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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

I don't mean this to be insensitive but one thing I don't understand...

If the ranchers are barely scraping by, maybe they shouldn't be ranchers?

I mean, I spent a while trying to be a photographer but it was hard and paid really badly. So I stopped being a photographer.

Obviously that sucks and it's good to have a safety net for people to fall back on but I don't see why someone being a rancher now means they have to be forever.

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Even if we accept the premise that 'if doing [X] is barely scraping by, you shouldn't do [X]"' is indisputably rational and easy to process for one's one circumstances, you must see that making the choice to be and no-longer-be a photographer is trivial compared to the choice of being and no-longer-being a rancher. The difference in the levels of personal, financial, emotional, and lifestyle investments required to take up or abandon either career choice (for a versatile meaning of 'choice') is astronomical.

It seems the lifestyle they enjoy makes it worth barely scraping as owners of very desirable land. Otherwise it would be worth starting over somewhere else where there are jobs that need to be filled. A lot of people woking jobs in cities and towns are barely scraping by too.

I wish we had a healthy safety net in the US but people in need live different lifestyles beyond ranching.

Incentivizing large corporate ranching conglomerates is not the solution, as agricultural diversity is our strength, especially in products and sources. Maybe small time ranching could be encouraged through tax rescindment programs?

What agricultural diversity? The 89% of farms are “small” and produce 18% of the value on 45% of the acres. They are generally more hobbies than business, and as such rarely efficient enough to be the sole source of income for people. Non commercial farms are plentiful, but not necessarily useful.

“Family farms” are more impactful, but that’s including operations with 50,000+ acres and large workforces.

A lot of times these 89% are not legally allowed to sell their products, as USDA and FDA require them to outsiurce processing. In the few cases where farmers just do it anyways, the long arm of the law strikes with extreme prejudice, e.g. see Amish farmers selling unpasteurized yoghurt and cheese –products which derive their value by being spoiled through probiotic micro organisms.

Loosen up regulations, but allow everyone to be accountable again, and common law will sort it out.

If less than 1% means ‘a lot’ to you then sure those are meaningful problems.

But, from my perspective most of what’s going on gets zero attention because it’s boring. I know a lot of small farmers who aren’t struggling because that’s not their primary income it’s just a hobby / lifestyle. Making or losing a few grand per year on a hobby just isn’t that strange, but toss growing food into the mix and people assume it’s more meaningful. Larger operations are run like any other business and some of them fail through mismanagement just like any other businesses.

If Wickard vs. Filburn (4) and similar laws/decisions were to be repealed, incentives could stack up and growing your own food to save money, and sell intrastate, may become popular again.

4) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/317/111

The effort vs economic rewards of growing your own food is horrible. Some people enjoy it as a hobby, I know many of them. But it’s not something that’ll ever really catch on by repealing such laws alone.

Automation/economies of scale + government subsidies + many farmers having massive amounts of specialized knowledge and skills vs what amounts to subsistence agriculture is just wildly in favor of large scale operations.

Farm subsidies enable international shipping to the extent of putting foreign farmers out of work. (1)

This also works in reverse, (2) artificially destroying the pricing mechanism, and externalizing costs to the taxpayer.

1) https://en.irefeurope.org/publications/online-articles/artic...

2) https://www.farmpolicyfacts.org/the-bitter-impact-of-foreign...

I’m not saying they are a good thing, just that they exist.

Hunting by comparison has a vastly better ROI if you want some food independence.

This answer probably explains the urban-rural divide just as well as wolves do. Photography is a hobby for most which turns into a career for some. If it doesn't work out like it didn't for you it is easy to just go back to hobby photography. Farming, ranching and forestry is a life for most, a career for many. If it doesn't work out you lose your farm, ranch or forest holding and will have to find another life.

Swap out "photography" for "enormous college debt for a degree that's unlikely to lead to a high paying career" and it starts to line up with the rancher example.

While on the level of an individual farmer that makes sense, what about the whole of society?

From what I understand, in archeology driving marginal land out of cultivation is one of the prime indicators of a civilization in terminal decline.

Advanced civilizations tend to rely on irrational productivity quite a bit, hence things like the post-COVID labor shortage.

I don't understand either, everyone wants to be paid more but this is a demonstration of the power of rural America.

I read in a response that the alternative is conglomerate corporate ranching, that's because they have the necessary resources to protect livestock and withstand financial shocks. The article points out high real estate prices because people buy homes for recreation, it makes it hard for ranchers to hire employees who can afford to live in the area. We can import meat from nations that lower costs with more abundant housing.

We can purchase our food from overseas in peace time. Once the trade routes are disrupted or political embargos hit, suddenly you have 300 million mouths to feed and we can't get critical staples to feed them.

Having local production is a national security defensive measure. It makes sense not to JIT our food supplies.

National security is only valued when it’s convenient. This is America we have SecDef Alcoholic, we store nuclear secrets in the shitter and apparently TikTok is ok now.

My stepdad has owned his ranch for 30+ years, before that he worked it while his dad owned it. He hasn't had a "normal" job since the 80s. I can tell you confidently he is barely scraping by, but there's not exactly a lot of options. The mortgage on these ranches are typically very low interest, but VERY long time horizons, for much much more than a typical home. Add loans for tractors, livestock, etc you're talking about a mountain of debt.

Sure I don't recommend young people getting into it, but I don't think you really understand long-time ranchers here.

Exactly. The bottom line is that (most) people aren't stupid. If they're doing something that doesn't seem rational, it's most likely because you aren't seeing it from their perspective and are lacking information.

If the ranchers had what they considered to be better options, they'd go for it.

I understand what you’re saying but as another commenter pointed out, many ranchers are in incredible debt. The same is for farmers. You get trapped in a cycle you can’t break from without a miracle.

I think you're making GPs point. We see this exact argument being used against more urban types? "If they didn't want to be saddled with crippling student loans, they shouldn't have gone to college to get a degree leading to an exciting career of basket weaving".

Great, but they did and now they're hosed. Just like in this case, perhaps those ranchers shouldn't have become ranchers and thus caused themselves to go into incredible debt. But they did and now they're hosed.

One can choose whether or not that we the people should help them out when in this situation, but we should apply that with more quality.

To be clear I don’t want to “blame” ranchers for their situation. Many ranchers took over family farms etc. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.

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