![]() ![]() His wife, Karen, worked for 16 years in an Alzheimer’s unit at an assisted-living facility in Verdigre. He took on debt and worked to pay it off up until the last few years of his life. During the 1980s farm crisis, Arden nearly lost the farm. Ethan had once hoped to be named the Future Farmers of America’s “Star Farmer,” just like his grandfather Arden in 1960. On a crisp, bright afternoon in early October, Ethan watched his father weld their broken 1980s combine harvester head, which cuts and threshes corn.Īll the Uhlirs see the future, and all they see is somewhere else down the road. ![]() “I don’t think that I would be able to financially support myself just living off the farm,” he said. Next fall, Ethan hopes to pursue an associate degree in nursing. But Ethan’s family is still paying almost 16-grand in property taxes, 60 percent of which goes to schools. At the high school, there is one teacher for every six students, a ratio that ordinarily would be a cause for celebration, but is not because all it means is that practically nobody goes to school there. His biggest class has eight students in it. His high school is in a small town and practically nobody goes to school there. He also works as a cashier at a local grocery store, and also works part-time at the salon where his mom works. He works with the cattle on the farm and he loves it. The star of the piece is Ethan Uhlir, the 17-year-old heir apparent to the Uhlir family farm. ![]() There is so much lined up against family farms anyway, as well as the added pressures brought on them as a consequence of the climate crisis, that it seems almost unkind to point out what a bass-ackwards method of running a rural state’s economy this is. This is from a New York Timespiece on a Nebraska farm that has been worked by one family for a century and a half, and why it's better-than-even odds they won’t own it for another five years. Sixty percent of Nebraska property taxes pay for schools. Nebraska’s agricultural land property taxes are 46 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2019 report by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and most farmers pay 50 to 60 percent of their net income in taxes. After paying for necessities like fertilizer, seed and pesticides, Jeff must cover a $15,965.68 property tax bill. With fewer taxpayers, farmers who own hundreds of acres must shoulder the cost of schools, roads and other public services. About 8,400 people live in the county, down 26.8 percent over the last 40 years. ![]()
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