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The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#141

Post by checkyoursudo »

orwin wrote: post #126
orwin wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converting in US units, 10 to 12 acres should be enough? Maybe a bit more if you want well fed chickens (the trick is to let them go ham in your fields in between crops (my parents both farmed their peas this weekend and will probably plant salads behind next weekend, and in the meantime, the chickens enjoy the field). It's easier if you eat meat and know how to kill your chickens, as you can 'rotate' them out every…

The 12 acres figure is with trees and berries, as well as some decorative plants. Also people still steal chickens if its easy enough, so clip their wing and try to keep them on your property.

So about 4-5 ha?

We do not eat meat really. Maybe at a restaurant, or some fish at home, but not really otherwise.

I could handle raising some chickens for eggs or otherwise as pest control when they are infertile. I used to tend to the chickens on my grandma's farm throughout my childhood. How many chickens for 5 ha of gardens+trees+berries, do you think?

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#142

Post by Akronymus »

koheripbal wrote: post #138
jkepler wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Workers are being squeezed on one end and small farmers are being squeezed on the other, and the gains go somewhere else entirely while small communities fall into despair and die out. This seems to have all started when we turned the dollar into a melting iceberg jn 1913 (created the Federal Reserve, which is basicaly a cabal of private banksters with a veneer of government), and it intensified when we decided to…

This comment has a very biased tone and lacks an understanding of basic economics

Could you elaborate on how it is wrong?

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#143

Post by Randomizer42 »

1letterunixname wrote: post #108
elguyosupremo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

family farm becomes a different thing when you start milking 1100 cows, it's usually a few of the family working with several undocumented immigrants. I live in upstate NY also tho our family sold the farm a couple of decades ago. The farm we used to own has gone towards organic milk to get a premium for their product, and the family that bought it now relies heavily on undocumented immigrants.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

What is “ag”?

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#144

Post by ricardo_nh »

tlear wrote: post #100

There is a lot of discussion about prices, weather etc. but the key here is that their family died out. Being 80 and 74 and the only ones running the farm..

The same is happening in many places in Europe: young people are leaving rural areas and the only ones left to tend the farms are the elderly who eventually give up and sell their land to a big company. There is a huge lack of incentives for young people to stay in the farming business, or just to live in the countryside

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#145

Post by biorach »

jkepler wrote: post #131
1letterunixname wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

If its an open secret (like the open mystery in Ephesians 3:9,10), can you provide some sources to substantiate your claim? Thanks!

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/20/meat-pa...

https://www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-...

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#146

Post by SgtBastard »

Randomizer42 wrote: post #143
1letterunixname wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

What is “ag”?

A common abbreviation for agriculture.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#147

Post by maxerickson »

biorach wrote: post #123
maxerickson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abundant solar means you can just rip the nitrogen right out of the air. Sounds like the cost is in the ballpark already: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/19/pulling-fertilizer-ou...

This is speculative technology, still in early prototype phase

Sure. The approach is very likely to be viable (we know that electric arcs produce fixed nitrogen), the reason to point to the specific technology is that they think the pricing just about works.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#148

Post by SgtBastard »

defrost wrote: post #129
nly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rice is a rich source of carbs and isn't grown on what westerners would consider farmland

Australia is a Western country and farms rice on farmland. https://www.rga.org.au/Public/Public/Content/The_Rice_Indust... I'm not sure where you get your odd notions from.

Not the person you’re replying to, but China over literally Millenia have effectively terraformed mountains into channels and channels of rice paddies for the cultivation of rice - areas that westerners would not typically consider farmland.

Of course you can also plant rice on flat fields (and China does as well), but this does skew the comparative ratios of acres of land use : people fed.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#149

Post by kwere »

harshaw wrote: post #28

This farm is in Harvard MA - e.g the exurbs of Boston. Harvard is one of these communities that has large minimum lot sizes and restrictions on commercial property so it retains its rural feel. It's pretty, possibly not the best use of property in Boston these days, kinda snooty, and is certainly not a cheap place to run a family farm. A couple towns south where I live there are many active small farms. They either s…

In italy, if you run a traditional farm + milk/meat animals, you need to have at least 2-3M $ in capital investments to be "safe", most smaller operations have to be run as "second jobs" bcs there isnt enough margins to sustain yourself as a single family, if you have to share with other family members its worse

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#150

Post by defrost »

SgtBastard wrote: post #148
defrost wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is a Western country and farms rice on farmland. https://www.rga.org.au/Public/Public/Content/The_Rice_Indust... I'm not sure where you get your odd notions from.

Not the person you’re replying to, but China over literally Millenia have effectively terraformed mountains into channels and channels of rice paddies for the cultivation of rice - areas that westerners would not typically consider farmland. Of course you can also plant rice on flat fields (and China does as well), but this does skew the comparative ratios of acres of land use : people fed.

I'm a westerner in agriculture (Australian, northern territory cattle stations -> mining - Geophysics -> large acre grains) and I consider that to be farmland.

Maybe you're thinking of some specific subset of urban western non agricultural people.

Of course in western culture the "typical" westerner lives in an urban environment so perhaps that explains the disconnect.

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