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

washingtonpost.com

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

#251

Post by sctb »

tested23 wrote: post #53
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.

Keep telling yourself that

You've been posting only comments that break the guidelines. Could you please stop? We ban accounts that continue like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#252

Post by unabridged »

clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

I would imagine rural high school would be a hellscape of a different sort.

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

#253

Post by jdhn »

rb808 wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #2

Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. My old boss operated a 80 acre micro farm while holding down a full time job. It was a hobby that at best broke even, but he had fun. PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income.

Around here most small farms are a tax dodge. If you have a big house and a big yard you pay $30k property taxes every year. If you call it a farm and sell a few pumpkins taxes disappear.

Sounds like you live in the Northeast.

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

#254

Post by sumedh »

tluyben2 wrote: post #116
nabla9 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifestyle is your interests, opinions, and behaviour. Words you are using: proud , helping, doing good, supporting. These are all values that form the basis for your lifestyle. ps. non-pasteurized milk aka raw milk is not healthier and it's less safe. It's organic-natural consumer fad.

To me it tastes better; maybe it's what i'm used to but I find pasteurized milk quite horrible. Maybe it's just taste and other people love the taste of pasteurized. Never met those people, but that says nothing either. Raw milk cheese is also a lot nicer in my opinion.

Have you done a blind test, if not whatever you are saying is meaningless

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

#255

Post by Toast_25 »

8ytecoder wrote: post #240
zokier wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Modern life is a dystopic hellscape from this perspective Hellscape, yes, but that hellscape also has funded your farm and that is something that I'd keep in mind. It is pretty big luxury to be able to (financially) go and live on the countryside, doing farming more as a lifestyle rather than means to livelihood.

Also don't forget that without the 'hellscape' that pays for the expensive pasture fed eggs (and other things), they may not have such a cushy income to sustain a countryside life. I always consider what happens when everyone switches to this lifestyle. Unless and otherwise we have robots who can go work at the factories that build everything from a tractor to a cellphone, other people have to live in the 'hellscape'

It's a point of view. To some coding all day is a hellscape, to others managing a network, to others managing a business. I don't think we have to worry about people flocking to the countryside, especially with technology like LED grow lights which were not possible 4 years ago and other technologies which make it possible, maybe even efficient, to run a small garden in an apartment.

Check this article out, it touches on how efficient farming can be, and I think it could be applied in a smaller scale.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-...

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

#256

Post by glitch003 »

Retric wrote: post #2

Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. My old boss operated a 80 acre micro farm while holding down a full time job. It was a hobby that at best broke even, but he had fun. PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income.

These guys claim to make 6 figures on 1.5 acres: https://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/

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

#257

Post by Apocryphon »

JPKab wrote: post #243
clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

I grew up in a rural community where farming was basically the only industry. It's easy to talk about how awesome it is when you basically are selling insanely overpriced boutique goods (organic, free-range, etc) to yuppies who are willing to pay triple for their calories. Once enough people do this, the prices fall and you're just another farmer, scraping by. I grew up working on farms. It's not romantic to me in an…

Well yeah- the truism that a hobby turned into a livelihood makes it less fun applies to everything. Coders talk about it all of the time.

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

#258

Post by oedenfield »

JPKab wrote: post #243
clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

I grew up in a rural community where farming was basically the only industry. It's easy to talk about how awesome it is when you basically are selling insanely overpriced boutique goods (organic, free-range, etc) to yuppies who are willing to pay triple for their calories. Once enough people do this, the prices fall and you're just another farmer, scraping by. I grew up working on farms. It's not romantic to me in an…

I can't upvote this enough. There are aspects of agribusiness that are great (built in gym, outdoors, teaching work ethic to children, etc.) but there are other aspects like all the "vendors" you work with (seed supplier, livestock feed supplier, equipment companies, etc.) all sell to you (the farmer) at retail prices but you ALWAYS sell at wholesale. They set their prices to the market, you take what the market gives you. Unless you can be Cargil or ADM, prepare to scrape by.

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

#260

Post by kimburgess »

andyisageek wrote: post #249
JPKab wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a rural community where farming was basically the only industry. It's easy to talk about how awesome it is when you basically are selling insanely overpriced boutique goods (organic, free-range, etc) to yuppies who are willing to pay triple for their calories. Once enough people do this, the prices fall and you're just another farmer, scraping by. I grew up working on farms. It's not romantic to me in an…

I also grew up on a farm... in Maine. It did instill a work ethic that I find it difficult to teach to my own children. But I always joke with people and say it is a great place to visit and a great place to be from. Not so much a great place to actually be.

> It is a great place to visit and a great place to be from. Not so much a great place to actually be.

I'll definitely echo this. I grew up on a farm / nature refuge in Australia. It's beautiful to go back to, but I could not live there again. My family hovers around the poverty line, work long, hard hours, and are completely at the mercy of the climate and other difficult to control external factors for their lively hood.

Combine this with the isolation, poor (or non-existent) community and education resources, complete void of cultural events and niche activities that require higher population densities. It's nowhere near as idyllic as most people make out.

I now live inner city. When it's nice weather I can drive an hour, go hiking, rock climbing or exploring. During day-to-day life I have everything I need within walking distance. I can live spontaneously. Myself and my partner are talking about children and I'm looking forward to raising them in a city where they can access whatever interests they like.

Once thing I will agree on though is: modern suburban life is a dystopic hellscape. It literally combines the worst of both lifestyles.

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