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You are correct. The 580 acres we rent was enough for my grandfather to support a family of 10. Today, I could support my family of 3 with that many acres if I

You are correct. The 580 acres we rent was enough for my grandfather to support a family of 10. Today, I could support my family of 3 with that many acres if I ran a show farm near an urban center. But as a working farm it is unfeasible to support a family. It's sad. 500 acres used to be a decent sized operation. Now, 10k is a starting out size.

triyambakam 4y ago
Are you saying that it takes more land to support the same number of people? If so, why? Edit: maybe I'm mixing up the meaning of support here. Do you mean support as in financial support through the farm's profit, or sustenance support, i.e. feeding the family from the farm?
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Profit, in dollars, per acre has gone down. You need more acres for the same profit. Modern ag-tech is much more efficient.
  - jiggywiggy 4y ago
    Your last sentence doesn't make sense. You would expect yield to go up if ag tech is efficiënt. Profit going down is a sign of organisational change.
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      For commodity products, profit always trends to zero.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Becoming more efficient tells you that yield is going up. It doesn't tell you anything about profit: that depends on the market.
    - comfypotato 4y ago
      No, efficient technology will reduce profits to nothing and eliminate an industry/role entirely in some cases.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    I assume you're getting at the major corporate farms exerting a downward pressure on prices, which is thus lowering the profit per acre?
    - comfypotato 4y ago
      The biggest factor is technology. The same capital can produce more food. I think that’s what you’re talking about but not really sure. It’s a good thing for everyone but the farmers. The cost of food is one of the few things that has significantly gone down relative to minimum wage in the US. Supply has gone up more than demand. Profit margins have gone down.
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      No need to reinvent the wheel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
  - temporarara 4y ago
    Note that the profit and profit margins are highly dependent on crop.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  I believe he is saying the COGS doesn’t work out in favor of small farms against bigger ag-corps. Those bigger operations can afford to reinvest in technology and evolve to do more with less (people).
NikolaNovak 4y ago
I'm going to slightly disagree with "it's sad" part; understanding it's unfortunate on local / personal scale, food getting cheaper is what allows all of us here at hacker news to do something else rather than cultivate food as primary preoccupation of majority of population :-/
- sleton38234234 4y ago
  I don't think food has gotten that much cheaper in the last 50 years. Don't believe the fake CPI. Just take the average hourly earnings and divide it by something like the big mac index or a basket of food commodities.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Sure, so if I ignore the fake CPI, how do I do that? I can only easily find price of milk from 1995, not earlier; bread from 1980, somewhat dubious sources. I'm assuming in most countries also, subsidies, formal/official cartels, price controls and other policy instruments would make it very hard to compare apples to apples.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      If you don’t think the cost of farming has gone down in 100 years because of better tools, equipment, automation, irrigation, etc, I’m very surprised. You don’t need statistics. Just look at farm implements from 100 years ago.
  - nly 4y ago
    It's less that it's got cheaper and more that people spend a smaller % of their income on food these days. In terms of personal budgeting it's Amdahl's law at play.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    I did that. BLS CPI components which don't change much are available from 1988, some of them even longer. In the 35 years since 1988: - dairy has gotten 20% cheaper in terms of wages - bakery/cereal products have stayed roughly flat vs wages (cheaper since the 90s but more expensive since the 70s) - fruit/veg products have gotten 5% cheaper in terms of wages (though the same level as in the late 70s/early 80s) - rice/pasta/cornmeal has gotten 15% cheaper in terms of wages Caveat: Over time frames this long, average hourly wages don't mean like for like hourly wages for the same job... the number of low-paid "deliveroo driver/amazon delivery guy" low paid part time jobs has increased, pushing averages down. (I.e. things have gotten more expensive as measured by minimum wages, but things have gotten much cheaper as measured by the wages of a skilled professional.)
e12e 4y ago
Otoh - surely you could feed a family on a fraction of that?
- _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
  https://www.urbanhomestead.org/ https://www.urbanhomestead.org/ These folks were (are?) doing it on 1/10 of an acre - although that number comes with a caveat that I think they're getting a lot of compost and organic inputs from elsewhere. Plus they're in California growing under ideal weather conditions.
  - e12e 4y ago
    Well, they say they've donated 8 tonnes of food in a year - for 4 people, that's 5.5kg a day. Depending on raw weight VS serving - and at roughly 2.5 kcal/gram [?] - that sounds like it should be in the right ballpark? [?] guesstimate: https://vegfaqs.com/the-50-highest-calorie-vegan-foods-per-serving/ https://vegfaqs.com/the-50-highest-calorie-vegan-foods-per-s...
gautamdivgi 4y ago
Is there an issue with automation costs on a small farm or is it that margins are too low? Not sure if that’s a good opportunity for companies or startups to target.
- tschwimmer 4y ago
  It sounds like the problem is that the capital costs associated with automation don't scale down well. Fixed cost equipment like tractors don't scale down well to smaller farms. At a cost of several million dollars for equipment, if you only have low five figure of profit a year you're not going to be able to realistically make interest payments on the capital loan.
temporarara 4y ago
It all depends on your living style and how expensive the bare living is. I could hypothetically sustain a family of modest lifestyle (nowhere near poverty, but limited expensive entertainment and gadgets) at least 6 with 200 acres here in Europe. 10k acres would be a giga mega super big farm here, somewhere near 1000 acres people usually consider it exceptionally large and essentially just a business and not a traditional farm anymore.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Are those hectares or acres? One is significantly larger than the other.
randomdata 4y ago
Your land must be poor? 500 fully owned acres of grain production would net you several hundred thousands of dollars around here. If you can't support a family on that kind of income, I dare say you are doing something horribly wrong. The math changes if you are carrying debt or renting, of course.

triyambakam 4y ago

Are you saying that it takes more land to support the same number of people? If so, why? Edit: maybe I'm mixing up the meaning of support here. Do you mean support as in financial support through the farm's profit, or sustenance support, i.e. feeding the family from the farm?

comfypotato 4y ago
Profit, in dollars, per acre has gone down. You need more acres for the same profit. Modern ag-tech is much more efficient.
- jiggywiggy 4y ago
  Your last sentence doesn't make sense. You would expect yield to go up if ag tech is efficiënt. Profit going down is a sign of organisational change.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    For commodity products, profit always trends to zero.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Becoming more efficient tells you that yield is going up. It doesn't tell you anything about profit: that depends on the market.
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    No, efficient technology will reduce profits to nothing and eliminate an industry/role entirely in some cases.
- RajT88 4y ago
  I assume you're getting at the major corporate farms exerting a downward pressure on prices, which is thus lowering the profit per acre?
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    The biggest factor is technology. The same capital can produce more food. I think that’s what you’re talking about but not really sure. It’s a good thing for everyone but the farmers. The cost of food is one of the few things that has significantly gone down relative to minimum wage in the US. Supply has gone up more than demand. Profit margins have gone down.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    No need to reinvent the wheel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
- temporarara 4y ago
  Note that the profit and profit margins are highly dependent on crop.
moomoo11 4y ago
I believe he is saying the COGS doesn’t work out in favor of small farms against bigger ag-corps. Those bigger operations can afford to reinvest in technology and evolve to do more with less (people).

NikolaNovak 4y ago

I'm going to slightly disagree with "it's sad" part; understanding it's unfortunate on local / personal scale, food getting cheaper is what allows all of us here at hacker news to do something else rather than cultivate food as primary preoccupation of majority of population :-/

sleton38234234 4y ago
I don't think food has gotten that much cheaper in the last 50 years. Don't believe the fake CPI. Just take the average hourly earnings and divide it by something like the big mac index or a basket of food commodities.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Sure, so if I ignore the fake CPI, how do I do that? I can only easily find price of milk from 1995, not earlier; bread from 1980, somewhat dubious sources. I'm assuming in most countries also, subsidies, formal/official cartels, price controls and other policy instruments would make it very hard to compare apples to apples.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    If you don’t think the cost of farming has gone down in 100 years because of better tools, equipment, automation, irrigation, etc, I’m very surprised. You don’t need statistics. Just look at farm implements from 100 years ago.
- nly 4y ago
  It's less that it's got cheaper and more that people spend a smaller % of their income on food these days. In terms of personal budgeting it's Amdahl's law at play.
- MagnumOpus 4y ago
  I did that. BLS CPI components which don't change much are available from 1988, some of them even longer. In the 35 years since 1988: - dairy has gotten 20% cheaper in terms of wages - bakery/cereal products have stayed roughly flat vs wages (cheaper since the 90s but more expensive since the 70s) - fruit/veg products have gotten 5% cheaper in terms of wages (though the same level as in the late 70s/early 80s) - rice/pasta/cornmeal has gotten 15% cheaper in terms of wages Caveat: Over time frames this long, average hourly wages don't mean like for like hourly wages for the same job... the number of low-paid "deliveroo driver/amazon delivery guy" low paid part time jobs has increased, pushing averages down. (I.e. things have gotten more expensive as measured by minimum wages, but things have gotten much cheaper as measured by the wages of a skilled professional.)

e12e 4y ago

Otoh - surely you could feed a family on a fraction of that?

_whiteCaps_ 4y ago
https://www.urbanhomestead.org/ https://www.urbanhomestead.org/ These folks were (are?) doing it on 1/10 of an acre - although that number comes with a caveat that I think they're getting a lot of compost and organic inputs from elsewhere. Plus they're in California growing under ideal weather conditions.
- e12e 4y ago
  Well, they say they've donated 8 tonnes of food in a year - for 4 people, that's 5.5kg a day. Depending on raw weight VS serving - and at roughly 2.5 kcal/gram [?] - that sounds like it should be in the right ballpark? [?] guesstimate: https://vegfaqs.com/the-50-highest-calorie-vegan-foods-per-serving/ https://vegfaqs.com/the-50-highest-calorie-vegan-foods-per-s...

gautamdivgi 4y ago

Is there an issue with automation costs on a small farm or is it that margins are too low? Not sure if that’s a good opportunity for companies or startups to target.

tschwimmer 4y ago
It sounds like the problem is that the capital costs associated with automation don't scale down well. Fixed cost equipment like tractors don't scale down well to smaller farms. At a cost of several million dollars for equipment, if you only have low five figure of profit a year you're not going to be able to realistically make interest payments on the capital loan.

temporarara 4y ago

It all depends on your living style and how expensive the bare living is. I could hypothetically sustain a family of modest lifestyle (nowhere near poverty, but limited expensive entertainment and gadgets) at least 6 with 200 acres here in Europe. 10k acres would be a giga mega super big farm here, somewhere near 1000 acres people usually consider it exceptionally large and essentially just a business and not a traditional farm anymore.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Are those hectares or acres? One is significantly larger than the other.

randomdata 4y ago

Your land must be poor? 500 fully owned acres of grain production would net you several hundred thousands of dollars around here. If you can't support a family on that kind of income, I dare say you are doing something horribly wrong. The math changes if you are carrying debt or renting, of course.