A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

I did lose a great many friends whenever I moved from one place to another. Usually meeting up once-twice a month keeps the thread alive, but closest people will stay in touch online probably forever.

That being said, if you put some work into it, you will find new friends. This requires a mindset of getting involved in any open event that you're even slightly interested in. The bigger the town, the easier it seems to come across those.

In the other hand, talking to neighbors is easier when there's no one else around. I have an impression this creates a tighter knit community, where you can find new long-term friends.

This would probably happen in my case if I didn't relocate again :)

1. Is money really a precaution? Why is money in the bank guaranteed safety from a bad spell? Can't the government take everything but 100k if they need to?

2. Why isn't having food production on site considered guaranteed safety against a bad spell? Between our savings and the food production on site we could survive in place for a decade. When we lived in a place-in-the-city working two jobs with all of our assets in a (few) mortgages we were two or three paycheques (or a bad tenant) away from losing everything. The bank had a lien on all of our assets, even though we were nominally a 1%er.

3. What can money really fix in a bad-spell? I mean, can you buy skills? Can you buy relationships? Those things have to be made. Nevermind that if the bad spell is actually bad for more than just you, money might not have the same value as it does.

But I will grant that money does have a lot of benefits too, which is why:

4. I have money in the bank... I mean, why are they mutually exclusive for you?

That's not to say I don't appreciate the outdoors and nature, I do immensely. I just think the whole 'gotta get away from it all' attitude is interesting because it's the exact opposite for me, what I guess could be described as the 'feeling of missing out'.

This is a throwaway point in the article, but I think it's key to imagining a food system and economy that can support this kind of farm:

> Young farmers are also creating their own “food hubs,” allowing them to store, process and market food collectively, and supply grocery and restaurant chains at a price competitive with national suppliers.

Sure, monetary wealth from corporate desk jobs may be necessary to fund farms right now, but small farmers have a lot more power to shape our food system when they band together. Agricultural cooperatives have a long history in the United States [0] and may have a role to play in keeping the new crop of small farmers in business.

[0] http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/whatisacoop/History/#Development_in...

Most of the hipster microgreen crowd aren't even making their money that way, they are making it by scamming other hipsters into trying to do that by acting like anyone can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling $10/pound lettuce to hipster restaurants. There's obviously a very limited number of restaurants in the "overcharge people for local food" market to sell to. But you don't need to do that crap. You can sell normal vegetables for a normal price to normal people and make a perfectly reasonable living.

>Once enough people do this, the prices fall and you're just another farmer, scraping by.

The reason most farms are "scraping by" is the same reason most restaurants fail, and most programmers can't handle fizzbuzz. Most people are simply incompetent, regardless of their occupation. Every farmer I see complaining about money is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of them are driving around in $80,000 pickup trucks while complaining about how poor they are.

>Being outside is nice, but there's a reason the kids doing this grew up in suburbs and cities: they have no idea what agriculture really involves when you have to achieve economies of scale to make it remotely profitable.

You don't have to achieve economies of scale to be remotely profitable. Not every farm has to be a corn+soybean rotation.

If you're good at it you can make decent money but someone who's only worked desk jobs is not going to be good, at least not for a while.

I suspect it's a "the grass is always greener in the neighbour's lawn... or in this case pasture" effect.

I suspect these individuals will find something new to popularise and produce at high margin.

Kids in isolated tribes or areas are running away from their parents lifestyle as fast as possible. They don't see the beauty in the old ways and are unable to see the lies in modern cities, too much shiny.

Surely nothing is perfect but modern society has reached a point of diminishing returns IMO. Somatic and mental health issues, absurd jobs, absurd structures influenced by remote financial games; etc etc

Whenever I see some guy that bought a piece of land and fixed an old barn I get dreams. All I'd need a bit more mileage in ceramics and electronics so I can get just enough modern science, the rest is already there.

You’re assuming that the bulk of the market always has to be cheap commodity goods. But the idea behind the artisanal movement is that both sides of the market will change. More small producers will produce more high quality goods and more consumers will pay high prices to buy them. Both sides need to grow in synchrony.

Maybe you can argue the dominance of low quality commodity foods is inevitable. I’d love to see that argument.

Well, no. They have no idea what it involves for that type of scale, but to say they have no idea at all (about their operating scale) seems to just show your hurt feelings about growing up that way.

On a lighter note, check out this Canadian using a large backyard as a profitable farm: https://youtu.be/KO-OuqbR3EE

Here’s also a working Swedish homestead/farm (that’s being threated by the uncertainty of oil/mineral extraction): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GkLSNBmds1DZit_oHk-Fg

We had excellent facilities, it always felt safe, and after school we roamed the town and bits of nature on our bicycles. I had like 6 tree houses I could visit, jump around tall hay bail forts, we even once dug a bunker on someones paddock next to the cemetery. The beach was no more than four streets away no matter where you were in the town, and you always had friends and family around the corner.

I am glad I left at 17, because once you have gone through school ambition takes you out into the greater world to explore. But I would never want to have grown up in the city.

Most of the benefits of the city are really only enjoyed once you are an adult anyway.

Perhaps rural towns are different now, I haven't been back since I left.

Yes, that's called raising a child...

You don't pay income tax on your time. That's the advantage of doing yourself what you would otherwise pay for with after-tax income.

I figure thing happening in food right now is not so much a trend. Food prices are artificially low by historical measures. As the subsidies granted by cheap oil-based fertilizers goes away and diesel-powered harvesting starts to be less cost-competitive, the prices will go back to historical norms. People want the industrial system to stop cutting the corners they have been (believe me they tell us) so we make profit from those who are ahead of the curve.

The way I look at it: normal food has been getting more expensive over the past 100 years and is now considered "boutique" by some. There has been a fad in cheap food that is starting to wind up as it is no longer possible to maintain. It's time to get in front of that before your food costs rise. More importantly it's time to start teaching kids how to do it too as they're going to really be in the post-climate-change world where viable solar-powered food is the most valuable thing to have a startup in.

I'm not familiar with EVI

Although tech in Belgium isn't as well paid/rockstar-ish as the rest of Western Europe, that's a bit much.

Where were you living, what were you earning?

Basically, talk to a knowledgeable farmer and you'll learn about a whole new world of struggles. Just about the only upside is increasing interest in local and/or organic products.

Farming has been a race to the bottom for a long time, and this is welcomed by people who want to see cheaper food at any cost. I'm sympathetic to that view, but when I watch the continued erosion of rural communities based around the erosion of farming as a living, I have to think we should do something. What will happen to those people? And what will we do when (or if) we take into account the enormous environmental costs of large-scale farming? You're not going to just get those family farms back, because unless you're raised on a farm you probably won't have an interest in farming.

If all dairy cows were treated exactly the same as the cows you're getting milk from, would milk be sufficiently plentiful and affordable for everyone to be able to get milk?

If you really want something that's better for cows and the environment, why not just drink soy milk (or any of a pretty big variety of milk that doesn't come from cows)?

The things you say here seem like you are ABSOLUTELY buying a lifestyle here. ie. values for how animals should be treated, values for supporting families and values for "not shitting on everyones future" are very much lifestyle choices imo.

Words you are using: proud , helping, doing good, supporting. These are all values that form the basis for your lifestyle.

ps. non-pasteurized milk aka raw milk is not healthier and it's less safe. It's organic-natural consumer fad.

"animals that are loved like family"

"helping [small farmers] make a living doing something that is good for everyone"

"supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future."

These are all lifestyle choices. You make your purchase not just because of the product but because of your identity, feelings, and values. If there were an identical product produced by a big company using factory farming methods it would be less appealing to you. That's not a bad thing and I don't make a judgment about it, everyone has lifestyle reasons for some of their purchases, it's just a fact.

Just like how probably half (or more) of the beer I consume is from the brewery down the street. If they are releasing a new beer I'm going to be there, either on release day or the day after if I'm busy. This is not only because the beer is good, the prices are on par with similar beers, and the location convenient but:

-I like supporting local independently owned business. I believe that to be virtuous in and of itself.

-The owners and staff are really nice and they all know me by name.

-The owners and brewer take time to come up front and say hi and chat when they see me. We talk about what's new in life.

-Their presence helps keep my property value high and my neighborhood characteristic.

My purchase makes me feel good and feel like I'm helping a friend out rather than just consuming a product I enjoy.

If those lifestyle factors weren't there I'd probably vary my purchases more and buy their beer only a couple times a year.

IIRC My dad told me it was more about the homogenization part than a the pasteurization part (which is good because it means you can get milk that tastes well totally without risk.)

That said: I'd drink fresh unprocessed milk again without hesitation as long as I know the farmer.

It's helped my in my efforts to lose weight an improve my family's health. When you pay more for better product, whether it be milk or chicken or beef or vegetables, you eat less and utilize it more. Instead of seeking bulk, we chase flavor and quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse#/media/File:Wet_Nurs...

Some posters don’t believe there is any difference between eggs from a small farm where the chickens roam the yard eating naturally and Tyson sized operations where they are all cooped in a mountain together.

Ethics of the two approaches aside I grew up in a small farm town in Kansas. I’ve eaten eggs straight out of the chicken my entire life. They not only taste better they last longer too. I can take freshly laid eggs and put them in a dark coolish place like my basement on a shelf and they will last well over a month. Do that with store bought eggs. I dare you

Another example is raw milk. If you’ve ever had raw milk and then bought store bought milk it’s shocking how different in taste, mouth feel, and richness there is. Raw milk is flavorful, slightly off white from the grass diet, rich from a lot of cream and if you compare that to milk at the store which is watery, chalk colored, sweetened with sugar, and lacks any cream.

It’s night and day. One is healthy for you the other is watered down, profit maximized chalk water.

There is a big difference in veg as well. So for those posters to say there is no real difference clearly have never eaten on a farm. There is a noticeable and large difference in quality, taste, smell, longevity, and nutrition between small farm non gmo and organic produce and dairy and store bought garbage.

What about the calves that are taken away from their mothers (and mothers that have their calves taken from them) for that fucking good milk?

I can't imagine many people are thinking "Screw local farmers, I want Tyson Chicken Nuggets!". That might be a bad example but the point is that cost is probably the bigger factor here, not politics or lifestyle or even taste.

At the same time, that's an incredibly stupid argument to use to dismiss what is being done. The positive effects you mention happen regardless of the motivation of the individuals, and the people that start these trends seem to be the ones who really care.

I understand the sentiment and intuitive reasoning behind this argument (I find myself thinking it every week when I go to the local farmers' market!), but is there evidence that "buying local" actually increases the local standard of living?

And a followup: if it does increase the local standard of living, would this behavior, if duplicated in all communities in the world, increase the average standard of living in the world?

Some conflicting (and probably all wrong) intuitions I have for different sides of these questions:

Pro local:

The notion of keeping money circulating locally makes sense. If money is a sort of proxy for productivity, then money leaving the community is productivity leaving the community.

Anti local:

If I pay more for Local Larry's eggs and Down-the-road Dave's cabbage (etc.), then to maintain my standard of living at a constant level, I have to charge more for whatever service I provide the community. And recursively, everyone else has to as well. It seems like, at best, we just wind up at the same standard of living we started at (and at worst, lower).

Pro local:

If money is a proxy for productivity, and buying non-local means trading productivity to some large corporation in exchange for some good or service, and that corporation will disproportionately funnel that money to the already-wealthy who can afford to save that money (productivity) for a rainy day, then we have effectively contributed to removing productivity from the economy.

i also find it ironic that in many cases of debating this issue I find that those of us who consider "organic" to be the lowest-baseline quality are literally deploying capitalist principles by voting with our dollars, even thought my foodie kin tend to be super liberal, because the opposition attempts to claim the libertarian mantle in these scenarios.

Also watch "Raise the Steaks" episode of King of the Hill.

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/deception-at-the-f...

http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/far...

That's an argument to pretend to be a farmer, while also buying from a 3rd party. Another benefit is as a tax doge.

At those scales you want machinery, but you can use a Garden Tiller instead of a disk plow behind a tractor etc. Their are actually a lot of moderately expensive tools that scale up to ~80 acres without hitting the very high costs of an actual farm. Also often possible to find an actual farmer willing to lend you equipment for a large cut. ~2,000 hours of effort is a significant hobby, but less than many WoW players as a direct comparison.

10k in revenue before expenses is not much and is easy for that to end up negative after expenses and even in the best case your likely paying yourself well below minimum wage. As to wine, again that's something you can do completely independent of a farm by just buying grapes.

130 acres in the UK, compared to 430 in the USA. Just 7 in Romania, and as small as 3 acres in India.

roofs are often tiled with tar or slate or ceramic. why? they break, leak, and need to be replaced frequently except for slate. they get damaged super easily. the most common roofing material by far is asphalt shingles where i live. they get extraordinarily hot when the sun beats down on them, and since they are attached directly to the house they make the house get hot.

there is also energy management. most houses leak air because traditional construction does nothing to ensure the air tightness of a house. back in the old times, it would have been a huge undertaking so nobody bothered with it. most houses only put insulation around the wooden members of the walls, so heat is conducted through the wood, going right around the insulation. concrete foundations werent insulated until recently. the ventilation systems in houses just throw energy out the window, heating or cooling the air in the house and then throwing it out and bringing off-temperature air in and then heating or cooling that and then throwing it out and so on.

there are lots of other things that dont make much sense.

there is a new wave of house building called passive house building. it basically takes into account all of the things i mentioned, fixing them.

my personal plan for a "passive house" is to use icf construction. icf or "insulated concrete forms" is a building technique thats used in florida for homes that need to withstand hurricanes. you can see photos of desolated landscapes post-hurricane where the only standing structure in sight is a single icf home. icf gets its name from the fact that it is pre-insulated. you get a bunch of expanded poly-styrene blocks that click into place to form a single monolithic mold into which concrete is poured. the forms also have integrated clips and hangers for rebar reinforcement. you can also use micro-rebar to make the concrete unbelievably strong -- the military uses micro rebar to make blast-proof structures.

the result of icf construction is a completely monolithic, air tight, high thermal mass, super highly insulated structure that has no significant thermal bridges depending on the implementation. its simple, effective and isnt much more expensive than a traditional system let alone a wooden system that meets the same specifications. icf houses with cementatious stucko wont burn and is considered a non combustable structure by the government.

the air ventilation system, which is essential in an air tight house, will be what is called a heat recovery ventilation system. it uses heat exchangers to transfer the heat or lack of heat in the outgoing air into the income air. it isnt expensive or complicated, its literally a bunch of tubes that touch eachother. that simple arrangement will retain 95% of the energy you expend heating or cooling the house even while the ventilation system is working at full tilt keeping the air inside the home fresh and free of humidity.

the outside of the house can be covered in cementatious stucko as normal, but stucko with integrated pigment so that it doesnt need to be painted, ever. maybe power washed every once in a while.

a thick and highly insulated concrete slab on grade foundation provides lots of thermal mass to store heat energy and also prevents energy leakage.

the roof can be a raised seam metal roof. these roofs last a minimum of 40 years and can take hail and whatever else is thrown at them. you see them (in america) on commercial buildings because every business that runs the numbers comes to the same conclusion: metal roofs are durable and free of nonsense. if you do a metal roof right it can last longer than you. they also reflect heat instead of absorb it so they keep things much cooler.

the house will also have triple paned windows with an acceptable R and U value. thats another things houses do wrong.

thats the basic overview but there are lots of other things and lots of other details that have gone into it.

overall the cost is a little higher but not only do you make up for it in the long term, you buy something that is worth way more than all the extra money: piece of mind. living in a house that takes care of you, that doesnt have problems or demand money.