I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin (and I knew plenty of crop farmers as well, of course), and frankly none of what you said is congruent with my own experi

I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin (and I knew plenty of crop farmers as well, of course), and frankly none of what you said is congruent with my own experience. As orenlindsey said, farmers are generally smart people who have to juggle many hats and work their asses off in order to scrape out a very modest living. "Genius" is probably stretching a bit, but they aren't stupid laggards who get by on the inheritance they got from their parents the way you imply. > The downside, of course, is that you need to be born in to it. A tiny 100 acre farm's land is worth north of 1 million dollars, not to mention a ton of other startup costs. Land isn't for sale very often, as usually at least one child wants to take it up. I don't even know how you'd approach starting from scratch unless you were already rich. This is just flat out false. My dad started our farm (90 acres) from scratch. He did it by working his ass off, often working two or three jobs, while living frugally and saving as much as he could for a down payment. Then he got a mortgage, just like most people do when they buy property. It's hard in the sense that saving money is always hard, but it's certainly not impossible and something where you can't pull it off without a helping hand from your parents.