Farmers always worked from home • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#51

Post by retzkek » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #36

Historically speaking farming has been a very up and down business and not a good way to make a living. In the US we have this idea that there was a golden age of farming, but the cycles of boom and bust and etc have been all over the map, often short and unpredictable. Even the historical homestead type plots were potentially unsustainable at the time they were given away. Not everyone is cut out to run their own bu…

It's probably important to be precise about what type of farming - commercial vs subsistence - while acknowledging that many farmers fall somewhere in the middle. I think you're describing the former, while this article is more about the latter.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#52

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

r3trohack3r wrote: post #22

supermatt wrote: post #17

As a farmer, always working from home, I realise I am exceptionally privileged not to be trapped in a tiny apartment during multi-month covid lockdowns. It must be hard to keep any balance when you are eating, sleeping, working and resting in the same box

This. As a remote software engineer, I empathize with folks who haven’t optimized for their home to be their day-to-day. I couldn’t imagine spendings lockdown in an SF Apartment. I spent lockdown in a 3k sq. foot home. I have a floating desk and a panasonic toughbook (CF-31), spend my days floating in my pool writing code. A similar QoL as before lockdown. Not everyone’s lockdown experience was the same. Lockdown QoL…

A floating desk? Sounds cool of course, but doesn’t the movement distract?

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#53

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #42

nonameiguess wrote: post #4

> In the 1800s, 90 percent of the US population lived on a farm, rocking their WFH setups. How did they all survive without mental breakdowns and Harvard Business Review articles praising strict Work-Life Balance? They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plent…

> most of the people working on farms were slaves Does that compute? Less than 10% of the US population were slaves and 90% were employed in farming. It seems unbelievable to me that farms were manned exclusively or even in majority by slaves. Now most slaves were employed in farms, but I'm not sure if that relationship is bi directional

Where do you have less then 10% of US population being slaves from? I found 18 percent of the total population in 1790, or roughly one in every six people. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-...

And based on what I know, it then went up due to cotton boom.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#54

Post by mc32 » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #21

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plenty of mental breakdowns even if nobody was treating and diagnosing them. IMO farming has an absolutely terrible work life balance (as does owning most low margin businesses) relative to most office jobs but... To s…

Preindustrial farming involved a lot of downtime outside of the tropics. Essentially a few weeks a year involved 14+ hour days, but there simply wasn’t that much to do the rest of the year. It’s a common misconception that summer breaks where for farmers, but historically rurual areas actually had school in summer and winter with breaks in the spring and fall simply because that’s when there was a lot of work to get…

I don't think that's right.

Most farming was smallholdings. So there was some sowing during specific seasons, harvesting hay (winter food for animals) but you also had animal husbandry, shearing of sheep, taking them to pasture, milking of cows, rudimentary veterinary items such as helping the cow give birth, snipping the hooves off sheep so they don't get infected, disinfecting parasites, thatching houses and buildings, building wattle fences, clearing bush, making beer, fixing carts, ploughs and other farm implements, preparing for festivals, preparing fruit and vegetables for winter (preserves) curing meat (for winter), collecting fuel, going to market, etc., etc.

You also either hired a blacksmith or you needed to make your own tools (hinges, nails, hitches, etc). all quite labor intensive. There was no "Rural King" or whatever to drive down to.

There was little "downtime". There was always something to do. Something was in disrepair.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#55

Post by spelunker » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

This whole article reads like someone out of touch. We went to the countryside to observe the pastoral lifestyle! Hey look at these farmers! They're "working from home" all the time! Wow look at them milking cows!

Farming is a hell of a lot of work and they have a poor "work life balance" out of necessity. There's too much to do. Maybe they find it rewarding, but I don't think it's an ideal everyone should be striving for.

Also, try gardening, it's fun to grow your own produce.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#56

Post by duxup » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

retzkek wrote: post #51

duxup wrote: post #36

Historically speaking farming has been a very up and down business and not a good way to make a living. In the US we have this idea that there was a golden age of farming, but the cycles of boom and bust and etc have been all over the map, often short and unpredictable. Even the historical homestead type plots were potentially unsustainable at the time they were given away. Not everyone is cut out to run their own bu…

It's probably important to be precise about what type of farming - commercial vs subsistence - while acknowledging that many farmers fall somewhere in the middle. I think you're describing the former, while this article is more about the latter.

"Commercial" farming is no assurance of stability either.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#57

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #48

Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preindustrial farming involved a lot of downtime outside of the tropics. Essentially a few weeks a year involved 14+ hour days, but there simply wasn’t that much to do the rest of the year. It’s a common misconception that summer breaks where for farmers, but historically rurual areas actually had school in summer and winter with breaks in the spring and fall simply because that’s when there was a lot of work to get…

This fantasy needs to die. When pre-industrial farmers were not in the fields all day they were not idle. They were doing tedious low intensity tasks all day instead of doing laborious tasks all day. A large part of the purpose of Sunday being a day of rest in protestant religions is that if you don't convince people there will be literal hell to pay for not taking a day off they won't take a regular day off and they…

> And it's not like your wife gets to share the labor since she has her hands full with feeding and clothing the family.

At least in here, a lot of animal care was traditionally done by women. So did quite a lot of field work - a lot of it does not require that much physical strength. And clothing is quite serious time consuming work, really. The amount of time required to make the fabric is quite huge.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#58

Post by ajsnigrutin » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #21

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plenty of mental breakdowns even if nobody was treating and diagnosing them. IMO farming has an absolutely terrible work life balance (as does owning most low margin businesses) relative to most office jobs but... To s…

Preindustrial farming involved a lot of downtime outside of the tropics. Essentially a few weeks a year involved 14+ hour days, but there simply wasn’t that much to do the rest of the year. It’s a common misconception that summer breaks where for farmers, but historically rurual areas actually had school in summer and winter with breaks in the spring and fall simply because that’s when there was a lot of work to get…

If you consider "farming" just working on the field.. then yes, they didn't do much work on the field itself. But there was a lot of other work to be done, from tending the animals, fixing/repairing farm equipment, making more profitable items (cheese instead of milk), making cloth, candles, etc.

Saying they only work a few weeks, is like taking someones code, counting the characters, measuring their typing speed and dividing the number to say that an average coder only works 5-15 minutes per day.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#59

Post by mustafa_pasi » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

The statement is not true in general. The typical layout of a European village is having the houses close to the centre and the arable land surrounding the village. You wouldn't have your arable land directly outside of your porch (you wouldn't even have a porch). And that was probably the setup centuries ago when feudalism was still practiced. Through inheritance, the last pre-industrial farmers were tending to parcels of land all over the place, although probably still within a reasonable commute of their village. But definitely not "working from home".

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#60

Post by CaptArmchair » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #21

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plenty of mental breakdowns even if nobody was treating and diagnosing them. IMO farming has an absolutely terrible work life balance (as does owning most low margin businesses) relative to most office jobs but... To s…

Preindustrial farming involved a lot of downtime outside of the tropics. Essentially a few weeks a year involved 14+ hour days, but there simply wasn’t that much to do the rest of the year. It’s a common misconception that summer breaks where for farmers, but historically rurual areas actually had school in summer and winter with breaks in the spring and fall simply because that’s when there was a lot of work to get…

The concept "cottage industry" or "putting-out system" was essentially work contracted to subcontractors providing the raw materials and collecting the finished products in pre-industrial Europe and America.

It was essentially making use of the availability of labor not working on the land. It was prevalent between the 15th to the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putting-out_system

From the putting out system also emerged a network of proto-industrial business people enabling them to accrue the capital which would go on to become one of the catalysts of the Industrial Revolution.

Even so, these were times with no labor protections or modern civil rights. The putting out system wasn't an equitable system. People working in these systems often had to abide by the prices and conditions set by the businesses putting out the work to them. Child labor and domestic violence were part and parcel of life.

Thomas Hood poem "The Song of the Shirt" (1843) was published to raise awareness about the plight of the working poor at the time, notably homeworkers who easily fell prey to debt struggling to the point where they were forced to live hand to mouth. Charles Dickens would famously go on to deliver similar criticisms through his social novels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_the_Shirt