Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So you want to buy a farm?

zenx.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 201 posts

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#71

Post by dirktheman »

driverdan wrote: post #20

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

I know some farmers and they all have one thing in common: they work around the clock, 7 days a week. No days off or vacations. Their farms might be worth millions, but it's also both their home and their job.

Also, a lot of people don't get that a farm (anything other than subsistence farming) is a business. It requires careful long term planning, crop rotation, dealing with buyers, collectives, auctions, risk mitigation and pricing. The farmers I know are all extremely proficient with spreadsheet software and most of them attended the Agricultural University two towns from here. Farmers are often regarded as a bit simplistic country boys, but the opposite is true.

I don't envy them.

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#72

Post by brnt »

driverdan wrote: post #20

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

I don't know how things are in your jurisdiction, but here in Europe making a profit on farming just isn't possible. This sector lives and dies by subsidies.

You're going to have a cash crop or market the hell out of your product, both seem opposite to the goal of starting the farm in the first place.

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#74

Post by nbzso »

I am happy now. There is a hope. Now we are talking about real decentralisation. Make this way of thinking popular and use technology properly on a small scale and really good things will start to happen.:)

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#75

Post by vram22 »

raptorraver wrote: post #40

I'm starting to sell my city apartment this week and we are going to move to the country side to start a small scale farm! I've worked in the farm all my youth and this summer we lived on the place and did some small scale gardening. I don't have any (at least many) false thoughts about how cool and romantic it will be. It will be hard and frustrating at times but waay more fulfilling than the current tech job. We're…

Yes, Richard Perkins knows and has done a lot of good stuff over years in this space, at his permaculture mixed farm in Sweden. I mentioned him and a few other successful people in the regen ag space, like Gabe Brown and Geoff Lawton, with brief descriptions, in the recent thread about a long-running no-till no-herbicide farm here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24827234

Edit: Also, Aanandaa Farms, started and run by a couple of ex-city-job professionals, the Guptas, in the Morni hills near Chandigarh, Punjab, is another good example of success, this one in India, although there are many others in India as well. They too have good instructive videos about starting and runnning a small-scale permaculture farm on YouTube. I believe they are starting a PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) course in the near future too, which may be a combination of online, and learning time on their farm.

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#76

Post by anticodon »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #59
raptorraver wrote: post #40

I'm starting to sell my city apartment this week and we are going to move to the country side to start a small scale farm! I've worked in the farm all my youth and this summer we lived on the place and did some small scale gardening. I don't have any (at least many) false thoughts about how cool and romantic it will be. It will be hard and frustrating at times but waay more fulfilling than the current tech job. We're…

How much land does one need to become self sufficient? Let's assume that means producing enough biomass to generate the resources necessary to have a surplus of food or money.

Thanks to the collapse of the USSR and with help of our inept corrupt leaders (Gorbachev and Yeltsin and their US "friends") destroying all the industry and economy, millions of ex-soviet citizens know exactly how hard it is to become self sufficient.

I worked really hard on our family "farm" all my childhood and that's maybe the only thing that helped us survive. Although we did experience hunger from time to time.

It's not even a question of land, it's a question of how much work you can put into that land. It's a backbreaking work every day.

It's a good option if society collapses and there's no other option to survive. Otherwise, it's just not worth it. Millions of current Russia population hate working on the land because they already have that inoculation from 90s.

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#77

Post by m463 »

driverdan wrote: post #20

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

remember to marry eva gabor before you purchase.

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#78

Post by holoduke »

brnt wrote: post #72
driverdan wrote: post #20

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

I don't know how things are in your jurisdiction, but here in Europe making a profit on farming just isn't possible. This sector lives and dies by subsidies. You're going to have a cash crop or market the hell out of your product, both seem opposite to the goal of starting the farm in the first place.

Depends on which farm sector. Part of my family is into flowers. I can tell you that flowers are like gold. Almost every flower farmer in our region is loaded. Lowest tier for farming are traditional crops. You need lots of acres and good machines to get efficient en break-even. Only a few manage, but most do not. I would probably focus on farm tech. Automated greenhouses growing tomatoes, cucumbers etc is for example big business. If done right you can be 10-50 times more profitable per square feet than a outside potato field. 100k isn't enough to start something like that. More in the line of 5-10m start capital needed.

I

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#79

Post by [deleted] »

dirktheman wrote: post #71
driverdan wrote: post #20

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

I know some farmers and they all have one thing in common: they work around the clock, 7 days a week. No days off or vacations. Their farms might be worth millions, but it's also both their home and their job. Also, a lot of people don't get that a farm (anything other than subsistence farming) is a business. It requires careful long term planning, crop rotation, dealing with buyers, collectives, auctions, risk mitig…

[deleted]

Re: So you want to buy a farm?

#80

Post by evidencecrime »

Buying a farm doesnt look like it is a bad idea. You just need to keep and healthy life and make sure not to be overloaded by the work load that there is, especially at the beginning. I think being a young farmer in 2020 can be difficult, but there is a possibility of bringing something new, some freshness into this depressed industry.
Post reply on HN