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Comment by TehCorwiz | Hacker News Reader

I remember that discussion. I also remember the major criticism was that a good portion of the people who are moving from tech to farming were already independently wealthy enough to bootstrap their farm into a good place. And on top of that getting to choose where their farm is located. Contrast that with a farmer who may have inherited what he has from his parents and may not be in as good a financial state, or their land holding is too small or has too much local or regional competition to make it profitable.

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Why is that a valid criticism? Doesn't that just boil down to "people who want to do x and have money can end up in a better spot than people who inherited x and have less money?"

It's not criticism, it's responding to the question asked.

Q: How do we reconcile on the one hand farmers by trade leaving and wannabe farmers wanting to join a farm life?

A: "people who want to do x and have money can end up in a better spot than people who inherited x and have less money?"

That's fair but the comment I was replying to posed it as a criticism (maybe that it was posed as a criticism in the original thread, which I have only a vague recollection of). That's what confused me. I agree it seems like a perfectly valid response.

The point is that a rich software developer's idyllic romanticized farming experience might not match with an actual farmer's soul-crushing experience. That's the reconciliation.

> Doesn't that just boil down to "people who want to do x and have money can end up in a better spot than people who inherited x and have less money?"

Is that not a valid criticism?

I mean, inheriting a farm is inheriting a lot of money. Were family farmers perfectly rational economic actors, they'd presumably sell their inherited farm and use the proceeds to buy one more suited to the newer, locally grown, organic type farms that are more insulated from the economies of scale that are driving them out of business.

But obviously people aren't such rational actors, and farmers have emotional attachments to their farms, the rural areas they grew up in, etc. And so they keep trying to make the old model work, increase their debt loads and hope things will turn around until its too late.

One issue at least in my own state that has eliminated many family farms is the inheritance tax rate judges the value of the land on its highest possible economic value of use. This means getting taxed on subdividing the entire property and developing it not taxed on the value of the land if kept as a farm. This lead to every generational change over of a family farm to generally have to halve the size of the farm and then have a new development of NIMBY's surrounding them steadily. The farm lobby in my state has been pushing a bill to base the inheritance tax on the farm value of the land if the land is kept in production as a working farm for 15 years following payment.

I can't speak to anyone else's experience but when my uncle took over the (CA Central Valley) family farm he didn't experience a windfall. And most years he made more money at his side job (substitute teaching) than from the farm.

The windfall option is selling the farm, not keeping it. And if you inherited something that nobody wants to buy then obviously you're in a poor situation.

But did he inherit it, or bought in? If he bought in at market rates (or even at a low double digit discount), it would be 'buying a job' which is seldom very profitable. That's very different from inheriting but not wanting to sell because of sentimental (economically suboptimal) reasons.

Selling a farm isn't like selling a house, you can go years with no offers.

Real agricultural land prices have been on a relatively steady increase since the mid-80's (which further suggests the issues with family farms are due to economies of scale crowding out family farmers, rather than farming itself being unprofitable). So I'm skeptical they're that difficult to unload, especially given that inheriting a farm probably isn't something that catches many people by surprise.

I guess my hang up is that it seems pretty self-evident. Yeah, money makes things easier. I don't think any of the software developers on this site making 3-5x the median individual wage will argue against that. Assuming for a moment that "money buys things" is a valid criticism of some independently wealthy software developer buying a farm (?), what's the proposed solution to that?

Instead of "criticism" read takeaway or insight, rather than criticism of the preference. I think they are saying, the new farmers can choose that path because they have fall back, not that they have a better farming plan or better farming insight over generational farmers.

Of what?

Not the phenomenon itself — everyone should be free to pick a new career as circumstances and desires change — but of some interpretations of that phenomenon.

I don't want to set up a straw man here, but a hypothetical analyst could look at this trend and think something special is happening with farming (as mc32 put: "[thinking] that they have a better farming plan or better farming insight over generational farmers") — picture a cover story with the headline "farming is back", now picture a less upmarket story titled "15 reasons to be a farmer (ear of corn emoji)! You won't BELIEVE number 12!".

Whereas it's an iteration of the eternal "strike gold, open a boutique" story.

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