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A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

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Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#101

Post by sjg007 »

stevenwoo wrote: post #61
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in the land of North American industrial mega-corp agriculture would 80 acres be "micro" anything. The farms next to me (I live rural) are 20-30 acres and are farmed by professional subcontractors that employ dozens of (immigrant seasonal) labour for picking etc. and use heavy machinery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and are shared between multiple farms. Likely if your old boss operated a 'micro' f…

I imagine it's because there are tax advantages but anecdotally in the Silicon Valley suburbs (Los Altos Hills/Portola Valley/Atherton) there are a high number of one to three acre farms and vineyards.

You get property tax relief for maintaining the land as agricultural.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#102

Post by pcurve »

astura wrote: post #91
wyager wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right, but that visual quality comes at a huge cost in other areas. For example, I find tomatoes in the US disgusting (and don’t tell me “oh, you need to try fresh/cherry/whatever tomatoes”, I have). They look good but taste horrible. They’ve been bred for looks and weight, not flavor. In many places outside the US, the tomato breeds there are bred for flavor, not looks. They’re uglier, but they ha…

It's well known that tomatoes you buy in the store in the US are pure garbage, even among Americans. I live in the Northeast. Around here practically every single person plants tomatoes if they have a backyard, even if they never plant any other vegetables ever. Chatting about how your tomatoes are doing and what type of tomatoes you are growing is a classic pasttime around these parts. Of course the reason is there'…

I'm in Northeast too I'm going to miss my backyard cherry tomato until next year.

It's quite fun being able to control acidity, sweetness, texture depending on when you pick them off vine.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#103

Post by queeerkopf »

kakarot wrote: post #36

I spent some time working and living on a farm run by someone under 35. I'm not sure how much their personality and lack of managerial skills ultimately contributed to their inability to turn a profit, as they certainly had cashflow, but it also occurred to me while I was working there that the kind of farm we had (10 - 20 acre, general organic produce) was a nice thought but without extensive community support (some…

Something similiar already exists if i understood you correctly. Look up 'community supported agriculture' (CSA).

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#104

Post by Retric »

njarboe wrote: post #81
Retric wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> higher margins because you are the farmer That's an argument to pretend to be a farmer, while also buying from a 3rd party. Another benefit is as a tax doge.

In a society of high trust, fraud can be an easy way to steal resources. If too many people do it, trust breaks down and everyone is worse off. Building a society where outside the family/tribe trust is the default position is hard, but the West has gone some distance in solving it. Unfortunately we seem to be regressing a bit of late.

It's very common for people selling food at farmers markets to farm some, but not all of the food they are selling. If nothing else some years some crops will fail.

Remember, specialization increases efficiency. As long as what was sold is the same thing as what's being described aka Local / Organic / whatever I don't see this as fraud.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#105

Post by Spooky23 »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #60
ratacat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

>I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future. The things you say here seem like you are ABSOLUTELY buying a lifestyle here. ie. values for how animals should be tr…

"Lifestyle choice" implies a frivolous or even capricious choice in many contexts.

Personally, the notion that we're taking a chicken raised in conditions "bad" for the chicken and for the quality of the product is just offensive and bad for everyone in the economic chain, save the big company. In a farming environment managed by a modern day tenant farmer, shipping it to China or some place in South Dakota to be butchered by exploited immigrants, and shipping it back in a cryovac to save $1.50/lb.

Or I can pay a little more, an amount that is negligible in my budget, for a bird raised, slaughtered and packed within 50 miles of my home, by farmers who are working for themselves, by a butcher whose work isn't going to debilitate him and leave him in poverty later, and a retailer in my city who is a part of my community.

This is one of these areas where I agree with the conservative ideal of markets picking winners and losers, which never works out in practice. When you consider how we destroyed regional vegetable industries by having the government spend billions to turn the California desert into an eden of industrial agriculture, or how we allowed nasty people to transform cattle ranching and butchering from solid middle class professions to a feudal/industrial nightmare with trillions of externalized costs, it's just awful. It's not how the market should work.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#106

Post by krrrh »

huehehue wrote: post #77
metamet wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. More than this, I think there is a substantial portion of consumers who aren't as much attempting to distinguish themselves as they are realizing how important their dollar vote is. Buying from a small or local farm keeps money circulating locally (ideally). When there is a community of local businesses, this becomes amplified. It…

There's at least a third explanation as well, which is the fact that eggs from farmer Tom down the road are likely to taste 1000x better than the egg-inspired food product in a McGriddle. I can't imagine many people are thinking "Screw local farmers, I want Tyson Chicken Nuggets!". That might be a bad example but the point is that cost is probably the bigger factor here, not politics or lifestyle or even taste.

I’m not disagreeing with the trust of your comment, but despite popular belief, McDonalds does use real eggs.[1,2] Though there’s no doubt that an egg from a chicken who has walked around, eating bits of grass and bugs, will taste better and have a better nutritional profile.

[1] https://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/answer/does-your-egg-mcmu... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/27/are-mcdonalds-eggs-real-fast...

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#107

Post by ShabbosGoy »

astura wrote: post #70
ratacat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

You say you don't buy for lifestyle reasons but then go on to describe lifestyle reasons for your purchase: "animals that are loved like family" "helping [small farmers] make a living doing something that is good for everyone" "supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future." These are all lifestyle choices. You make your purchase not just because of the product but because of your identity, feelings, and…

> These are all lifestyle choices. You make your purchase not just because of the product but because of your identity, feelings, and values.

I think it's the other way around. A product can have such good marketing that it gives the illusion of identity, feelings, and values - for example, fair trade coffee.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#108

Post by astura »

afpx wrote: post #96
nabla9 wrote: post #39

Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain. They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any diffe…

Hmm. To this unfashionable middle-aged guy, that sounds too complicated. I buy local produce simply because it often tastes better. And, I can afford to pay 50% more for better taste. I guess you could spin it to describe it as a lifestyle choice - my boring, middle-aged lifestyle. Like, my ‘I buy costco toilet paper’ lifestyle. That seems like a stretch. Or, maybe not.

Just because some people buy local produce for lifestyle reasons doesn't mean that's the reason everyone does.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#109

Post by jrs95 »

metamet wrote: post #59
nabla9 wrote: post #39

Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain. They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any diffe…

> They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. More than this, I think there is a substantial portion of consumers who aren't as much attempting to distinguish themselves as they are realizing how important their dollar vote is. Buying from a small or local farm keeps money circulating locally (ideally). When there is a community of local businesses, this becomes amplified. It…

It seems to me that there's a small fraction of people who are into this stuff that are really doing this thoughtfully and for the right reasons, and that the majority really are either pursuing an aesthetic or using this or other social causes as sort of a prop or a distraction. I suppose this could vary based on where you're at, but I've met few people in the Midwest who were into this stuff that were not shallow and/or neurotic.

At the same time, that's an incredibly stupid argument to use to dismiss what is being done. The positive effects you mention happen regardless of the motivation of the individuals, and the people that start these trends seem to be the ones who really care.

Re: A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

#110

Post by digitalengineer »

afpx wrote: post #96
nabla9 wrote: post #39

Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain. They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any diffe…

Hmm. To this unfashionable middle-aged guy, that sounds too complicated. I buy local produce simply because it often tastes better. And, I can afford to pay 50% more for better taste. I guess you could spin it to describe it as a lifestyle choice - my boring, middle-aged lifestyle. Like, my ‘I buy costco toilet paper’ lifestyle. That seems like a stretch. Or, maybe not.

If you think it will taste better, it will... (taste is based on more than your tongue).
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