A Pre-Press Wrap-Up of Late News For Farm Builders
We’ve reprinted the following article from the Bicentenniel edition for interest. To see statistics about farm building (rural building) today, go to www.ruralbuildermagazine.com and click on the CSI Annual and Market Report. – Dan Brownell, Rural Builder Editor
How do you compare with other Builders?
Our 1976 FBN farm builder survey is now complete, and we think you’ll be interested in the results–this is one of the few factual surveys available, and allows you to compare your firm with your counterparts across the country. Even the USDA doesn’t have a handle on the overall size of this industry, since most rural counties don’t require building permits for new or remodeled construction.
While the number of buildings erected is becoming less and less a measure of any builder’s total volume–due to the added size and sophistication of today’s farm structures–our survey shows the average farm builder now constructs 49 buildings a year.
Average Farm Builder Grosses $835,000 a Year
Builders answering our survey indicated 65% of their business is now agricultural, 19% is commercial and industrial, and 16% is residential and recreational. (Recreational building is the biggest growth area for farm builders–one New England builder, for example, constructed more private horse stables last year than the past 5 years combined.)
Using the average of 49 buildings per firm, and using only a $10,000 average for farm buildings, a $40,000 average for commercial/industrial, and $20,000 for residential/recreational, that comes to an average gross volume of $835,000 per farm building firm.
It’s a 4 1/2 Billion Dollar Industry
If we take that $835,000 figure and simply multiply it times the 5,454 building firms that make up FBN’s “prime list”, it indicates that the farm building construction market now has gross annual sales of $4,554,090,000!
And that figure’s highly conservative, considering the fact that it doesn’t include the grain bin industry, nor any of the “furniture” for farm buildings (in many cases the partitions, stalls, conveyors, feeders and other equipment for the inside of the building will top the cost of the exterior of the building, so the “furniture” figure could add to the amount substantially).
Big Growth in Metal Frame Buildings
One of the noticable surprises in this year’s survey was the phenomenal increase in builders taking on metal frame buildings during the past 2 years. Our 1974 study indicated that 53.2% of the builders surveyed offered post-frame buildings exclusively, 21.7% offered both post and metal frame buildings and 11.5% built metal frame structures only. By comparison, our 1976 survey shows that ratio is now 40.6% for post-frame, 30.9% for both post and metal frame, and 28.5% for those constructing only metal frame structures.
We’ll be giving you more of the conclusions to our ‘76 Farm Builder survey in future issues. One conclusion you can make now is that farm building is the “growingest” industry in agriculture!
In honor of America’s 200th birthday celebration in nation’s capitol, this barn was erected as part of the Smithsonial Institute’s Festival of American Folklife. It was part of a display honoring the agricultural history of our country.
Part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife, the barn and accompanying stables helped honor agricultural life. RB
