4 ms·

Excellent point. Check out Project Farm on YouTube to get a sense of what the average farmer is like in terms of engineering mindset. They would love this. F

by donw 4y ago

Excellent point. Check out Project Farm on YouTube to get a sense of what the average farmer is like in terms of engineering mindset. They would love this. Farmers are smart. When your combine breaks during harvest, you can't just grab another or wait a couple of days for the repair guy to show up -- you need it fixed now. That's not easy. Not to mention, understanding your soil, your crops, the weather, how they interact, how to handle everything from planting up to post-harvest processing... it's not an easy job. And this starts at a young age, because all the kids help out on the farm, too. You know why licenses for vehicles aren't required on private property? Farms. Early-teenagers need to be able to drive around a truck, then a tractor, etc.

GalenErso 4y ago
Farmers also need to understand animal biology (for those who raise animals) and reproduction, the local, state, and national commodities market (and sometimes the international market too), pests and invasive species (plants, insects, and animals alike) and the diseases they can bring, and hydrology. A modern farmer is an engineer, an economist, a biologist and a wilderness expert all in one.
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  While I know HN likes to put farmers on a pedistal, and we should all appreciate the people that literally grow our food, the reality isn't that most farmers are "highly educated" in these things, but know barely enough to scrape by
  - lb1lf 4y ago
    While that is true for most smaller farms - there simply is no way a small farm can afford the capital expenditure of someone who could be working day-to-day spending years in study, it still holds true that farmers by necessity are excellent jacks of all trades. You simply do not make enough money off of the farm to rent professional help whenever something goes wrong. Just one data point - when the clutch on our 1994 (methinks) Case tractor broke a few years ago, the quoted cost for having a new one installed was close to $5,000. My father-in-law and I spent two days splitting the tractor, refurbishing the clutch using a $250 kit and reassembling it. No expensive or fancy tools, but a lot of headscratching and educated guesses, plus we needed to craft a couple of rather large stands and jigs using timber already on hand. The $4,750 thus saved is more than we make annually from renting out the fields to a nearby farmer (We just live on the farm, we're not working the land nor having any animals anymore.) I believe this situation is rather typical on smaller farms - you have to make things work on your own or with the help of friends and neighbours, or you're SOL.
    - zamnos 4y ago
      That only saved you $4,750 if your time is worth $0/hr. Assume it was two eight-hour days, times two people, or 32 hours of labor. If you make $149/hr, it's cheaper for you to pay the quoted cost. If you don't, it's cheaper for you to do it. Which it sounds like it was. But thinking you just "saved" $4,750 doing it yourself isn't the right way to look at it.
      - defrost 4y ago
        The reality on farms is repairs aren't a one off they're constant .. farming as a business is literally working the land at the critical times and dovetailing working the equipment and the business in between the pure agricultural work. Having a hundred repair jobs a year that might be each be quoted between one and ten thousand sound about right for medium scale farm here, and the bulk of those would be done "in house" .. welding up jigs, repairing sprayers, building sheds, moving silos, putting in gas, power, water lines etc .. all par for the course. That's the life style, steady fettling.
        kortex 3y ago
        You just helped me realize the real value of the Open Source Ecology project and ones like it. I've always thought they were neat, but when you add up all the cost of the raw materials and "vitamins" (stuff you can't easily fabricate), plus the necessity of a quite well kitted out shop, it's often not necessarily cheaper than buying the equipment used and fixing it up yourself. But the simple designs make all those field repairs way easier. Also understanding every nut and bolt on the system as you build it creates an intuition about the system holistically. https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/
      - lb1lf 4y ago
        I considered bringing up that point, but figured it was implied by the post - believe me, no small-time farmer makes anywhere near $149/hour, I doubt it would even be $14.90/hr - so effectively, you can assume your work to be worth $0/hr as a first-order approximation. Hence I do engineering instead. The farm is just an expensive hobby. :)

by donw 4y ago

GalenErso 4y ago

Farmers also need to understand animal biology (for those who raise animals) and reproduction, the local, state, and national commodities market (and sometimes the international market too), pests and invasive species (plants, insects, and animals alike) and the diseases they can bring, and hydrology. A modern farmer is an engineer, an economist, a biologist and a wilderness expert all in one.

heywhatupboys 4y ago
While I know HN likes to put farmers on a pedistal, and we should all appreciate the people that literally grow our food, the reality isn't that most farmers are "highly educated" in these things, but know barely enough to scrape by
- lb1lf 4y ago
  While that is true for most smaller farms - there simply is no way a small farm can afford the capital expenditure of someone who could be working day-to-day spending years in study, it still holds true that farmers by necessity are excellent jacks of all trades. You simply do not make enough money off of the farm to rent professional help whenever something goes wrong. Just one data point - when the clutch on our 1994 (methinks) Case tractor broke a few years ago, the quoted cost for having a new one installed was close to $5,000. My father-in-law and I spent two days splitting the tractor, refurbishing the clutch using a $250 kit and reassembling it. No expensive or fancy tools, but a lot of headscratching and educated guesses, plus we needed to craft a couple of rather large stands and jigs using timber already on hand. The $4,750 thus saved is more than we make annually from renting out the fields to a nearby farmer (We just live on the farm, we're not working the land nor having any animals anymore.) I believe this situation is rather typical on smaller farms - you have to make things work on your own or with the help of friends and neighbours, or you're SOL.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    That only saved you $4,750 if your time is worth $0/hr. Assume it was two eight-hour days, times two people, or 32 hours of labor. If you make $149/hr, it's cheaper for you to pay the quoted cost. If you don't, it's cheaper for you to do it. Which it sounds like it was. But thinking you just "saved" $4,750 doing it yourself isn't the right way to look at it.
    - defrost 4y ago
      The reality on farms is repairs aren't a one off they're constant .. farming as a business is literally working the land at the critical times and dovetailing working the equipment and the business in between the pure agricultural work. Having a hundred repair jobs a year that might be each be quoted between one and ten thousand sound about right for medium scale farm here, and the bulk of those would be done "in house" .. welding up jigs, repairing sprayers, building sheds, moving silos, putting in gas, power, water lines etc .. all par for the course. That's the life style, steady fettling.
      - kortex 3y ago
        You just helped me realize the real value of the Open Source Ecology project and ones like it. I've always thought they were neat, but when you add up all the cost of the raw materials and "vitamins" (stuff you can't easily fabricate), plus the necessity of a quite well kitted out shop, it's often not necessarily cheaper than buying the equipment used and fixing it up yourself. But the simple designs make all those field repairs way easier. Also understanding every nut and bolt on the system as you build it creates an intuition about the system holistically. https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/
    - lb1lf 4y ago
      I considered bringing up that point, but figured it was implied by the post - believe me, no small-time farmer makes anywhere near $149/hour, I doubt it would even be $14.90/hr - so effectively, you can assume your work to be worth $0/hr as a first-order approximation. Hence I do engineering instead. The farm is just an expensive hobby. :)