We have to say winter in Nebraska gets to be pretty bland and I am very excited. Come spring and summertime when this whole field is green and there's nothing but corn and soybeans as far as the eye can see. It's a really beautiful sight to behold.

我们可以获得化肥费用。就像我之前说的，今年我们会在这里种植玉米。土地所有权的重要部分是维护土壤。土壤是一个活的有机体，它需要一些东西来保持良好的作物生产。因此，我们的计划是今年冬天施用干肥，然后就等在这里。我们会种玉米，然后玉米会吸收我们撒的干肥中的养分。希望能每英亩产量超过240蒲式耳。不得不说，内布拉斯加的冬天相当单调，我真的非常期待春天和夏天的到来，到时候整个田野一片翠绿，视野所及全是玉米和大豆。那真是一幅美丽的景象。

And sooner than you realize we are going to be out here in a tractor, we're going to be cultivating, we are going to be irrigating and eventually harvesting. There is something very special about driving a combine and harvesting a crop on ground that you own. It feels very similar to walking into an apartment that you are renting versus a home that you own. There's just something very special about it. Let's clean up this junk file.

很快，你会发现我们将驾驶拖拉机在田野里，进行耕作、灌溉，最终收获。在自己拥有的土地上驾驶联合收割机收割庄稼，这种感觉非常特别。这就像走进一个你租的公寓与一个你自己的家之间的差别。就是有一种特别的感觉。让我们把这些垃圾文件清理一下。

We are so appreciative of you guys' support and love. Thank you so much for following along on our farming journey together. And whether you feel like it or not, you guys are really helping us out. So thank you so much for watching. We are so excited for 2025 and all the things it's going to bring and we will see you in the next one. Bye!

我们非常感激大家的支持与厚爱。感谢你们一路以来对我们农业之旅的关注。无论你是否意识到，你们确实在帮助我们。所以非常感谢你们的观看。我们对2025年及其带来的一切感到非常兴奋，下次再见！再见！