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

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

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 217 posts

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

#101

Post by panic »

snarf21 wrote: post #64
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…

Agreed you have to go big or go retail. There is no other option. However, at some point 1K or 2K dairy cows hardly feels much like a "family farm" anymore.

I believe most big farms in the US are family farms. It's not synonymous with small scale.

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

#102

Post by moonchrome »

zokier wrote: post #61
crtified wrote: post #38

Low wage industries struggle in high wage countries. Globalization displaces natural local supply and demand outcomes. The above two factors result in some very complex status quos. For example, take the country of New Zealand, whose significant apple growing industry is largely for export purposes - ostensibly, sending good fresh highly-valued NZ apples to other countries, where they'll fetch max $. Problem: apple w…

> for whom any NZ wage is a fortune back home This is the problem to solve, and something I believe is becoming solved gradually even if very slowly; developing nations have been developing. But if we manage to eradicate this idea of "high wage countries", or at least reduce it so that the imbalance is not order(s) of magnitude, then that will alleviate many of the negative side-effects of globalization.

From what I understand we would need an energy tech revolution because there's not enough resources to replicate current western lifestyle globally.

Assuming you aren't aiming to reduce standard of living in rich countries.

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

#103

Post by theonething »

randomdata wrote: post #60
btilly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic value from operating it will generally not match the opportunity cost of not doing other things. And those operating it will learn the cost of this the hard way when they fail to have access to the niceties of modern society that require exchanging what you've produced for something produced by others. Like, say, the computing device that you used to post your opinion.

> The economic value from operating it will generally not match the opportunity cost of not doing other things. Trouble is finding a better opportunity. From personal experience, my small acreage and old equipment, on average, nets me half of my developer income for just a couple of weeks per year of work. That's really hard to compete with. What else are you going to do instead? It doesn't scale in the sense that if…

> half of my developer income for just a couple of weeks per year of work

That is a very high hourly wage. Wow.

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

#104

Post by elguyosupremo »

panic wrote: post #101
snarf21 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed you have to go big or go retail. There is no other option. However, at some point 1K or 2K dairy cows hardly feels much like a "family farm" anymore.

I believe most big farms in the US are family farms. It's not synonymous with small scale.

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.

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

#105

Post by kortilla »

theonething wrote: post #103
randomdata wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economic value from operating it will generally not match the opportunity cost of not doing other things. Trouble is finding a better opportunity. From personal experience, my small acreage and old equipment, on average, nets me half of my developer income for just a couple of weeks per year of work. That's really hard to compete with. What else are you going to do instead? It doesn't scale in the sense that if…

> half of my developer income for just a couple of weeks per year of work That is a very high hourly wage. Wow.

Calling it an hourly wage is misleading. It’s akin to having a rental property that you fix up and lease out for a year with a single payment.

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

#106

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

bendbro wrote: post #36
btilly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic value from operating it will generally not match the opportunity cost of not doing other things. And those operating it will learn the cost of this the hard way when they fail to have access to the niceties of modern society that require exchanging what you've produced for something produced by others. Like, say, the computing device that you used to post your opinion.

There could come a point where modern society is so degrading that sacrificing complex niceties becomes worth it to live off the grid.

Many are already there.

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

#107

Post by gknapp »

photochemsyn wrote: post #67

This 17-acre farm was enough to keep about eight humans alive if it had been the sole source of agricultural production to feed them. That's the fundamental equation, and it generally assumes a vegan diet as well. Nobody has ever been able to reduce this value, it's related to the solar input and the ability of plants to capture carbon into a human-digestible energy source. It'll be worse on Mars, of course, due to t…

I'm not quite sure where you got that figure from, but some quick research cites numbers vary between 0.1 and 1.2 acres per person.

In any event, 17 acres could theoretically supply food for an enormous range from 15 to 170 people, depending on how intensively it's farmed.

[1] 4000 sq ft bio-intensive farming (http://www.growbiointensive.org/) [2] 0.44 acres permaculturism (https://permaculturism.com/how-much-land-does-it-take-to-fee...) [3] 1.2 from a 1994 study (and further discussion in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1aozn1/how_much...)

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

#108

Post by 1letterunixname »

elguyosupremo wrote: post #104
panic wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most big farms in the US are family farms. It's not synonymous with small scale.

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.

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

#109

Post by 1letterunixname »

mikrotikker wrote: post #82
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…

NZ dairy farming become very intensified. Less than 200 acres is not worth it I heard. The effect on our environment is not good.

Meat and dairy ag are terrible for the following reasons:

- climate change - 15% of GHGs not counting total inputs of fuel and feed

- antibiotic resistance - antibiotics are used excessively to raise production, similar enough to the ones used in humans to evolve drug-resistant pathogens

- pandemics - many animals peeing and pooping together, in close proximity, create an "institutional" Petri dish effect plus regular cross-contamination with humans and random wildlife

- pollution - of water, air, and soil

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

#110

Post by saalweachter »

randomdata wrote: post #85
ROTMetro wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't they just recently start desiccating with Glyphosate at the end of the growing cycle to speed their harvest up by two weeks and putting glyphosate into food a few days harvesting it (causing a higher concentration in food than previously)?

Recently like in the past 30 years or so? It has certainly been common practice for at least that long. I have vague recollections of our farm still pulling whites in the early-to-mid 80s, so perhaps not that far back. But that may have simply been a product of our farm being hesitant to try new things, which wouldn't be out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, I was a bit too young at that time to understand the motivati…

My understanding is it's mostly a thing in the northern latitudes -- England and Canada, and some northern US states, especially North Dakota.

In eg Indiana and Iowa the growing season is long enough there's no need to desiccate -- the weather isn't going to turn before the crop has a chance to dry.

Post reply on HN