Farmers tend to have very high net worths and very low disposable income until they get old. You need several million dollars worth of land just to make the payments on that land/equipment and have enough left over to live on. And of course there are years where you will lose money and so you need to figure out how to ride that out. Then in 30 years you make the last payment on the land and suddenly what was just barely enough money to live on is a massive income and you are extremely wealthy.

I work in flyover country. I'm not a farmer my self, but several of my co workers are - they farm 100 acres of land after work, and it generates just enough money to make the payments land payments. They are looking to buy more land as soon as they can finance it (often leasing it to a neighbor to farm as they don't have time and so they lose money on the land). Their plan is in 15-20 years inflation will have made crops more valuable while the land payments are the same and so they can afford to quit the day job and farm all their land.

Getting started is the hard part. Getting two million dollar loan for 100 acres of prime farmland when you are not already a farmer is hard. Many farmers thus start with livestock, you can start on 10 acres of non-prime farmland which is affordable and then over a few years build enough credibility with the bank to get that first large field which is where the money is.

Sadly, probably. My family did two years of farming as amateurs between jobs when I was a preteen. It stunted my height and caused decades of chronic pain for my parents. And we didn't make enough to live on

I have family that does this in WI. It's viable, but hard work.

I actually know this. I personally know a few people who do accept major financial restraint in exchange for pursuing their passion.

To be fair, I'm from Europe, so I can't personally verify whether this still works in the US or if the stories I've heard were false, but this does at least provide a counterpoint to this not being possible in western countries.

The food supply chain is still dependent on the fact that many people actually do this; so presumably it is possible.