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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

#311

Post by CydeWeys »

tfmatt wrote: post #298
jp555 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they’re among the top 500 YouTubers I bet they make more selling fresh basil than YouTube ads.

I would disagree with this, my small YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6WpEeF48A7r032N486j1cQ ) generates a couple hundred a week at which point I rotate videos for newer fresh ones. And this channel is literally about saving money by buying things at thrift stores.

You've only got a few hundred views in total on all of your videos; how could you possibly be generating a couple hundred dollars per week?

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

#312

Post by [deleted] »

tfmatt wrote: post #298
jp555 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they’re among the top 500 YouTubers I bet they make more selling fresh basil than YouTube ads.

I would disagree with this, my small YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6WpEeF48A7r032N486j1cQ ) generates a couple hundred a week at which point I rotate videos for newer fresh ones. And this channel is literally about saving money by buying things at thrift stores.

[deleted]

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

#313

Post by mistermann »

rimliu wrote: post #241
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…

> Then I think of how we practically dance and shout at the > sky in joy when we all finish digging up all the potatoes. I grew up on the small farm. Got to deal with pigs, cows, patatoes and hay. Do not miss it at all. What's more I used to want to have a houe in the countryside. Then somehow that desire completely wanished.

It may return with time.

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

#314

Post by mistermann »

lucaspiller wrote: post #183
ruc0la wrote: post #18

I am doing pretty much the same. I am currently an engineering student, working part-time as a programmer. Although the job market for programmers is excellent in Europe, I bought an apple orchard (via loan) pretty close to the capital of the country where I live. Due to the proximity of the capital city, I can sell my product at a decent price and earn more than an average senior dev here. I also enjoy being outside…

Do you have a blog or something with more details? I have a dream of doing something similar, although growing vegetables, and would like to know more. My email address is in my profile if you don’t want to make it public.

https://m.youtube.com/#/channel/UC-BlDCX__nCLs_ZF9meYQbw

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

#315

Post by zw123456 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #230
zw123456 wrote: post #227

Hahaha. Wow, I grew up on a farm and I went to college and got an engineering degree to get away from it! I can't even imagine going the other direction. I still remember bucking hay, mowing the tansy, running the irrigation truck, taking care of the chickens and dozens of other chores I hated. To me, it was not the least bit fun. I wonder how many of these people romanticize the life style and after a few years will…

If you come in with capital assets and marketable tech skills to fall back on, maybe you get to pick and choose which parts of farming you want. I imagine some crops or animals are more enjoyable than others.

My older sister took over the family farm, I tried to convince her to go into pot farming (legal in the state) she was not up for it but I think our grandpa would have approved, he was a boot legger back in the depression era to keep the farm.

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

#316

Post by ggm »

Better to make this a young person move because old people can't do stoop work as long.

Tractors destroy kidneys. White finger disease in any vibration. Farming is not kind to the body.

Satisfying, but not kind. Kids go there. I welcome it. If you're over forty think hard before commitment locks you in.

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

#317

Post by munin »

unabridged wrote: post #252
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.

It's great if you're white and a boy, and straight.

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

#318

Post by tspike »

roadnottaken wrote: post #306
kimburgess wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Good points, but I totally disagree about the suburbs. We live on a quiet cul de sac in a very suburban neighborhood. We’re 20 minutes from mountains, trails, beach, schools, stores, and work. It’s safe and friendly and our kids play with other kids in the street every day. Seems like a pretty sweet compromise to me, but YMMV.

To each his own. To me, the utter dependence on automobiles, the blatantly wasteful lifestyle and the oppression of HOAs feels claustrophobic, dissonant and excessive. I feel depressed when I have to battle traffic to get access to nature.

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

#319

Post by tspike »

whytaka wrote: post #195
gamegoblin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Questions to someone with more economics knowledge than me: I understand the sentiment and intuitive reasoning behind this argument (I find myself thinking it every week when I go to the local farmers' market!), but is there evidence that "buying local" actually increases the local standard of living? And a followup: if it does increase the local standard of living, would this behavior, if duplicated in all communiti…

Gains from trade is maximized when traders specialize in their most productive work. When profit is reinvested, it raises the standard of living. - Econ 101 If for any reason, you truly value your neighbourhood chicken farmer Bob's livelihood though, there's no better means of buying Bob's well-being than giving money straight to Bob. You would have to reimagine the idea of "a high standard of living" to include the…

Negative externalities are rarely fully accounted for with this model. If you ignore the non monetary impacts, specialization wins every time.

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

#320

Post by shiven »

nilkn wrote: post #65
shiven wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens to cows, as a species, a few decades from now?

I don't fully understand what you're asking. Could you clarify? Are you suggesting they might go extinct? Or something else?

There is more than one question I am asking -

(1). Is there any scientifically sound study proving that the quality of protein from plant sources is equivalent to or better than from dairy products?

(2). Is there any reproducible, quantitative data on leaving milk producing cows to fend for themselves vs caring for them in small -to- mid size "cow caring" setups (farms, one-cow ops etc.)? I ask this because both my maternal and paternal grandparents had 1 to 3 milk producing cows at any given point in time - from what I recall, they were well cared for (food, medicine, weather etc.)

(3). If we, as a species, were to stop consuming dairy products today, or cut consumption by, say 90% over the next year, what would become of the current cow population? How is that better than the current situation for the animals?

I am personally, utterly and deeply biased towards the survive-and-let-survive school of life --- so take what I say colored by my very, very, un-apologetically biased PoV.

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