Discussions about debt management miss absurdity of costs

I continue to see and write articles about methods of managing or working with farm debt - that is, the substantial costs incurred by purchasing land, upgrading or replacing equipment, etc.

I can’t help but wonder, do we collectively give enough attention to the true cost of things, or why in blazes they hold the price tags they do? What about methods, if any exist, to better manage costs themselves, or lessening their hard effects through non-debt related means.

A farmer can effectively manage debt and prosper, sure, but is that really the way we ought to operate? How many of us can do that before it becomes a systemic problem? Is it already a systemic problem? Do we really want to emulate governments and ever-inflating public debt in that way? Is it the way we are being forced to operate, or are just comfortable with it enough to ignore the fact)?

Fundamentally, should we not be devoting more time and attention to the mechanisms pushing the price of land, machinery, inputs, and other necessities upwards, and trying to figure out ways of reducing those costs?

Should we not be asking why things are so expensive, and trying to figure out ways of reducing those costs? Why, for example, is the vast majority of new equipment increasingly priced at a point where small-time operators - and even some big-time ones - simply can't justify the cost? With land so expensive it can't hope to pay for itself via a wide range of commodities, as is the case in many areas, what's the long-term ramification? Do we endlessly cycle back to discussions of better risk management programs to insulate us? Does doing so perpetuate higher prices?

What’s the actual hub of the treadmill?

As an industry, agriculture and its stakeholders chat about sustainability and regeneration in an environmental context, but when it comes to finances, the same sentiment appears too often missing.

My old man always says "good prices make people stupid." I don't wonder if good prices combined with security and a constant drive for greater volumes aren't making us collectively more vulnerable in the long run. Perhaps we need to augment risk management security with other approaches.

I have no idea what if any solution could ever come from such an approach. It just seems like we're too often looking at debt management, not the source of debt, and there’s something not quite right about that.