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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

#381

Post by pavel_lishin »

ianai wrote: post #367
pavel_lishin wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even with a minimal approach, I still wouldn't be able to work from home with any level of effectiveness, because at some point she would be soaked in shit and piss, or would need something, or would be about to injure herself. Kids need some minimal amount of supervision below a certain age.

None of this would really be a problem if the economic system actually worked. If people actually made enough to afford FT care of their children and home stay for the very early years then the economy would seriously employ many more people. But instead people have to essentially win the economic lottery.

I am very much in favor of large, generous subsidies to new parents. For many people, having a child effectively means their ejection from the workforce for a decade.

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

#382

Post by why15characters »

kazinator wrote: post #291
why15characters wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a massive difference in taste You feel that way, but all evidence says otherwise. >and an objective measure that correlates well with this - namely, the thickness of the collagen sheath just underneath the shell Measuring that is objective, but there is no evidence it correlates with taste at all. >(eggs being single cells.) I honestly don't know how to say this nicely. You expect people to take your pseudo-…

> The yolk, the white and the membranes are all not part of the single cell ovum. Do these contribute additional cells to the egg that must be counted?

No, the egg yolk is food for the embryo. It is the equivalent of the placenta in a mammal. An egg only contains a single cell (unless there's a blood clot in it), but contains a single cell is very different from is a single cell.

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

#383

Post by why15characters »

hilbertseries wrote: post #275
why15characters wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I really admire that you made something "useful" with Haskell! Why? What did you think everyone did with it? I'd be more impressed is someone ever makes something useful in PHP.

Yes, because wordpress is useless and snap is a hugely popular web framework.

I would say harmful, not just useless. What does popularity have to do with anything? The question was useful, not popular.

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

#384

Post by auvrw »

yuhong wrote: post #350
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…

But in the long term, even local farming is probably a better idea than the current debt-based economy that depends on imported goods from for example China, especially when even central farming with long distance shipping of foods has its costs.

the farm in my family indirectly exports some crops to China (as in crops go to a port which takes them to China): the import/export relationship is not one-way. it (China) is a large country by population, and while that's got to be one of the factors driving economic growth --- steel industry and various forms of tech and manufacturing (rise of ODMs, etc.) --- now that the government is increasingly (indirectly) opting into the IMF, there are also a lot of people to feed.

debt can be viewed as another word for "relationship."

and it's cool in some ways, yet in other ways kind of a shame: debt from the United States is, to some degree, buying into the military-industrial complex. valuing China's money is, in part, condescending to a rather selective perspective on human rights. hopefully the guanxi flows to the best in each rather than the worst.

i don't pretend to understand the international economy. however, with the sort of logistics enabled by modern communications technology, i suspect that it's a lot more feasible to completely pack one large barge with a variety of goods than it used to be, making for lower-cost shipping than one might expect.

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

#385

Post by pq0ak2nnd »

wyager wrote: post #44
planteen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by quality? Fruits and vegetables in the US tend to have much higher visual quality than elsewhere.

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…

here's an exception to that rule: san marzanos are pretty cute and they're IMHO the best tasting tomato, and they look the same in Gabicce Mare or in Sacramento.

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

#386

Post by EpicEng »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #321
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 like working from home and having no childcare expenses. I worry that with a young child, we'd still have childcare expenses - except that instead of paying with money, we'd be paying with our time. My wife and I discovered, like many parents probably do, that raising a child is fucking hard. We love her, we wouldn't trade her for the world, and it's fun, but it's the kind of fun you have while camping, or hiking…

> worry that with a young child, we'd still have childcare expenses - except that instead of paying with money, we'd be paying with our time.

Yes, that's called raising a child...

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

#387

Post by pq0ak2nnd »

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…

came here to say exactly what you said, but you did a more elegant job of exposing the thinly-veiled cynicism of the parent-post.

i also find it ironic that in many cases of debating this issue I find that those of us who consider "organic" to be the lowest-baseline quality are literally deploying capitalist principles by voting with our dollars, even thought my foodie kin tend to be super liberal, because the opposition attempts to claim the libertarian mantle in these scenarios.

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

#388

Post by pq0ak2nnd »

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.

+1 for "food product". i use that more accurate term frequently.

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

#389

Post by pq0ak2nnd »

krrrh wrote: post #106
huehehue wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

i would also add to "taste" and "nutritional profile", (3) the well being of the chicken, (4) the well being of the factory workers who tend to them, and (5) the impact on the environment where the non-industrial chickens are raised. the more dimensions one considers in the multivariate optimization, the more McD's starts to lose value (geometrically, even).

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

#390

Post by analog31 »

golemotron wrote: post #361
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…

> but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress? What is the retirement plan for a farmer?

Sell the farm. I have friends in farming. The ones who own farms will do pretty well in retirement. The ones who farm rented land have to combine farming with any other source of income that they can scrape up. One of them farms, drives trucks, and is a moderately successful bandleader. His dad is in his 80s, and still works on the farm.
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