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

washingtonpost.com

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

#161

Post by jacobr »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #60
ratacat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

>I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future. The things you say here seem like you are ABSOLUTELY buying a lifestyle here. ie. values for how animals should be tr…

If you believe that consumers are rational actors in a free market you indeed need to rationalise behaviour like "not buying the cheapest/best possible thing".

If your theory cannot explain a behaviour you can add an imaginary product called "lifestyle" to the equation and stick with your flawed theory.

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

#162

Post by jeffdavis »

TimothyBJacobs wrote: post #150
uxp100 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be implying all eggs taste the same, which is not true.

Eh, at least one test seemed to show that there wasn't a noticeable difference: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/08/what-are-the-best-eggs-ca...

I can taste the difference.

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

#163

Post by mseebach »

icebraining wrote: post #152
mseebach wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to see a layer deeper than that. The opportunity cost of the tens of thousands of highly qualifies engineers required to build and run dozens of national/regional Facebooks rather than doing something else is absolutely huge .

Free software can help with that. In my past two jobs, I've worked with a business platform which we adapt for our clients by developing custom modules, and there's a decent community of small companies from over the world which sell mostly to their internal markets but share modules under Free licenses. Of course, nobody is getting rich from this, but there are many of us making a very decent living.

It's not about that. It's about choosing not to use an existing, appropriate solution because it is not being developed and run locally. There can be valid regulatory or security reasons to choose that, I'm only considering the "keeping money local" argument.

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

#164

Post by perl4ever »

ratacat wrote: post #50
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…

I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

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

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

#165

Post by antoniuschan99 »

I've been working on a product to help Farmers and Gardeners so have been talking to many different types of farmers from Container Farms, to Aquaponics, to Indoor Greenhouses. The industry is vast and there's pros and cons for every type of system. There's no silver bullet.

This video is pretty informative for someone interested in this topic on the business side. It's titled "The 5 Elements to make $100k on a Quarter Acre"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY

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

#166

Post by copenja »

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…

For what it's worth, almost all McDonald's are franchises. If you buy a breakfast sandwich there, the money likely goes to a local owner.

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

#168

Post by Yeroc »

canadianwriter wrote: post #153
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…

Hell, here in Canada at least, McDonalds is trumping up that it buys it's beef locally. Same with eggs.

They may well be buying locally (as in within Canadian borders, or perhaps even within the province) but they certainly won't be buying from small individual producers for the simple reason that a small scale farmer can't supply enough beef or eggs to satisfy McDonald's consumption requirements.
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