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I live on my family farm. We have a 50yr old tractor and your basic premise seems correct. All of my neighbors follow the same route. I would add that small fa

I live on my family farm. We have a 50yr old tractor and your basic premise seems correct. All of my neighbors follow the same route. I would add that small farmers are typically not mono culture. We used to have various fruit varieties. One neighbor is mixed veggies, another cattle and flowers. Our farm has been forced out of fruit because of corporate mono farms who inevitably cause gluts in the market due to over supply. In my local experience, corporate farms are typically 5-10 bigger as a minimum than their surrounding neighbors. When a small farmer loses any percentage income, he must quickly change income stream. Hence, our fruit trees are gone, and we're now raising sheep, and are forced to be double income. Our tractor & other super reliable (but very clunky) machines remain.

oopsyDoodl 5y ago
I think it’s great. It’s the story of humanity moving on from “I am my own industrial island” to inclusive effort at scale to automate away and normalize often dangerous logistical work (I am 41 and have limbless, digit less peers who had to work on family farms as teens.) Family farms are, to me, simply a legacy social and technical effort. The problem is old politics refusing to take reality seriously. Americans who carry on about their legacy of revolution, moving history forward, disruption!, exporting that mentality to the world, are all sad their lives are disrupted by others wanting the same agency. Moral relativism worked for Americans while we bombed the world, impeding other nations progress, but they caught up anyway. “There’s a warning sign on the road ahead; a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead. Don’t feel like Satan; but I am to them; so I try and forget it any way I can.” If you didn’t sign a contract to be a family farmer for life, oh well. America.
smackeyacky 5y ago
Hey, sheep! If it would be OK can you try contacting me directly through my profile? I'd like to find somebody in the US who is dealing with sheep and what they are doing with them. I have a product we would like to export to the US but I am really struggling to get a handle on the market there, it's very different to Australia/NZ etc.

oopsyDoodl 5y ago

I think it’s great. It’s the story of humanity moving on from “I am my own industrial island” to inclusive effort at scale to automate away and normalize often dangerous logistical work (I am 41 and have limbless, digit less peers who had to work on family farms as teens.) Family farms are, to me, simply a legacy social and technical effort. The problem is old politics refusing to take reality seriously. Americans who carry on about their legacy of revolution, moving history forward, disruption!, exporting that mentality to the world, are all sad their lives are disrupted by others wanting the same agency. Moral relativism worked for Americans while we bombed the world, impeding other nations progress, but they caught up anyway. “There’s a warning sign on the road ahead; a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead. Don’t feel like Satan; but I am to them; so I try and forget it any way I can.” If you didn’t sign a contract to be a family farmer for life, oh well. America.

smackeyacky 5y ago

Hey, sheep! If it would be OK can you try contacting me directly through my profile? I'd like to find somebody in the US who is dealing with sheep and what they are doing with them. I have a product we would like to export to the US but I am really struggling to get a handle on the market there, it's very different to Australia/NZ etc.