6 ms·

As someone who’s spent a lot of time in and around farms. I even bought a farm last week! This is an accurate depiction for the vast majority of farms. It’s an

As someone who’s spent a lot of time in and around farms. I even bought a farm last week! This is an accurate depiction for the vast majority of farms. It’s an industry where you have a high over head cost (want to start raising cattle - $300k land, $50k equipment, $30k housing / barn, $20k fencing, $10k to start a herd - profit in 2-3 years). This scales well. Get some more land, you can keep the equipment running longer, concentrate cows, etc I do think this creates overall a less healthy and productive nation. The reason I bought a farm was for my families nutrition. Food from the store has far less nutrition. Working on a farm teaches you hard work (as the article describes) and family bonds. We personally don’t plan on making much profit, if any. All that being said, focusing on the niche is important. In Tennessee they produce grass fed cattle. Many farmers make profits with relatively small herds. I’m planning on planting a walnut or pawpaw grove, and raising elk. Unique goods provide a way to make a profit without scale. This is like every industry.

willismichael 6y ago
I understand that you're probably estimating bare minimum costs, but getting started for half a million dollars is actually way more affordable than I imagined you would describe. That's comparable to what some people pay for a middle class suburban home near a lot of the mid-sized metropolitan areas around the United States.
- lettergram 6y ago
  That’s literally the cost I just paid lol But yes, $500k is about the minimum. Plus ~40 acres. For grass fed beef you can raise probably 20 heads and buy supplementals. You might only make $5-10k up to maybe $30k (buying hay or leasing other land to grow feed) profit initially. BUT it’s not a ton of work, really only feeding the cattle every other day, doing injections on the cattle and cutting / bailing hay 2-3 times a year. Average is probably 10 hrs of work a week. When those trees I mentioned start growing in, I can net closer to $2-3k per acre. So closer to $60k profit on that 40 acre farm. That’s only one harvest a year, plus checking periodically. I can work a full-time job besides the 2 week harvest season. Another important factor for me, was the protection from inflation. Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm is worth more. Further, what the farm PRODUCES is worth more. So I took out a loan and my loan will be easier to pay off from the production and be worth more when I sell. Effectively letting me leverage the loan to make more profit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - DC1350 6y ago
    Couldn’t you feed a family high quality food for a few decades with $500k? This seems like a lot of effort if you aren’t planning on making a profit.
    - lettergram 6y ago
      That’s fair, but two posits (1) you can’t really get high quality food outside a lot of sourcing and effort. As an example, I grow purple green beans that taste better than any green bean I’ve every bought. You may be able to get that particular green bean from a specialty shop, but I’m doing this with 30 different plants on 1-2 acres. I can harvest and eat the plants the same day as well (which has far more nutrition). (2) I shouldn’t have said no profit, I do have a plan to make it profitable. But that’s not the primary goal, nor would it be my primary job. I’m a software engineer by trade and can work remote easily. Further, I can later sell the farm and equipment. It’s likely I’ll make a profit there as well.
      - dakna 6y ago
        I'm in a fairly similar situation, albeit on a smaller scale (6 acres) and I do this for reasons you already mentioned (nutrition, inflation hedge) plus climate change. I have years of experience growing veggies in my backyard and I agree, it takes a lot of money to get the same quality food elsewhere, and some specialties are out of reach. It's also a lot of fun. I'm also planning for retirement in the 2030s and I'm trying to funnel my software engineering money into a small productive farm/market garden that produces enough to make a small profit and hire some help when needed. I haven't found a good way to offset my initial investment costs as a beginning farmer against my regular income from my main job, but I just started to learn more about Schedule F Profit/Loss from farming. Any pointers on what to read or CPA recommendations are highly appreciated. Greetings from Hardiness Zone 6, which I assume will turn into Zone 7 within my lifetime.
tweetle_beetle 6y ago
Do you really need a whole farm just to provide nutrition for you family, even if it does have some livestock, or is there more to it than that? I remember reading about some amazing results that can be achieved on very small patches of land, with the right techniques, tools and planning. The official website is light on details, this article is better [2]. [1] https://www.themarketgardener.com/ https://www.themarketgardener.com/ [2] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-01/a-model-for-profitable-micro-farming/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-01/a-model-for-pr...
- dkersten 6y ago
  I remember reading something about a square foot or three of tightly packed grow space (using vegetables that complement each other or whatever; I also remember reading about was it tiered gardening?) is enough to feed a person. My mother grows a bunch of vegetables in about ~3 square feet of space and while its not everything she eats (vegetable or otherwise), it does cover a good bit and she always has more of what she grows than she needs. So if that's true, seems like a decent plot of land should be plenty for feeding a family yet still having some left over, at least for vegetables and maybe eggs. If you want to keep other livestock (lettergram mentions grass-fed beef), then I guess you do indeed need an actual farm.
  - slfnflctd 6y ago
    > a square foot or three of tightly packed grow space [...] is enough to feed a person That seems insanely optimistic to me. I've done a lot of reading about people's attempts to feed themselves with home-grown agriculture, and it's way more difficult than many assume. I would multiply that square footage requirement about 1000x before even trying it-- and that's if all possible relevant research is implemented and everything goes smoothly. I tried & failed to find an article I read a few years ago which broke down a whole bunch of the math behind this, but here is a video that matches pretty closely with what I've read elsewhere (despite being short on sources): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926Z6wzf278 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926Z6wzf278
    - 6y ago
dehrmann 6y ago
> Food from the store has far less nutrition Looking for a source, the best I found was > Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an... So choose your varieties wisely. That said, outside of poverty, malnutrition isn't really a problem in developed countries; overeating and obesity is the much bigger health concern.

willismichael 6y ago

I understand that you're probably estimating bare minimum costs, but getting started for half a million dollars is actually way more affordable than I imagined you would describe. That's comparable to what some people pay for a middle class suburban home near a lot of the mid-sized metropolitan areas around the United States.

lettergram 6y ago
That’s literally the cost I just paid lol But yes, $500k is about the minimum. Plus ~40 acres. For grass fed beef you can raise probably 20 heads and buy supplementals. You might only make $5-10k up to maybe $30k (buying hay or leasing other land to grow feed) profit initially. BUT it’s not a ton of work, really only feeding the cattle every other day, doing injections on the cattle and cutting / bailing hay 2-3 times a year. Average is probably 10 hrs of work a week. When those trees I mentioned start growing in, I can net closer to $2-3k per acre. So closer to $60k profit on that 40 acre farm. That’s only one harvest a year, plus checking periodically. I can work a full-time job besides the 2 week harvest season. Another important factor for me, was the protection from inflation. Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm is worth more. Further, what the farm PRODUCES is worth more. So I took out a loan and my loan will be easier to pay off from the production and be worth more when I sell. Effectively letting me leverage the loan to make more profit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- DC1350 6y ago
  Couldn’t you feed a family high quality food for a few decades with $500k? This seems like a lot of effort if you aren’t planning on making a profit.
  - lettergram 6y ago
    That’s fair, but two posits (1) you can’t really get high quality food outside a lot of sourcing and effort. As an example, I grow purple green beans that taste better than any green bean I’ve every bought. You may be able to get that particular green bean from a specialty shop, but I’m doing this with 30 different plants on 1-2 acres. I can harvest and eat the plants the same day as well (which has far more nutrition). (2) I shouldn’t have said no profit, I do have a plan to make it profitable. But that’s not the primary goal, nor would it be my primary job. I’m a software engineer by trade and can work remote easily. Further, I can later sell the farm and equipment. It’s likely I’ll make a profit there as well.
    - dakna 6y ago
      I'm in a fairly similar situation, albeit on a smaller scale (6 acres) and I do this for reasons you already mentioned (nutrition, inflation hedge) plus climate change. I have years of experience growing veggies in my backyard and I agree, it takes a lot of money to get the same quality food elsewhere, and some specialties are out of reach. It's also a lot of fun. I'm also planning for retirement in the 2030s and I'm trying to funnel my software engineering money into a small productive farm/market garden that produces enough to make a small profit and hire some help when needed. I haven't found a good way to offset my initial investment costs as a beginning farmer against my regular income from my main job, but I just started to learn more about Schedule F Profit/Loss from farming. Any pointers on what to read or CPA recommendations are highly appreciated. Greetings from Hardiness Zone 6, which I assume will turn into Zone 7 within my lifetime.

tweetle_beetle 6y ago

Do you really need a whole farm just to provide nutrition for you family, even if it does have some livestock, or is there more to it than that? I remember reading about some amazing results that can be achieved on very small patches of land, with the right techniques, tools and planning. The official website is light on details, this article is better [2]. [1] https://www.themarketgardener.com/ https://www.themarketgardener.com/ [2] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-01/a-model-for-profitable-micro-farming/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-01/a-model-for-pr...

dkersten 6y ago
I remember reading something about a square foot or three of tightly packed grow space (using vegetables that complement each other or whatever; I also remember reading about was it tiered gardening?) is enough to feed a person. My mother grows a bunch of vegetables in about ~3 square feet of space and while its not everything she eats (vegetable or otherwise), it does cover a good bit and she always has more of what she grows than she needs. So if that's true, seems like a decent plot of land should be plenty for feeding a family yet still having some left over, at least for vegetables and maybe eggs. If you want to keep other livestock (lettergram mentions grass-fed beef), then I guess you do indeed need an actual farm.
- slfnflctd 6y ago
  > a square foot or three of tightly packed grow space [...] is enough to feed a person That seems insanely optimistic to me. I've done a lot of reading about people's attempts to feed themselves with home-grown agriculture, and it's way more difficult than many assume. I would multiply that square footage requirement about 1000x before even trying it-- and that's if all possible relevant research is implemented and everything goes smoothly. I tried & failed to find an article I read a few years ago which broke down a whole bunch of the math behind this, but here is a video that matches pretty closely with what I've read elsewhere (despite being short on sources): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926Z6wzf278 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926Z6wzf278
  - 6y ago

dehrmann 6y ago

> Food from the store has far less nutrition Looking for a source, the best I found was > Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an... So choose your varieties wisely. That said, outside of poverty, malnutrition isn't really a problem in developed countries; overeating and obesity is the much bigger health concern.