Who has van loads?

You can just keep those farm trucks parked. I should have looked your name up at safer web before I tried to help you. Most honorable brokers on the dry van side will not want you hauling their freight, it is doubtful that you have enough insurance on your equipment to cover the dry van freight if you guys flipped over the van. Now I have a greater understanding why the dry van market is tumbling, you part timers are out here most likely running illegal cutting the prices of a market you know nothing about.

Everybody gripes about the Mexicans saying they are cutting the rates, well I have never ran into a Mexican Owner Operator yet that will haul freight cheaper than the farmer will.

Just park those trucks in your nice machine shed until planting season. You don't see me running out an buying land to start farming do you? I have sat buy and been very nice about this but when I saw trucks sitting in the Flying J today with farm tags pulling dry vans, and flat beds that they had rented, I realized real fast what was going on, if you don't know how to manage your farm then why in the heck are you trying to manage trucks?

I apologize for being a little testy. Yesterday like I said in my earlier posting, there were quite a few of you farmers with dry vans and flat beds at the Flying J. When I started talking to them about why they were out here freighthauling their answer was, gotta keep my hands busy. Hmm you don't have enought work on you farm to keep them busy? They were running loads from KC to St Louis for $350.00 - $400.00, here is where the problem lies. Their insurance is far cheaper than mine, they pay their hands far less than I pay mine, their trucks (except for a couple of them) were way older than mine, the trailers were from back in the early ninties (looked like major crap). This lane usually runs for $550.00 - $700.00 each way, been running that lane off and on for 5 years and have never seen it this cheap until recently. No Mexicans up here driving around bud.

This reminds me of when I was a kid back in the eighties and I worked for a farmer in Osborn, MO as one of his hands. Most of the farmers around him were high in debt and running on margin each and every year. When the market busted for them they were out saddling up their trucks and running for a little of nothing, within a few months their equipment was shot and they were being forclosed on by the banks. I understand very well the plight we are in, the thing I learned from my farmer boss at the time was this. He had money saved back and started buying up those other farms and expanded his farming business, he hired most of the original farmers and their hands to run his aquisistions, he managed them very effectively by not allowing them to engage in margins. He did not allow them to run their equipment for anything except farm use. He explained to me that the others misused the opportunity that God had given them and when times where good they forgot to set aside for the bad times. I realize how hard you guys work to make just $35,000 a year clear (and sometimes not even that) but please don't take down another market as well just because your main resource is sucking right now. If you want to be a trucking company, then activate your Interstate authority, pay the higher cost, tell your hands that when planting season comes up they can go back to being home every night. Otherwise put them in the Machine Shed!

Truckers should run truck
Farmers should farm

We don't get any subsidies for running our trucks can you say the same about your farm?

Alfred,
If you really did see farm plated trucks hauling with dry vans all you need to do is call the dot on them and they will come check out the load and the paperwork and if it doesn't have their name as the owner of the stuff they are hauling then they will get fined. Happened at an elevator here two years back. They pulled over trucks that had farm plates when they were leaving the elevator and if it didn't have their name on the ticket they fined them over $1000 first offense. As far as farmers having commercial plates and hauling there is nothing you can do about it. The company that they are hauling for is supposed to make sure who they hire has the required insurance if not then that company is also liable if something happens.

Again, I don't know why I'm being chastised about this. I'm apportioned power plated. Carry a million liability, cargo and everything else just like the rest. My farm trucks are farm trucks and that is it. Because I don't have authority I'm instantly doing things illegal?

You have to have the insurance just to get the plate. Same coverages just with no federal filing its have the cost. And I've never had anybody want more insurance then what we all ready had.

Here is the question for you, how much would you charge for a dry van to go from Omaha, NE to Alliance, NE?

i use lots of owner operators that farm as well, they do quite well on my bulk loads and they ain;t all that cheap cause they know how to run a truck and what it costs. there are no subsidies for them only that they save money hauling their own to the processor, the only way these young dudes can get into the business is if you and i help them out. they take maybe a month off the whole year to do their farm stuff so i am quite grateful i have them cause they will go anywhere others won;t and for a decent price. maybe canada is different but the ones that don't know how to run don;t last so that kinda solves the problem right there. i would worry more about the oil guys driving rates down not the one off farm dudes. i would rather have a farm background guy loading my loads than someone who doesn't know how to read a guage, just my opinion. i am gonna call bs on the idea that truckers can;t be farmers and vice versa.

Well in my area we have the problem with a few running county commercial and going out of there boundaries and going over state lines without ifta and really Srewing us on our local rates so what do we do?????????????????

We have that problem here too Being so close to the Kansas boarder. Its going to get worse before it gets better. About all I can say is keep doing what you're doing and the weak will disappear. I got started back in 2008 pworking for a local company when fuel was suppose to break every idependent and small operation there was in the nation and here we are in 2015 still going. I don't like the Nebraska county commercial deal what so ever. If you're going to haul commercial do it like everyone else has had to do before you.

Alfred Jordan if it wasn't for the farmer you or any other truck driver or Trucking company would exist. Your like the people that bitch about the farmer producing good quality for the public but cuss us out with your mouthful. I farm and run truck i do what it takes to keep the farm going. I see no problem I a farmer running a truck. Just living the American Dream.

Lmao !!

I was waiting for somebody else to say it first

I too have been waiting, I thought he did a pretty good job. LMAO

Well Alfred enough said you know it all!!!!!!!!! and suppose your..... don't stink either. Know that's some funny Shit....

Your crop insurance has price protection. Is that not a subsidy?

You pay for crop insurance. And it depends on the coverage you pay for. If some body sold rate insurance you would buy it.

No, Keenan my shit stinks about as bad as an old boar hog when he cuts loose? Daniel I know runs his trucks as a business, and his farm as a separate business. I don't farm but like I said we have the hopper as well. I personally enjoy running the hopper more then the freight hauler side of things. The whole purpose of me posting in the first place was to try and help the OP find a connection for dry vans up in NE. Imagine my surprise when I looked him up on the safer site and he was listed as private, not for hire, exempt. Let me ask you Keenan, you are listed as For Hire, Exempt for Hire, Private Property, and you have Interstate Authority, I would say that you are running your farming business as a farming business, and your trucking business as a trucking business is that not right?

It matters not what we haul as long as we do it right. We bitch about the Mega-Carriers having an unfair advantage and then right here we are discussing the very same thing on the other side of the coin. Farmers and Truckers should be working together not against each other, what is going to happen to the Bulk Trucker when the farmer goes down? He will go down with him. What is going to happen to the farmer if the Bulk Trucker goes down? He will go down with him, we need each other equally.

I would like to see you farmers make just as much money with your trucks as you do with your farms, but there are many out there running their trucks down the road at $1.00 per mile just to keep their hands busy, because their farms will absorb their trucking losses. Hope this makes sense, I think Daniel and others get it. A lot of my freinds are farmers and we have this discussion regularly and those that are in the business of farming agree, those that are part time farmers say that I am full of shit.

Daniel sign me up for some of that rate insurance, that's funny stuff there. That actually is a good idea.

If the federal government tought enough about independent carrierss/truckers they would sell it.

I'm not picking sides, just in joy great humer.. Alfred has made this a great forum site, and we can agree to disagree sometimes

Yeah, I know we have not put the boat into the water for the last two years in Alaska because it is so bad. We used to make around $75,000 clear for three weeks of fishing but the last year we did it we only made around $25,000 clear.

Always been that way, and that I understand.

That isn't a subsidy. It is a payment through the farm program. Not everybody is in the farm program but the ones who are will get it. It varies by county and is mostly for corn farmers. It is to help counter the sudden price in corn. I am sure Alfred will say something along the lines of how the farmers are making all kinds of money now but considering a farmer who was once grossing $1200-$1500 an acre is now grossing $600-$750 an acre with inputs all the same except for fuel it really isn't that much and probably not going to help the ones locked in paying high rents and equipment costs.

Clint, I don't believe I ever said the farmers were making all kinds of money from the subsidy programs, as a matter of fact most of the money ends up in pockets of those that don't farm at all. That is the sad part of the deal, people once again that don't do the work because they bought some land and named it a farm and sat back and collected money from doing so without ever planting or raising a thing. Farming and Ranching are hard ways of making money but they are rewarding. Most do it out of love for their job not the money in the first place. Just like the real trucker, they are not really in it for the money but for the love of their job. That being said and done it takes money to make all of our wheels go round. We truckers are just saying to you farmers don't sell yourself so cheap, just like a lot of us keep telling other truckers quit hauling that $1 per mile crap, leave it there. We have sat for a day and the next day the same load that was paying $1.00 per mile the day before is now paying $2.00 per mile the very next day. Patience is a virtue and also brings wisdom.

It sure would be nice if the government paid me for each truck I owned, similar to the per acre fee. Instead they charge me for each truck I own. $550.00 each heavy use tax, $75.00 each UCR tax, along with a slew full of others as well.

YES IF THEY JUST GOT RID OF WELFARE FOODSTAMPS WIK SNAPP AND ALL THE OTHER INTIDELMENTS FOR OUR LAZY FAT ASS SOCIETY WE MIGHT NOT EVEN BE TALKING ABOUT THIS.

If your aunt had balls she would be your uncle too

the majority of the farm subsidy is going for foodstamps and to feed a non working class. Lets

Well let's see if I can do this without being a smart blank. I hope we never get rid of subsidies we need people on welfare we need people in the poor house we need all the subsidies we can get it helps rotate the money where we need it we need people to stay on their fat ass and their lazy asses so those of us who work can still make the world go round simply because those people are not intelligent enough to make it all happen. as far as me getting accounts and what have you because of my smart ass in the way I talk to people wouldn't you like to know for starter I have been in the insurance salvage and the marine salvage and the auto salvage business for over 20 years I'm not your typical dumb trucker. I have also been in the repossession business of commercial equipment and commercial vehicles for over 10 years I get my accounts because of what I know and how I know business if you knew me in person you would think differently by how we talk on the computer but that's okay. I have been in the independent trucker business for 21 years as of September 19th this year. I am on my second authority due to a divorce so before you tell me how I get my customers because of my smart ass attitude you might want to think about it. I almost forgot I am currently working with a friend of mine who has a brokerage athority so I'm learning that business as well so I'm not going anywhere by the way I'm 43 years old. I hope that helps with my smart ass remarks and attitude

On that note, yes sir I can definitely respect that, I will try

Jason and I were brought up differently. WE CAN ACOMPLISH HAVING AT LEAST 2 OR MORE JOBS AT THE SAME TIME. ITS JUST SMART SURVIVAL SKILLS THAT WERE TAUGHT TO ME FROM MY PARENTS AND MOSTLY GRANDPARENTS THAT HAD TO LIVE THROUGH THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WE KNOW HOW TO LIVE AND GET BY CHEAP WHERE OTHER PEOPLE HAVE NO CLUE.

Sometimes when one takes the time to actually sit down with another and eat with them or work with them. You actually really get to know that person, I will tell you that Jason is one of those guys that if he said he did it he did. I agree with Chris, having worn many hats at the same time for a variety of jobs because nobody else wanted to do the extra work it might curtail. If I started adding up years of doing this and that, they would far outweigh my time on this earth. Does that mean that I did not actually do those things? I let my reputation speak for itself, those that have taken the time to stop by my place at Peculiar, or I at theirs know the truth. I have been to Jason's place and will vouch for what he says. Now we don't agree on everything but that is what makes us Independent Carriers, we both have our own approach as how to arrive at the same problem. He may come off rough at times, but so do I, we both grew up having to work for everything we have. Excuse us for having a little self-pride in what we do. Jason like I does not do anything half ass we are full throttle all the way in whatever business ventures we are involved in. We both just so happen to love the lifestyle, freedom, and fun that trucking offers us. Many wonder how we keep customers by being somewhat abrasive, the anser is service, service, service. If Jason or I say we are going to do it, it gets done. Believe it or not people are still willing to pay for that.

Nice discussion, but all of us need to realize the whoring out part of farm subs...if you need it you are over supplying. And what about the subs when corn was $7.00 plus? Our great ole railroads are all getting subs, so let's raise all kinds of heck about that you all. Thx Obama. You still suck like a dyson.

Hello I am a broker and I read you are a farmer I would like to assist you in finding drivers or moving your loads for your cargo. Please contact me

I have a full load of balsa wood that needs hauled 100 miles, load pays me 75 dollars flat. Any trucks avalible?