4 ms·

What's so great about a family farm? We're much better off without 90% of the population being poor, self-subsistence farmers.

the_other 3y ago
That's like saying "what's so great about start-ups/bootstrapped tech firms?". You really want a tiny handful of rich incumbents owning all the land? That's never worked out well before.
- Towaway69 3y ago
  Let's do the numbers: 8 billion people. Never before have we been so many. Success! Something must be going right. Pity everyone is competing for fewer jobs and AI is just entering the market. Quality of life has always been overrated. It might sound cynical but quality of life depends largely on which side you are on: rich or poor?
pphysch 3y ago
This is where conventional poverty metrics can be extremely counterproductive. A subsistence farmer could be materially much better off than a homeless or low class person in the city, but superficial poverty metrics suggest the opposite because the farmer technically has no income while the homeless person has some amount of welfare support. Whether by accident or not, neoliberal economics says we need fewer farmers and more min wage serfs. Besides, we live in the 21st century, it is possible to be both a remote subsistence farmer and an educated+connected person at the same time, and the efficiency of small scale farming can be massively boosted with the use of modern tech such as networked sensors, camera drones, AI, etc.
lm28469 3y ago
The thing is research tend to show pre industrial revolution poor farmers had a better time than our modern poors. Unless we consider owning lots of gadgets makes someone rich
- randomdata 3y ago
  As a tech nerd, the gadgets are why I started farming. I'd definitely be poorer (in the enjoyment of life sense) without them.
ysavir 3y ago
Wouldn't the desired alternative be to have adequately wealthy, good quality of life farmers? Why do you start from the position that farming is undesirable, and extrapolate that people shouldn't farm? Why not examine the barriers preventing a practical family farm?
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Wouldn't the desired alternative be to have adequately wealthy, good quality of life farmers? Not realistic if 90% of the population were farming, as asserted before. Quality of life has risen dramatically over the last century or two exactly because people are no longer bound to the fields and are able to do and create other things. Put them back in the fields and where is the wealth and quality of life going to come from?
dogman144 3y ago
Family farms != self-subsistence farmers? I encourage you to consider what happens to the interior of the country when family ag-businesses go away for fully automated CorpoFarms. Paris/Berlin are showing an example currently.

the_other 3y ago

That's like saying "what's so great about start-ups/bootstrapped tech firms?". You really want a tiny handful of rich incumbents owning all the land? That's never worked out well before.

Towaway69 3y ago
Let's do the numbers: 8 billion people. Never before have we been so many. Success! Something must be going right. Pity everyone is competing for fewer jobs and AI is just entering the market. Quality of life has always been overrated. It might sound cynical but quality of life depends largely on which side you are on: rich or poor?

pphysch 3y ago

This is where conventional poverty metrics can be extremely counterproductive. A subsistence farmer could be materially much better off than a homeless or low class person in the city, but superficial poverty metrics suggest the opposite because the farmer technically has no income while the homeless person has some amount of welfare support. Whether by accident or not, neoliberal economics says we need fewer farmers and more min wage serfs. Besides, we live in the 21st century, it is possible to be both a remote subsistence farmer and an educated+connected person at the same time, and the efficiency of small scale farming can be massively boosted with the use of modern tech such as networked sensors, camera drones, AI, etc.

lm28469 3y ago

The thing is research tend to show pre industrial revolution poor farmers had a better time than our modern poors. Unless we consider owning lots of gadgets makes someone rich

randomdata 3y ago
As a tech nerd, the gadgets are why I started farming. I'd definitely be poorer (in the enjoyment of life sense) without them.

ysavir 3y ago

Wouldn't the desired alternative be to have adequately wealthy, good quality of life farmers? Why do you start from the position that farming is undesirable, and extrapolate that people shouldn't farm? Why not examine the barriers preventing a practical family farm?

randomdata 3y ago
> Wouldn't the desired alternative be to have adequately wealthy, good quality of life farmers? Not realistic if 90% of the population were farming, as asserted before. Quality of life has risen dramatically over the last century or two exactly because people are no longer bound to the fields and are able to do and create other things. Put them back in the fields and where is the wealth and quality of life going to come from?

dogman144 3y ago

Family farms != self-subsistence farmers? I encourage you to consider what happens to the interior of the country when family ag-businesses go away for fully automated CorpoFarms. Paris/Berlin are showing an example currently.