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

600 points by blueatlas 9y ago

Retric 9y ago
Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. My old boss operated a 80 acre micro farm while holding down a full time job. It was a hobby that at best broke even, but he had fun. PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income.
- aklemm 9y ago
  Are you sure about that? I think you definitely get a few crops off that to sell at markets or to restaurants. You could probably even do eggs off that.
- ekidd 9y ago
  > Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. It's not easy to make a decent living of a tiny farm, but some people have done it. Most of them target higher-end products and direct-to-customer sales. For example, Eliot Coleman had a 5-acre farm on the coast of Maine that apparently did fairly well selling fresh local vegetables during the fall and spring for many years. His book is excellent and fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Garden/dp/1890132276 https://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetable... One of his big staple crops was really good carrots during fall months, because frost makes carrots sweeter, and if you don't use machines to harvest them, it's possible to grow tastier varieties. There are also some very tiny Vermont farms that produce gourmet cheese. This obviously adds a huge amount of value to their milk production. So in general, you're right. But it actually possible to make a living selling luxury products to foodies. The stereotypical farmer in this market is somebody who retired young from Wall Street, and who has fairly impressive business and marketing skills.
  - Retric 9y ago
    I added a PS, but these value adds stop being a farm. If you operate a cheese factory that can create a lot of value from a small area, but it generates value even if you use milk from a different farm. Operating a stall is again a way to generate revenue, but that's completely independent from actually growing food.
    - barrkel 9y ago
      I think that's a universal argument for making all farms worthless, outside their subsistence value. All the produce must be sold; your argument means you can always argue that the value comes from the selling, not the farm.
      - Retric 9y ago
        I am simply making a statement that differences in quantity become differences in kind. You can separate things by revenue generation. If you buy from 1 farmer and then sell wholesale to 1 customer your not going to make significant money. If you buy from 1 farmer and then sell at a stall to 1,000 people you can make meaningful profit.
- Kurtz79 9y ago
  "PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income." If the stall sells products coming from the farm, the difference is lost on me. It's like saying "it's the Sales department that generate income, while Engineering is just a cost".
  - jonreem 9y ago
    The difference is that (as I understand it, not at all an expert in agriculture) the stall would generate nearly equal income if you just bought produce from another farmer and sold it at the stall.
    - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
      if Eve Online taught me anything, this is correct. Either you buy produce wholesale and resell it with a markup, or you spend the time / effort yourself. It's really a cost vs time / effort calculation. Of course, if things scale up - like, if the demand for artisan cheese becomes higher than the microfarmer can produce - buying the materials in bulk and slapping the own brand on there becomes more attractive.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - bryanlarsen 9y ago
    If Engineering was creating a product you could buy from China for less, then yes, it's the Sales department creating >100% of the value.
  - gwright 9y ago
    It sounded like the difference between production and distribution to me. Perhaps it is hard to differentiate for a tiny farm. But it becomes obviously different as the volume goes up and the farm begins selling to a distributor.
  - freeone3000 9y ago
    Lots of companies exist of just sales, with no engineering at all, and they're doing fine.
- ska 9y ago
  They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income. That's assuming that the product is fungible. If your market stall can generate higher margins because you are the farmer, and/or due to the type of farming, this argument isn't so clean.
  - Retric 9y ago
    > higher margins because you are the farmer That's an argument to pretend to be a farmer, while also buying from a 3rd party. Another benefit is as a tax doge.
    - ska 9y ago
      fraud is always an option I suppose.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - njarboe 9y ago
      In a society of high trust, fraud can be an easy way to steal resources. If too many people do it, trust breaks down and everyone is worse off. Building a society where outside the family/tribe trust is the default position is hard, but the West has gone some distance in solving it. Unfortunately we seem to be regressing a bit of late.
      - Retric 9y ago
        It's very common for people selling food at farmers markets to farm some, but not all of the food they are selling. If nothing else some years some crops will fail. Remember, specialization increases efficiency. As long as what was sold is the same thing as what's being described aka Local / Organic / whatever I don't see this as fraud.
      - goialoq 9y ago
        Advertising replaces trust. This is how the modern economy works -- people buy the lies.
- rb808 9y ago
  Around here most small farms are a tax dodge. If you have a big house and a big yard you pay $30k property taxes every year. If you call it a farm and sell a few pumpkins taxes disappear.
  - jdhn 9y ago
    Sounds like you live in the Northeast.
- Mountain_Skies 9y ago
  The branch manager at a previous job ran a hobby farm that I'm not sure made a profit but seemed to make him pretty happy to run. During the various harvests, it was also a nice benefit for us since he'd bring in generous amounts of produce to give away. I did get some odd looks in the afternoon getting on the bus while balancing three watermelons. Not a bad problem to have.
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  Only in the land of North American industrial mega-corp agriculture would 80 acres be "micro" anything. The farms next to me (I live rural) are 20-30 acres and are farmed by professional subcontractors that employ dozens of (immigrant seasonal) labour for picking etc. and use heavy machinery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and are shared between multiple farms. Likely if your old boss operated a 'micro' farm it was only using a fraction of that acreage. Also 3 acres is not a "garden", it's a very labour intensive high production "market garden" and could in fact be called a farm of a type. That's 360x360 feet, and maybe you can't visualize that, but it's large. It would require machinery and hired labour to manage. No single individual could plant weed and cultivate that single-handedly. My garden on my acreage is 100x100 and if I could actually keep up with it would easily produce enough for 5 or 6 families. I'm not saying it's a profitable farm, but it's a kind of farming. You could easily produce $10-$20k of revenue out of intensively market gardening something of that size. But even more if you were to do cut flowers or something higher profit. My neighbour is very profitable with lavender and has about 3 acres of it and makes quite a bit of money off just that. But he is connected deeply to the flower business, so knows the game well. A 3 acre high quality vineyard could produce $10k in revenue just selling the grapes where I am. If you made that into wine (capital intensive and regulatory hassle and not allowed on that small of acreage, but still) you could actually make many multiples of that and make a good living once you covered your upfront costs. So yes, it's possible to 'farm' on small acreages and make an 'ok' living if you don't mind busting your ass. Just not the stereotype of what people think of as farming (coy/sorn/wheat/sorghum cash cropping, etc.) Myself I have a bad back now, so no thanks on the pay cut, I'll keep these things as a hobby :-)
  - Retric 9y ago
    My dad and grandfather both kept 2-3 acre food producing gardens as hobbies. So, I am well aware of what's involved. 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.
- wott 9y ago
  > a 80 acre micro farm Not sure how you can call that 'micro'... That is more than the median surface area of farms in my country, and that was the average surface area 20 years ago before some capitalistic movement to build big 'company' farms that skew the mean. It can support a family. And I am not talking about a developing country, but about the country with probably the highest agricultural productivity in the world.
  - manarth 9y ago
    Some interesting stats on average farm sizes in Europe (with most countries having an average size smaller than 80 acres): http://www.valtra.co.uk/1872.aspx http://www.valtra.co.uk/1872.aspx 130 acres in the UK, compared to 430 in the USA. Just 7 in Romania, and as small as 3 acres in India.
- ddingus 9y ago
  Sure there are. A nephew of mine is running one. It's a bit less than three acres. The trick on those is to sell farm fresh, lifestyle, good feels along with the food. There are plenty of people who will pay multiples to get great food and great feelings about that great food. Service is the another piece. Delivery, open markets on X day of the week, etc... Micro branding helps too. The good vibes and food are a finite thing. When this becomes social / status, part of other lifestyles, it can all work just fine.
- glitch003 9y ago
  These guys claim to make 6 figures on 1.5 acres: https://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/ https://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/
- why15characters 9y ago
  Yes, three acres is a farm. In fact, in much of the world 3-4 acres is the average size of a farm. It doesn't need to be a 1200 acre corn field to be a farm. There was and is nothing micro about an 80 acre farm, that's just a plain old farm. Just because your boss didn't make money, doesn't mean everyone else can't. Around here 80 acres is a normal potato farm that easily provides for a family.
MsMowz 9y ago
Farming is no way to make a living. I'm glad that these people are finding success, but I come from a farming community and family and for decades farming has only been affordable if you also had another full-time job. Although microfarms for trendy produce might not be so bad.
- pcurve 9y ago
  As someone with first hand experience or exposure, what do you think are main reasons? I'm still amazed at how cheap food is in the U.S. (though quality just isn't there for the most part).
  - planteen 9y ago
    What do you mean by quality? Fruits and vegetables in the US tend to have much higher visual quality than elsewhere.
    - wyager 9y ago
      You are absolutely right, but that visual quality comes at a huge cost in other areas. For example, I find tomatoes in the US disgusting (and don’t tell me “oh, you need to try fresh/cherry/whatever tomatoes”, I have). They look good but taste horrible. They’ve been bred for looks and weight, not flavor. In many places outside the US, the tomato breeds there are bred for flavor, not looks. They’re uglier, but they have a vastly higher sugar/fat/whatever content and taste much better. https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-tas...
      - pcurve 9y ago
        "They’ve been bred for looks and weight, not flavor." Yes, and cost-effective long-haul transport-ability and long shelf-life.
      - astura 9y ago
        It's well known that tomatoes you buy in the store in the US are pure garbage, even among Americans. I live in the Northeast. Around here practically every single person plants tomatoes if they have a backyard, even if they never plant any other vegetables ever. Chatting about how your tomatoes are doing and what type of tomatoes you are growing is a classic pasttime around these parts. Of course the reason is there's nothing you can buy in the store that tastes like what you plant in your yard. I know quite a few people who don't like store tomatoes but like home-grown tomatoes.
ohazi 9y ago
Stardew Valley?
- edu 9y ago
  I thought of this great game instantly!
- fazilakhtar 9y ago
  Ha, I had the same thought.
- Aardwolf 9y ago
  Thought the same, and remember this article: http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew-valley-so-much-he-bought-a-farm/ http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew-valley...
- Agathos 9y ago
  If video games have taught me anything, they've taught me that I can find love by quitting my desk job and moving to the country to run a tiny farm.
- jmcgough 9y ago
  Yeah, the intro is spot on - unhappy office worker leaves for a farm.
- dccoolgai 9y ago
  Just got this game a few weeks ago on the Switch and it's given me these daydreams of doing just what the character does in the game - leaving soulless corporation and running a little farm...
ruc0la 9y ago
I am doing pretty much the same. I am currently an engineering student, working part-time as a programmer. Although the job market for programmers is excellent in Europe, I bought an apple orchard (via loan) pretty close to the capital of the country where I live. Due to the proximity of the capital city, I can sell my product at a decent price and earn more than an average senior dev here. I also enjoy being outside and collaborate IT with agriculture. I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff. People working 160 hours a month at a desk requires nature, peace. They love my U-pick programme as the venue is beautiful and close to the capital (less than 15km).
- JorgeGT 9y ago
  > I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff. Have you toyed already with Sentinel-2 NDVI? There's a free API: https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/APIHubDescription https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/A... It would be interesting for instance to have a cron job warn you if the values get too low, etc.
  - ruc0la 9y ago
    Thank you, I will check it out.
- mikewhy 9y ago
  > I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff As someone who works at a company that uses Drones to do NDVI, look into EVI. And getting a proper calibration plate, or a light sensor you understand, will allow you to make the results much more accurate.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    thanks, I looked at NDWI too http://openweathermap.org/news/post/ndvi-ndwi-differences-and-applications http://openweathermap.org/news/post/ndvi-ndwi-differences-an... "NDWI in comparison with NDVI is more accurate indicator of plant humidity. NDWI is calculated with the help of water absorption band which is more closely connected with moisture than chlorophyll whose light-absorbing properties are used in calculation of NDVI. " I'm not familiar with EVI
drej 9y ago
That title is puntastic.
ixtli 9y ago
Translation: farm subsidies still over-provisioned by American government.
kakarot 9y ago
I spent some time working and living on a farm run by someone under 35. I'm not sure how much their personality and lack of managerial skills ultimately contributed to their inability to turn a profit, as they certainly had cashflow, but it also occurred to me while I was working there that the kind of farm we had (10 - 20 acre, general organic produce) was a nice thought but without extensive community support (something they never bothered to foster) they aren't likely to survive. It costs a lot to maintain farm equipment and pay salary. Niche, high-efficiency, high-automation, vertical farms are something worth exploring, and I have read about the success of others doing things this way. It's something I continue to think about. One way to engender a thriving locally run community of farmers would be to establish autonomous chapters of a larger organization that provides consistent expectations among the communities they operate in. The farms would offer membership plans, which would be actively solicited and advertised. The membership plan would include discount access up to a certain weight in produce / meat / dairy each month, in exchange for a small fee and a few hours a month of unpaid labor, such as indoor/outdoor farming, planting, solicitation and selling goods at local markets. Importantly, the organization would be nonprofit and all proceeds would go back into the farms. Market research needs to be done to establish the optimal ratio of acreage to service radius, but I think it is an idea worth exploring.
- queeerkopf 9y ago
  Something similiar already exists if i understood you correctly. Look up 'community supported agriculture' (CSA).
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - kakarot 9y ago
    But those are mostly localized and unorganized farms, right?
nabla9 9y ago
Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain. They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any different from neighboring farm product that is not marketing itself as "small farm". Modern consumer marketing sells identity, lifestyle, and values. There is no reason why small farm products can't create value from association and self–identification just like Pepsi is not selling sugar water or Nike is not selling sneakers. Everything that is sold using words classic, authentic, natural, original can be more expensive for segment who wants those tings. Traditional farmers who produce standard grain or milk in bulk quantities are selling for different market segment.
- ratacat 9y ago
  I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tested23 9y ago
    Keep telling yourself that
    - sctb 9y ago
      You've been posting only comments that break the guidelines. Could you please stop? We ban accounts that continue like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - 9y ago
dejv 9y ago
I did bought few small vineyard plots 5 years ago. It is good lifestyle, especially as I live in the city and commute to countryside few days a week. It is hard to make living this way, you have to spend astronomical amount of money just to buy basic infrastructure and land required to even start. Then you are very dependent on weather and without good planning you might end up broke very easily. In my case I basically bought into (less then) minimum wage job, that require huge ongoing investments and sustained work all year around. I like this lifestyle and I am not fool, so I still keep working as a developer (during off season as well as part time work) and have diverse streams of income that can sustain my family. What I can see on forums and discussions around the internet is romantic view of this lifestyle with bankruptcy down the road. Trust me, this lifestyle is not easy and you should spent more time with Excel then you are comfortable with.
skybrian 9y ago
I wonder if they will get undercut by a more scalable approach to high-end food? https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/16611710/vertical-farms https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/1661171...
foxhop 9y ago
Money does grow on trees. The 8 forms of capital: http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/
hkmurakami 9y ago
If you look back, many successful SV types become part time or full time farmers, starting with perhaps David Packard. Seems like that connection with the land is ingrained in us somewhere no matter who you are.
- randomdata 9y ago
  Or is it the tech? Agriculture tends to run at the forefront technology adoption, so you have a chance to play with tech you are unlikely to find elsewhere. That’s what drew me to farming.
JohnnyConatus 9y ago
"A Growing number of young Americans are leaving jobs that produce things of value to create click-bait bullshit journalism about made-up or statistically insignificant trends"
evjim 9y ago
I spent two years living on a small permaculture farm. The place took on wwoofers and so I got to meet a ton of young people who wanted to farm. But most couldn't afford their own land, so instead they roamed around and worked nearly for free for wwoof farm owners. It's a cool program, but unfortunate land is out of reach
- underbluewaters 9y ago
  Every successful small farm is built on unpaid labor from what I've seen. Many are making it work and providing some value to these workers, but I shake my head seeing young college graduates working as laborers. All to get experience in a field that has so few good opportunities.
  - bornonline1 9y ago
    I did it and its not so bad. Experience is really valuable and the no-money-involved relationship is just so more meaningful. But a place where you feel as a part of the family. Those are the best
olympus 9y ago
"For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing..." Not surprising because this is cyclical- the only difference is that the cycles in the past were shorter because life expectancy was shorter. Farming is a job that requires(1) a huge amount of up-front capital to get started in terms of land and equipment. The recurring cost isn't as high, but you have to stay in the game for as long as you can to pay off the initial investment. So a lot of people got involved in farming 50 years ago as young people, and they are dying off/finally retiring. Some are handing over the reins to their kids, and some are handing over the reins to their grandkids. Some aren't handing anything over, but when they leave there is room in the market for young people to enter. All of this results in generational and bi-generational influxes of farmers. (1) You don't have to have the capital up front, you can get a loan or you can sharecrop. Getting a loan means your break-even time is longer, and sharecropping basically makes you an employee.
dasenden 9y ago
Lifestyle is quite different from ideals and principles.
clord 9y ago
We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates with big payment processors, etc. that I sell to local businesses. Maybe one day i'll productize it and sell it as a package, but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress? Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life. When we had kids and got a glimpse of what life would be like with daycare, two people commuting, etc, we got scared and made a plan. It's been 5 or 6 years and still enjoying selling expensive pasture fed eggs etc. I like working from home and having no childcare expenses. Everyone is happy and healthy and we have time to raise our kids. I remember the limp office parties when we reached GA on some new release, and we'd eat cheap cake. Then I think of how we practically dance and shout at the sky in joy when we all finish digging up all the potatoes. The comparison is stark. Modern life is a dystopic hellscape from this perspective.
- dejv 9y ago
  Yeah, I spend each winter contracting for funded startups and the vision of new tractor implement or some new gizmo makes it easier to work on the stuff. I guess the big part of better lifestyle is just giving up on ambitions. You know that you are not building next billion dollar company and you also know that you are not going to buy new BMW every year anyway so there is no pressure in keeping with Jones.
  - monaghanboy 9y ago
    You don't actually have to become a farmer to adopt the latter viewpoint and reap all the resulting life benefits.
    - wybiral 9y ago
      True. I live a minimalist lifestyle by design but I don't live on a farm or anything. Unless your main source of pleasure is having the nicest car, newest gadgets, various status symbols, etc, then you can trade your labor hours towards those things in for more time doing what you really enjoy.
jrs95 9y ago
I thought this was going to be about MMO currency. Very disappointed. Really though, I'm not very surprised this is happening. Desk jobs can be pretty soul crushing. Sometimes I wonder how long it would take for me to learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish.
- m_coder 9y ago
  >>learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish. I know Amish people and have grown up Mennonite. There is a significant way of thinking that is very hard (though not impossible) to overcome coming in. This is true even if you have a supporting Amish community and find language learning easy. I am very interested in this process and how it feels to those on the outside coming in. Let me know if you attempt this.
laughfactory 9y ago
The TLDR; is that roughly 2,000 more people in the 25-34 age group started farming, which is a roughly 2% increase. Doesn't really sound like news to me, not yet at least. I'd like to interpret it as the younger generation getting back to their roots and more connected with real stuff (where food actually comes from, getting hands dirty, that sort of thing), but 2,000 people doesn't make a wave. I hope this number continues to rise and that as a society we become more _real_ in coming years rather than less. I.e., I think our society has lost something important the further we've gotten from our roots.
- Clubber 9y ago
  2% doesn't sound remarkable until you look at how agricultural jobs has dropped since 1800. http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear-agriculture-the-cycle-of-misinformation/ http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear-agri...
hackermailman 9y ago
There's a lot of organic farm internships around where they cover your meals and accommodation in exchange for work, some also pay a stipend of $500-900/mnth. Many of my friends do this for 6 months of the year then travel during the off season. It's a good way to learn farming if you want to run your own.
k__ 9y ago
Someone who studied CS with me said he'd rather work in conatruction, because he sleeps better after building houses instead of software
coygui 9y ago
No matter how they love to work at small farm, they will be eventually replaced by machines when machine learning farming equipment becomes affordable to small farm owner. Then small farm will be one man farm. After that, the lifestyle of supporting local farm losses the meaning.
diminish 9y ago
"a growing number" here is the key to differentiating bad journalism from the good. I bet this number will grow even more as desk jobs grow more in proportion to farm though this may appear contradictory.
antoniuschan99 9y ago
I've been working on a product to help Farmers and Gardeners so have been talking to many different types of farmers from Container Farms, to Aquaponics, to Indoor Greenhouses. The industry is vast and there's pros and cons for every type of system. There's no silver bullet. This video is pretty informative for someone interested in this topic on the business side. It's titled "The 5 Elements to make $100k on a Quarter Acre" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY
deleted 9y ago
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neelkadia 9y ago
love that!
neelkadia 9y ago
woah good news
andyidsinga 9y ago
This is really interesting - and to put my own biased spin on it I think its not only farming. I left my bigco desk job last summer (left == was booted out with separation package when our org got whacked). I started a small business with a former employee who is now my partner. Its still a desk-job in a sense - I work at a desk on my computer. But that desk is nothing like a "desk job" at a big co. In our small business, we're primarily a software company, HOWEVER, our philosophy is "this is our business; we can follow our interests and do whatever we want". Interestingly, one of the things we're looking at is agriculture - and without putting to fine a point on it, sustainable agriculture is built in to that. So .. we're building some portfolio items that include control systems for plant care etc. We're totally boot strapped, working off our savings and some IoT and cloud consulting gigs. Our goal, with some careful planning of our time, is to have those gigs pay for our porfolio item development which with some marketing and customer development could lead to better understanding of requirements for product development. Re this article - I can totally imagine that some of our customers will be these small scale farmers - who need the right mix of tools (and prices) to help them operate. The tools/products for large farms are, IMHO, incompatible with their needs. Also, for the past several years I've really been interested in small-scale malting for beers and whiskies. ..I need some small number of acres to get started ..our bent for software could be applied to malting. "our company can do whatever it wants" :)
delbel 9y ago
small farmers are the original hackers
yuhong 9y ago
The fun thing is that it used to be that rural areas has the most Republican votes for example.
zw123456 9y ago
Hahaha. Wow, I grew up on a farm and I went to college and got an engineering degree to get away from it! I can't even imagine going the other direction. I still remember bucking hay, mowing the tansy, running the irrigation truck, taking care of the chickens and dozens of other chores I hated. To me, it was not the least bit fun. I wonder how many of these people romanticize the life style and after a few years will change their minds. I admit, I am probably jaded, but I think they are crazy :)
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  If you come in with capital assets and marketable tech skills to fall back on, maybe you get to pick and choose which parts of farming you want. I imagine some crops or animals are more enjoyable than others.
  - zw123456 9y ago
    My older sister took over the family farm, I tried to convince her to go into pot farming (legal in the state) she was not up for it but I think our grandpa would have approved, he was a boot legger back in the depression era to keep the farm.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  So much this. I didn't grow up on a farm but I put up with the downsides of a white collar city job so that my kids will never have to pick up a skill because they couldn't afford to pay for the services of someone who had the skill. Blue collar lines of work are nice and from time to time I do miss the construction, food service and mechanics jobs I had before my current career. There's a lot of job satisfaction to be had from seeing the physical results of your labor but satisfaction doesn't put gas in the tank.
clubmg 9y ago
>Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life. It's amazing to me that for all our modern tech and conveniences it's not made us happier in fact the old ways seem much more enjoyable and appealing.
- indubitable 9y ago
  I think many things have made us happier, but we have begun to replace the pursuit of products that improve life with the pursuit of products that improve revenue. The automobile, the telephone, the internet, and all of these things have improved life unbelievably. I think the point where happiness and progress begin to diverge is when consumerism enters into the picture -- when people are buying products because of status and marketing, instead of the actual necessity of the product itself. And then that sort of attitude leaks into society itself where virtue signaling starts to become more valued than actual discussion. It's all so very artificial. Perhaps this desire to get 'back to our roots' is some sort of Fruedian escape from the increasing fakeness of society today.
antjanus 9y ago
I blame Stardew Valley.
gilbetron 9y ago
My dad grew up on a farm and has no idea why someone would willingly do the same.
wheresmyusern 9y ago
ive considered doing something kind of like this but just grow enough food for myself -- so a garden rather than a farm. the draw for me is reducing my living expenses. modern houses make absolutely no sense because their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house. someone else commented about the fact that modern suburban life is a hell-scape. i couldnt agree more. people think you have to do it in order to live. but you dont, just buy land on the outskirts of the city and build a house on it. the city is right there if you want it. i dont want it most of the time, personally. but sometimes i really do. there are also people in here who say how they know farming, the grew up on a farm and its horrible. i really think that there is a new trend on the horizon of people moving away from the city, but this article misses the whole point. they wont be farming, because farming does suck. theyll just be making their lives more secure and cheaper by owning land and a house instead of renting. this will continue to make more and more sense as solar power and electric cars and self driving cars become more and more reliable and cheap. i really do think we will see more and more people opting for city outskirts.
- hammock 9y ago
  >their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house. Can you expand on this? What are the vestiges in a modern house? How does one design a passive and maintenance-free house?
  - wheresmyusern 9y ago
    sure. houses are made of wood. we recently had some super bad fires here in california and right now people are literally building new wooden homes upon the ashes of their last homes. does that make sense to you? in hurricane areas, people do the same thing in the absence of regulations -- they build out of sticks. 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.
wingspar 9y ago
There’s nothing new under the sun... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_serie...
free_everybody 9y ago
This seems like a very positive trend for community sustainability and I hope it only gets more popular in the future.
agumonkey 9y ago
a quick brain fart, more and more the tech dream fades away and somehow the good old life seems more fulfilling
ggm 9y ago
Better to make this a young person move because old people can't do stoop work as long. Tractors destroy kidneys. White finger disease in any vibration. Farming is not kind to the body. Satisfying, but not kind. Kids go there. I welcome it. If you're over forty think hard before commitment locks you in.
nialv7 9y ago
So Stardew Valley is based on real life?
Dylanfm 9y ago
If you’re interested in a recipe for running a profitable, small farm I recommend the book The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier. There are a lot of other examples around of similar farmers, e.g Curtis Stone, Ridgedale Permaculture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw)
bucko 9y ago
I'm from Arkansas. While I was growing up my fad was a pilot full time and my mom managed restaurant staff. My dad also got into wildlife management and was able to double his income by organizing a hunting club on some fallow land we had inherited from his grandmother. About 10 years agoo they got into small-scale organiv ranching as well. There's a steep learning curve, and you have to work every day, but they are enjoying it because a) exercise is good for you and b) they work 3-4 hours per fay c) outside in a beautiful pasture lined by many square miles of swampland and hardwood forest. I grew up catching frogs, climbing trees, and swimming in mudholes with no adult supervision. Today I have a five year old son and live in a global megacity. It's sooo hellishly restrictive for a child to grow up in an urban environment. He suffers not only emotionally,but developmentally as well. He asks us regularly to move to a place with more nature. Read Last Child in the Woods. It's a good start for helping re-examine modern lifestyles.
Jerij123 9y ago
Not sure if the sample size is relevant to the total number of people working at desk jobs. It seems that this is very small percentage of the population
iancmceachern 9y ago
Lots of exciting things going on in this space. There is also an Open Source Movement that came out of the MiT Media Lab, called OpenAg (https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/overview/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ove...) which has created a platform for folks like our company, Open Agriculture Supply (https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/ https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/) to create "Food Computers" which are climate controlled boxes that grow food for you indoors. All open source, all on the same platform. The future of farming is indoors, distributed, hyper local, and vertical. Also check out the book that started it all "The Vertical Farm" by Dr. Dickson Despommier,
oblib 9y ago
You really have to love living in a rural area to be happy there. I grew up in a mid-west city and move to LA when I was 14. I lived in Hollywood, West Hills, and Malibu. I decided to leave when I was 29. The people I knew in LA all thought I was crazy when I told them where I was moving. I researched places to live for a few months before leaving and I've been where I considered the best place to be is since then, for about 25 years now. I moved to a rural area for the same reason "clord" did, "Quality of life". Where one finds that is up to them but that should really be the focus, not a job title or pay.

600 points by blueatlas 9y ago

Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. My old boss operated a 80 acre micro farm while holding down a full time job. It was a hobby that at best broke even, but he had fun. PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income.

aklemm 9y ago
Are you sure about that? I think you definitely get a few crops off that to sell at markets or to restaurants. You could probably even do eggs off that.
ekidd 9y ago
> Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. It's not easy to make a decent living of a tiny farm, but some people have done it. Most of them target higher-end products and direct-to-customer sales. For example, Eliot Coleman had a 5-acre farm on the coast of Maine that apparently did fairly well selling fresh local vegetables during the fall and spring for many years. His book is excellent and fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Garden/dp/1890132276 https://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetable... One of his big staple crops was really good carrots during fall months, because frost makes carrots sweeter, and if you don't use machines to harvest them, it's possible to grow tastier varieties. There are also some very tiny Vermont farms that produce gourmet cheese. This obviously adds a huge amount of value to their milk production. So in general, you're right. But it actually possible to make a living selling luxury products to foodies. The stereotypical farmer in this market is somebody who retired young from Wall Street, and who has fairly impressive business and marketing skills.
- Retric 9y ago
  I added a PS, but these value adds stop being a farm. If you operate a cheese factory that can create a lot of value from a small area, but it generates value even if you use milk from a different farm. Operating a stall is again a way to generate revenue, but that's completely independent from actually growing food.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    I think that's a universal argument for making all farms worthless, outside their subsistence value. All the produce must be sold; your argument means you can always argue that the value comes from the selling, not the farm.
    - Retric 9y ago
      I am simply making a statement that differences in quantity become differences in kind. You can separate things by revenue generation. If you buy from 1 farmer and then sell wholesale to 1 customer your not going to make significant money. If you buy from 1 farmer and then sell at a stall to 1,000 people you can make meaningful profit.
Kurtz79 9y ago
"PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income." If the stall sells products coming from the farm, the difference is lost on me. It's like saying "it's the Sales department that generate income, while Engineering is just a cost".
- jonreem 9y ago
  The difference is that (as I understand it, not at all an expert in agriculture) the stall would generate nearly equal income if you just bought produce from another farmer and sold it at the stall.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    if Eve Online taught me anything, this is correct. Either you buy produce wholesale and resell it with a markup, or you spend the time / effort yourself. It's really a cost vs time / effort calculation. Of course, if things scale up - like, if the demand for artisan cheese becomes higher than the microfarmer can produce - buying the materials in bulk and slapping the own brand on there becomes more attractive.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  If Engineering was creating a product you could buy from China for less, then yes, it's the Sales department creating >100% of the value.
- gwright 9y ago
  It sounded like the difference between production and distribution to me. Perhaps it is hard to differentiate for a tiny farm. But it becomes obviously different as the volume goes up and the farm begins selling to a distributor.
- freeone3000 9y ago
  Lots of companies exist of just sales, with no engineering at all, and they're doing fine.
ska 9y ago
They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income. That's assuming that the product is fungible. If your market stall can generate higher margins because you are the farmer, and/or due to the type of farming, this argument isn't so clean.
- Retric 9y ago
  > higher margins because you are the farmer That's an argument to pretend to be a farmer, while also buying from a 3rd party. Another benefit is as a tax doge.
  - ska 9y ago
    fraud is always an option I suppose.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - njarboe 9y ago
    In a society of high trust, fraud can be an easy way to steal resources. If too many people do it, trust breaks down and everyone is worse off. Building a society where outside the family/tribe trust is the default position is hard, but the West has gone some distance in solving it. Unfortunately we seem to be regressing a bit of late.
    - Retric 9y ago
      It's very common for people selling food at farmers markets to farm some, but not all of the food they are selling. If nothing else some years some crops will fail. Remember, specialization increases efficiency. As long as what was sold is the same thing as what's being described aka Local / Organic / whatever I don't see this as fraud.
    - goialoq 9y ago
      Advertising replaces trust. This is how the modern economy works -- people buy the lies.
rb808 9y ago
Around here most small farms are a tax dodge. If you have a big house and a big yard you pay $30k property taxes every year. If you call it a farm and sell a few pumpkins taxes disappear.
- jdhn 9y ago
  Sounds like you live in the Northeast.
Mountain_Skies 9y ago
The branch manager at a previous job ran a hobby farm that I'm not sure made a profit but seemed to make him pretty happy to run. During the various harvests, it was also a nice benefit for us since he'd bring in generous amounts of produce to give away. I did get some odd looks in the afternoon getting on the bus while balancing three watermelons. Not a bad problem to have.
cmrdporcupine 9y ago
Only in the land of North American industrial mega-corp agriculture would 80 acres be "micro" anything. The farms next to me (I live rural) are 20-30 acres and are farmed by professional subcontractors that employ dozens of (immigrant seasonal) labour for picking etc. and use heavy machinery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and are shared between multiple farms. Likely if your old boss operated a 'micro' farm it was only using a fraction of that acreage. Also 3 acres is not a "garden", it's a very labour intensive high production "market garden" and could in fact be called a farm of a type. That's 360x360 feet, and maybe you can't visualize that, but it's large. It would require machinery and hired labour to manage. No single individual could plant weed and cultivate that single-handedly. My garden on my acreage is 100x100 and if I could actually keep up with it would easily produce enough for 5 or 6 families. I'm not saying it's a profitable farm, but it's a kind of farming. You could easily produce $10-$20k of revenue out of intensively market gardening something of that size. But even more if you were to do cut flowers or something higher profit. My neighbour is very profitable with lavender and has about 3 acres of it and makes quite a bit of money off just that. But he is connected deeply to the flower business, so knows the game well. A 3 acre high quality vineyard could produce $10k in revenue just selling the grapes where I am. If you made that into wine (capital intensive and regulatory hassle and not allowed on that small of acreage, but still) you could actually make many multiples of that and make a good living once you covered your upfront costs. So yes, it's possible to 'farm' on small acreages and make an 'ok' living if you don't mind busting your ass. Just not the stereotype of what people think of as farming (coy/sorn/wheat/sorghum cash cropping, etc.) Myself I have a bad back now, so no thanks on the pay cut, I'll keep these things as a hobby :-)
- Retric 9y ago
  My dad and grandfather both kept 2-3 acre food producing gardens as hobbies. So, I am well aware of what's involved. 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.
wott 9y ago
> a 80 acre micro farm Not sure how you can call that 'micro'... That is more than the median surface area of farms in my country, and that was the average surface area 20 years ago before some capitalistic movement to build big 'company' farms that skew the mean. It can support a family. And I am not talking about a developing country, but about the country with probably the highest agricultural productivity in the world.
- manarth 9y ago
  Some interesting stats on average farm sizes in Europe (with most countries having an average size smaller than 80 acres): http://www.valtra.co.uk/1872.aspx http://www.valtra.co.uk/1872.aspx 130 acres in the UK, compared to 430 in the USA. Just 7 in Romania, and as small as 3 acres in India.
ddingus 9y ago
Sure there are. A nephew of mine is running one. It's a bit less than three acres. The trick on those is to sell farm fresh, lifestyle, good feels along with the food. There are plenty of people who will pay multiples to get great food and great feelings about that great food. Service is the another piece. Delivery, open markets on X day of the week, etc... Micro branding helps too. The good vibes and food are a finite thing. When this becomes social / status, part of other lifestyles, it can all work just fine.
glitch003 9y ago
These guys claim to make 6 figures on 1.5 acres: https://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/ https://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/
why15characters 9y ago
Yes, three acres is a farm. In fact, in much of the world 3-4 acres is the average size of a farm. It doesn't need to be a 1200 acre corn field to be a farm. There was and is nothing micro about an 80 acre farm, that's just a plain old farm. Just because your boss didn't make money, doesn't mean everyone else can't. Around here 80 acres is a normal potato farm that easily provides for a family.

MsMowz 9y ago

Farming is no way to make a living. I'm glad that these people are finding success, but I come from a farming community and family and for decades farming has only been affordable if you also had another full-time job. Although microfarms for trendy produce might not be so bad.

pcurve 9y ago
As someone with first hand experience or exposure, what do you think are main reasons? I'm still amazed at how cheap food is in the U.S. (though quality just isn't there for the most part).
- planteen 9y ago
  What do you mean by quality? Fruits and vegetables in the US tend to have much higher visual quality than elsewhere.
  - wyager 9y ago
    You are absolutely right, but that visual quality comes at a huge cost in other areas. For example, I find tomatoes in the US disgusting (and don’t tell me “oh, you need to try fresh/cherry/whatever tomatoes”, I have). They look good but taste horrible. They’ve been bred for looks and weight, not flavor. In many places outside the US, the tomato breeds there are bred for flavor, not looks. They’re uglier, but they have a vastly higher sugar/fat/whatever content and taste much better. https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-tas...
    - pcurve 9y ago
      "They’ve been bred for looks and weight, not flavor." Yes, and cost-effective long-haul transport-ability and long shelf-life.
    - astura 9y ago
      It's well known that tomatoes you buy in the store in the US are pure garbage, even among Americans. I live in the Northeast. Around here practically every single person plants tomatoes if they have a backyard, even if they never plant any other vegetables ever. Chatting about how your tomatoes are doing and what type of tomatoes you are growing is a classic pasttime around these parts. Of course the reason is there's nothing you can buy in the store that tastes like what you plant in your yard. I know quite a few people who don't like store tomatoes but like home-grown tomatoes.

ohazi 9y ago

Stardew Valley?

edu 9y ago
I thought of this great game instantly!
fazilakhtar 9y ago
Ha, I had the same thought.
Aardwolf 9y ago
Thought the same, and remember this article: http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew-valley-so-much-he-bought-a-farm/ http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew-valley...
Agathos 9y ago
If video games have taught me anything, they've taught me that I can find love by quitting my desk job and moving to the country to run a tiny farm.
jmcgough 9y ago
Yeah, the intro is spot on - unhappy office worker leaves for a farm.
dccoolgai 9y ago
Just got this game a few weeks ago on the Switch and it's given me these daydreams of doing just what the character does in the game - leaving soulless corporation and running a little farm...

ruc0la 9y ago

I am doing pretty much the same. I am currently an engineering student, working part-time as a programmer. Although the job market for programmers is excellent in Europe, I bought an apple orchard (via loan) pretty close to the capital of the country where I live. Due to the proximity of the capital city, I can sell my product at a decent price and earn more than an average senior dev here. I also enjoy being outside and collaborate IT with agriculture. I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff. People working 160 hours a month at a desk requires nature, peace. They love my U-pick programme as the venue is beautiful and close to the capital (less than 15km).

JorgeGT 9y ago
> I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff. Have you toyed already with Sentinel-2 NDVI? There's a free API: https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/APIHubDescription https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/A... It would be interesting for instance to have a cron job warn you if the values get too low, etc.
- ruc0la 9y ago
  Thank you, I will check it out.
mikewhy 9y ago
> I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff As someone who works at a company that uses Drones to do NDVI, look into EVI. And getting a proper calibration plate, or a light sensor you understand, will allow you to make the results much more accurate.
- tudorw 9y ago
  thanks, I looked at NDWI too http://openweathermap.org/news/post/ndvi-ndwi-differences-and-applications http://openweathermap.org/news/post/ndvi-ndwi-differences-an... "NDWI in comparison with NDVI is more accurate indicator of plant humidity. NDWI is calculated with the help of water absorption band which is more closely connected with moisture than chlorophyll whose light-absorbing properties are used in calculation of NDVI. " I'm not familiar with EVI

drej 9y ago

That title is puntastic.

ixtli 9y ago

Translation: farm subsidies still over-provisioned by American government.

kakarot 9y ago

I spent some time working and living on a farm run by someone under 35. I'm not sure how much their personality and lack of managerial skills ultimately contributed to their inability to turn a profit, as they certainly had cashflow, but it also occurred to me while I was working there that the kind of farm we had (10 - 20 acre, general organic produce) was a nice thought but without extensive community support (something they never bothered to foster) they aren't likely to survive. It costs a lot to maintain farm equipment and pay salary. Niche, high-efficiency, high-automation, vertical farms are something worth exploring, and I have read about the success of others doing things this way. It's something I continue to think about. One way to engender a thriving locally run community of farmers would be to establish autonomous chapters of a larger organization that provides consistent expectations among the communities they operate in. The farms would offer membership plans, which would be actively solicited and advertised. The membership plan would include discount access up to a certain weight in produce / meat / dairy each month, in exchange for a small fee and a few hours a month of unpaid labor, such as indoor/outdoor farming, planting, solicitation and selling goods at local markets. Importantly, the organization would be nonprofit and all proceeds would go back into the farms. Market research needs to be done to establish the optimal ratio of acreage to service radius, but I think it is an idea worth exploring.

queeerkopf 9y ago
Something similiar already exists if i understood you correctly. Look up 'community supported agriculture' (CSA).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kakarot 9y ago
  But those are mostly localized and unorganized farms, right?

nabla9 9y ago

Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain. They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any different from neighboring farm product that is not marketing itself as "small farm". Modern consumer marketing sells identity, lifestyle, and values. There is no reason why small farm products can't create value from association and self–identification just like Pepsi is not selling sugar water or Nike is not selling sneakers. Everything that is sold using words classic, authentic, natural, original can be more expensive for segment who wants those tings. Traditional farmers who produce standard grain or milk in bulk quantities are selling for different market segment.

ratacat 9y ago
I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tested23 9y ago
  Keep telling yourself that
  - sctb 9y ago
    You've been posting only comments that break the guidelines. Could you please stop? We ban accounts that continue like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 9y ago

dejv 9y ago

I did bought few small vineyard plots 5 years ago. It is good lifestyle, especially as I live in the city and commute to countryside few days a week. It is hard to make living this way, you have to spend astronomical amount of money just to buy basic infrastructure and land required to even start. Then you are very dependent on weather and without good planning you might end up broke very easily. In my case I basically bought into (less then) minimum wage job, that require huge ongoing investments and sustained work all year around. I like this lifestyle and I am not fool, so I still keep working as a developer (during off season as well as part time work) and have diverse streams of income that can sustain my family. What I can see on forums and discussions around the internet is romantic view of this lifestyle with bankruptcy down the road. Trust me, this lifestyle is not easy and you should spent more time with Excel then you are comfortable with.

skybrian 9y ago

I wonder if they will get undercut by a more scalable approach to high-end food? https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/16611710/vertical-farms https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/1661171...

foxhop 9y ago

Money does grow on trees. The 8 forms of capital: http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/

hkmurakami 9y ago

If you look back, many successful SV types become part time or full time farmers, starting with perhaps David Packard. Seems like that connection with the land is ingrained in us somewhere no matter who you are.

randomdata 9y ago
Or is it the tech? Agriculture tends to run at the forefront technology adoption, so you have a chance to play with tech you are unlikely to find elsewhere. That’s what drew me to farming.

JohnnyConatus 9y ago

"A Growing number of young Americans are leaving jobs that produce things of value to create click-bait bullshit journalism about made-up or statistically insignificant trends"

evjim 9y ago

I spent two years living on a small permaculture farm. The place took on wwoofers and so I got to meet a ton of young people who wanted to farm. But most couldn't afford their own land, so instead they roamed around and worked nearly for free for wwoof farm owners. It's a cool program, but unfortunate land is out of reach

underbluewaters 9y ago
Every successful small farm is built on unpaid labor from what I've seen. Many are making it work and providing some value to these workers, but I shake my head seeing young college graduates working as laborers. All to get experience in a field that has so few good opportunities.
- bornonline1 9y ago
  I did it and its not so bad. Experience is really valuable and the no-money-involved relationship is just so more meaningful. But a place where you feel as a part of the family. Those are the best

olympus 9y ago

"For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing..." Not surprising because this is cyclical- the only difference is that the cycles in the past were shorter because life expectancy was shorter. Farming is a job that requires(1) a huge amount of up-front capital to get started in terms of land and equipment. The recurring cost isn't as high, but you have to stay in the game for as long as you can to pay off the initial investment. So a lot of people got involved in farming 50 years ago as young people, and they are dying off/finally retiring. Some are handing over the reins to their kids, and some are handing over the reins to their grandkids. Some aren't handing anything over, but when they leave there is room in the market for young people to enter. All of this results in generational and bi-generational influxes of farmers. (1) You don't have to have the capital up front, you can get a loan or you can sharecrop. Getting a loan means your break-even time is longer, and sharecropping basically makes you an employee.

dasenden 9y ago

Lifestyle is quite different from ideals and principles.

clord 9y ago

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates with big payment processors, etc. that I sell to local businesses. Maybe one day i'll productize it and sell it as a package, but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress? Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life. When we had kids and got a glimpse of what life would be like with daycare, two people commuting, etc, we got scared and made a plan. It's been 5 or 6 years and still enjoying selling expensive pasture fed eggs etc. I like working from home and having no childcare expenses. Everyone is happy and healthy and we have time to raise our kids. I remember the limp office parties when we reached GA on some new release, and we'd eat cheap cake. Then I think of how we practically dance and shout at the sky in joy when we all finish digging up all the potatoes. The comparison is stark. Modern life is a dystopic hellscape from this perspective.

dejv 9y ago
Yeah, I spend each winter contracting for funded startups and the vision of new tractor implement or some new gizmo makes it easier to work on the stuff. I guess the big part of better lifestyle is just giving up on ambitions. You know that you are not building next billion dollar company and you also know that you are not going to buy new BMW every year anyway so there is no pressure in keeping with Jones.
- monaghanboy 9y ago
  You don't actually have to become a farmer to adopt the latter viewpoint and reap all the resulting life benefits.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    True. I live a minimalist lifestyle by design but I don't live on a farm or anything. Unless your main source of pleasure is having the nicest car, newest gadgets, various status symbols, etc, then you can trade your labor hours towards those things in for more time doing what you really enjoy.

jrs95 9y ago

I thought this was going to be about MMO currency. Very disappointed. Really though, I'm not very surprised this is happening. Desk jobs can be pretty soul crushing. Sometimes I wonder how long it would take for me to learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish.

m_coder 9y ago
>>learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish. I know Amish people and have grown up Mennonite. There is a significant way of thinking that is very hard (though not impossible) to overcome coming in. This is true even if you have a supporting Amish community and find language learning easy. I am very interested in this process and how it feels to those on the outside coming in. Let me know if you attempt this.

laughfactory 9y ago

The TLDR; is that roughly 2,000 more people in the 25-34 age group started farming, which is a roughly 2% increase. Doesn't really sound like news to me, not yet at least. I'd like to interpret it as the younger generation getting back to their roots and more connected with real stuff (where food actually comes from, getting hands dirty, that sort of thing), but 2,000 people doesn't make a wave. I hope this number continues to rise and that as a society we become more _real_ in coming years rather than less. I.e., I think our society has lost something important the further we've gotten from our roots.

Clubber 9y ago
2% doesn't sound remarkable until you look at how agricultural jobs has dropped since 1800. http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear-agriculture-the-cycle-of-misinformation/ http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear-agri...

hackermailman 9y ago

There's a lot of organic farm internships around where they cover your meals and accommodation in exchange for work, some also pay a stipend of $500-900/mnth. Many of my friends do this for 6 months of the year then travel during the off season. It's a good way to learn farming if you want to run your own.

k__ 9y ago

Someone who studied CS with me said he'd rather work in conatruction, because he sleeps better after building houses instead of software

coygui 9y ago

No matter how they love to work at small farm, they will be eventually replaced by machines when machine learning farming equipment becomes affordable to small farm owner. Then small farm will be one man farm. After that, the lifestyle of supporting local farm losses the meaning.

diminish 9y ago

"a growing number" here is the key to differentiating bad journalism from the good. I bet this number will grow even more as desk jobs grow more in proportion to farm though this may appear contradictory.

antoniuschan99 9y ago

I've been working on a product to help Farmers and Gardeners so have been talking to many different types of farmers from Container Farms, to Aquaponics, to Indoor Greenhouses. The industry is vast and there's pros and cons for every type of system. There's no silver bullet. This video is pretty informative for someone interested in this topic on the business side. It's titled "The 5 Elements to make $100k on a Quarter Acre" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

neelkadia 9y ago

love that!

neelkadia 9y ago

woah good news

andyidsinga 9y ago

This is really interesting - and to put my own biased spin on it I think its not only farming. I left my bigco desk job last summer (left == was booted out with separation package when our org got whacked). I started a small business with a former employee who is now my partner. Its still a desk-job in a sense - I work at a desk on my computer. But that desk is nothing like a "desk job" at a big co. In our small business, we're primarily a software company, HOWEVER, our philosophy is "this is our business; we can follow our interests and do whatever we want". Interestingly, one of the things we're looking at is agriculture - and without putting to fine a point on it, sustainable agriculture is built in to that. So .. we're building some portfolio items that include control systems for plant care etc. We're totally boot strapped, working off our savings and some IoT and cloud consulting gigs. Our goal, with some careful planning of our time, is to have those gigs pay for our porfolio item development which with some marketing and customer development could lead to better understanding of requirements for product development. Re this article - I can totally imagine that some of our customers will be these small scale farmers - who need the right mix of tools (and prices) to help them operate. The tools/products for large farms are, IMHO, incompatible with their needs. Also, for the past several years I've really been interested in small-scale malting for beers and whiskies. ..I need some small number of acres to get started ..our bent for software could be applied to malting. "our company can do whatever it wants" :)

delbel 9y ago

small farmers are the original hackers

yuhong 9y ago

The fun thing is that it used to be that rural areas has the most Republican votes for example.

zw123456 9y ago

Hahaha. Wow, I grew up on a farm and I went to college and got an engineering degree to get away from it! I can't even imagine going the other direction. I still remember bucking hay, mowing the tansy, running the irrigation truck, taking care of the chickens and dozens of other chores I hated. To me, it was not the least bit fun. I wonder how many of these people romanticize the life style and after a few years will change their minds. I admit, I am probably jaded, but I think they are crazy :)

sliverstorm 9y ago
If you come in with capital assets and marketable tech skills to fall back on, maybe you get to pick and choose which parts of farming you want. I imagine some crops or animals are more enjoyable than others.
- zw123456 9y ago
  My older sister took over the family farm, I tried to convince her to go into pot farming (legal in the state) she was not up for it but I think our grandpa would have approved, he was a boot legger back in the depression era to keep the farm.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
So much this. I didn't grow up on a farm but I put up with the downsides of a white collar city job so that my kids will never have to pick up a skill because they couldn't afford to pay for the services of someone who had the skill. Blue collar lines of work are nice and from time to time I do miss the construction, food service and mechanics jobs I had before my current career. There's a lot of job satisfaction to be had from seeing the physical results of your labor but satisfaction doesn't put gas in the tank.

clubmg 9y ago

>Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life. It's amazing to me that for all our modern tech and conveniences it's not made us happier in fact the old ways seem much more enjoyable and appealing.

indubitable 9y ago
I think many things have made us happier, but we have begun to replace the pursuit of products that improve life with the pursuit of products that improve revenue. The automobile, the telephone, the internet, and all of these things have improved life unbelievably. I think the point where happiness and progress begin to diverge is when consumerism enters into the picture -- when people are buying products because of status and marketing, instead of the actual necessity of the product itself. And then that sort of attitude leaks into society itself where virtue signaling starts to become more valued than actual discussion. It's all so very artificial. Perhaps this desire to get 'back to our roots' is some sort of Fruedian escape from the increasing fakeness of society today.

antjanus 9y ago

I blame Stardew Valley.

gilbetron 9y ago

My dad grew up on a farm and has no idea why someone would willingly do the same.

wheresmyusern 9y ago

ive considered doing something kind of like this but just grow enough food for myself -- so a garden rather than a farm. the draw for me is reducing my living expenses. modern houses make absolutely no sense because their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house. someone else commented about the fact that modern suburban life is a hell-scape. i couldnt agree more. people think you have to do it in order to live. but you dont, just buy land on the outskirts of the city and build a house on it. the city is right there if you want it. i dont want it most of the time, personally. but sometimes i really do. there are also people in here who say how they know farming, the grew up on a farm and its horrible. i really think that there is a new trend on the horizon of people moving away from the city, but this article misses the whole point. they wont be farming, because farming does suck. theyll just be making their lives more secure and cheaper by owning land and a house instead of renting. this will continue to make more and more sense as solar power and electric cars and self driving cars become more and more reliable and cheap. i really do think we will see more and more people opting for city outskirts.

hammock 9y ago
>their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house. Can you expand on this? What are the vestiges in a modern house? How does one design a passive and maintenance-free house?
- wheresmyusern 9y ago
  sure. houses are made of wood. we recently had some super bad fires here in california and right now people are literally building new wooden homes upon the ashes of their last homes. does that make sense to you? in hurricane areas, people do the same thing in the absence of regulations -- they build out of sticks. 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.

wingspar 9y ago

There’s nothing new under the sun... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_serie...

free_everybody 9y ago

This seems like a very positive trend for community sustainability and I hope it only gets more popular in the future.

agumonkey 9y ago

a quick brain fart, more and more the tech dream fades away and somehow the good old life seems more fulfilling

ggm 9y ago

Better to make this a young person move because old people can't do stoop work as long. Tractors destroy kidneys. White finger disease in any vibration. Farming is not kind to the body. Satisfying, but not kind. Kids go there. I welcome it. If you're over forty think hard before commitment locks you in.

nialv7 9y ago

So Stardew Valley is based on real life?

Dylanfm 9y ago

If you’re interested in a recipe for running a profitable, small farm I recommend the book The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier. There are a lot of other examples around of similar farmers, e.g Curtis Stone, Ridgedale Permaculture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw)

bucko 9y ago

I'm from Arkansas. While I was growing up my fad was a pilot full time and my mom managed restaurant staff. My dad also got into wildlife management and was able to double his income by organizing a hunting club on some fallow land we had inherited from his grandmother. About 10 years agoo they got into small-scale organiv ranching as well. There's a steep learning curve, and you have to work every day, but they are enjoying it because a) exercise is good for you and b) they work 3-4 hours per fay c) outside in a beautiful pasture lined by many square miles of swampland and hardwood forest. I grew up catching frogs, climbing trees, and swimming in mudholes with no adult supervision. Today I have a five year old son and live in a global megacity. It's sooo hellishly restrictive for a child to grow up in an urban environment. He suffers not only emotionally,but developmentally as well. He asks us regularly to move to a place with more nature. Read Last Child in the Woods. It's a good start for helping re-examine modern lifestyles.

Jerij123 9y ago

Not sure if the sample size is relevant to the total number of people working at desk jobs. It seems that this is very small percentage of the population

iancmceachern 9y ago

Lots of exciting things going on in this space. There is also an Open Source Movement that came out of the MiT Media Lab, called OpenAg (https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/overview/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ove...) which has created a platform for folks like our company, Open Agriculture Supply (https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/ https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/) to create "Food Computers" which are climate controlled boxes that grow food for you indoors. All open source, all on the same platform. The future of farming is indoors, distributed, hyper local, and vertical. Also check out the book that started it all "The Vertical Farm" by Dr. Dickson Despommier,

oblib 9y ago

You really have to love living in a rural area to be happy there. I grew up in a mid-west city and move to LA when I was 14. I lived in Hollywood, West Hills, and Malibu. I decided to leave when I was 29. The people I knew in LA all thought I was crazy when I told them where I was moving. I researched places to live for a few months before leaving and I've been where I considered the best place to be is since then, for about 25 years now. I moved to a rural area for the same reason "clord" did, "Quality of life". Where one finds that is up to them but that should really be the focus, not a job title or pay.