mortgage burner

English

Etymology

From the notion of burning the mortgage note (promissory note) after paying off the mortgage.

Noun

mortgage burner (plural mortgage burners)

1. (agriculture) A cash crop or choice of livestock regarded as the best bet for a smallholder farmer in some particular time and place.

   Synonym: mortgage lifter

   Hypernyms: cash crop; < crop

   Hogs were a mortgage burner at the time; a new hoghouse could pay its way.

   Tobacco was considered a mortgage burner in that day.

   • 1980, V. James Rhodes, “The Red Meat Food Chain: Horizontal Size and Vertical Linkages. Paper No. 1980-40”, in white paper archive, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri–Columbia‎^[1], page 11:

     Are the changes in hog production beneficial? My general posture is no, although many will disagree. Perhaps there are some small savings in social costs — some economies of large scale production. My feeling is that these economies are more than offset by the impending loss of hogs as the "mortgage burner" for the young families getting started in farming. ¶ What brought this switch toward large volume hog operations? Economies of scale have been mentioned. In another paper, Glenn Grimes and I listed three "motivating factors" and five "enabling factors" for the structural shifts of the past 40 years in hog production.

   • 1996, Jerome M. Organ, Kristin M. Perry, “Controlling Externalities Associated with Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Evaluating the Impact of H.B. 1207 and the Continuing Viability of Zoning and the Common Law of Nuisance”, in Missouri Environmental Law and Policy Review‎^[2], volume 3, number 4, page 184:

     B. Effect of the Rapid Expansion of Large Producers on Traditional Missouri Hog Producers ¶ Raising pigs has traditionally been called the "mortgage burner." With a small lot and a wooden shed, a young farmer could tend a few sows, sell the offspring, and make enough money to buy some cropland. As time went on, the hog income could buy a new truck and maybe send a child to college. Many smaller producers fear that the concentration of hog production will result in the loss of this important supplemental income. ¶ Will the demise of the family farm follow in the wake of this rapid expansion of huge hog facilities? That is the prediction of some experts.

   • 2009 January 10, “A glimmer of light seen for hog industry in the new year”, in AgriPost (Manitoba)‎^[3]:

     When you ask Andrew Dickson about the possibilities for the pork industry in 2009 you get the feeling there is light at the end of the tunnel. Dickson is the General Manager of the Manitoba Pork Council and he says things look brighter than they did a year ago. ¶ “We entered 2008 with record high feed prices and low prices for our product,” says Dickson. “There were times in the year that there was absolutely no market for weanlings, so things look better than they did through the year.” ¶ […] He acknowledges that there are some operations that are surviving because the returns from the grain industry subsidized the hog operations, and he looks at it philosophically. ¶ “There were many times it went the other way,” he says. “People forget how much land hogs have paid for. They have been called the mortgage burner for a reason.” He does not expect a sector to stand on its own through all times. ¶ “The hog industry has provided a market for a lot of feed grains and it has a value because of it,” says Dickson.