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

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

#211

Post by Nomentatus »

mseebach wrote: post #142
gamegoblin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Questions to someone with more economics knowledge than me: I understand the sentiment and intuitive reasoning behind this argument (I find myself thinking it every week when I go to the local farmers' market!), but is there evidence that "buying local" actually increases the local standard of living? And a followup: if it does increase the local standard of living, would this behavior, if duplicated in all communiti…

It only intuitively makes sense -- there are quite a few assumptions. The local product is typically more expensive because it's production is less efficient (if it wasn't, it would just compete with the non-local product at regular market conditions). Being less efficient means using more inputs per output, so what is the local farmers inputs, and -- crucially -- where are those inputs made? Is he using his not-loca…

The biggest efficiency is nutritional, and taste - varieties that travel very, very well trade off a lot of nutrition for that trait.

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

#212

Post by sliverstorm »

gamegoblin wrote: post #119
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…

Questions to someone with more economics knowledge than me: I understand the sentiment and intuitive reasoning behind this argument (I find myself thinking it every week when I go to the local farmers' market!), but is there evidence that "buying local" actually increases the local standard of living? And a followup: if it does increase the local standard of living, would this behavior, if duplicated in all communiti…

Pro-local: attempts to directly avoid problems of trade imbalance and wealth sequestration in imperfect markets

Anti-local: a perfectly functioning market doesn't have those problems

It's basically protectionism with all the same arguments for and against. Less economically optimal, but protects you from market malfunction and bad actors.

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

#213

Post by Nomentatus »

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...

There's a massive difference in taste, and an objective measure that correlates well with this - namely, the thickness of the collagen sheath just underneath the shell (eggs being single cells.) It's an excellent correlate of the overall health and nutritional value of the egg. If the egg can't even protect itself from breakage well, the rest of the egg isn't ideal, either.

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

#214

Post by rifung »

clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

> Maybe one day i'll productize it and sell it as a package, but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress?

I really admire that you made something "useful" with Haskell! When you say you're making enough does that include savings for retirement? That's my biggest worry as someone who just started saving for retirement (I'm 27).

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

#215

Post by wybiral »

monaghanboy wrote: post #209
dejv wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I spend each winter contracting for funded startups and the vision of new tractor implement or some new gizmo makes it easier to work on the stuff. I guess the big part of better lifestyle is just giving up on ambitions. You know that you are not building next billion dollar company and you also know that you are not going to buy new BMW every year anyway so there is no pressure in keeping with Jones.

You don't actually have to become a farmer to adopt the latter viewpoint and reap all the resulting life benefits.

True. I live a minimalist lifestyle by design but I don't live on a farm or anything. Unless your main source of pleasure is having the nicest car, newest gadgets, various status symbols, etc, then you can trade your labor hours towards those things in for more time doing what you really enjoy.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by figurehe4d »

zokier wrote: post #210
clord wrote: post #112

We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates…

> Modern life is a dystopic hellscape from this perspective Hellscape, yes, but that hellscape also has funded your farm and that is something that I'd keep in mind. It is pretty big luxury to be able to (financially) go and live on the countryside, doing farming more as a lifestyle rather than means to livelihood.

True, and it's also not for everyone. Maybe things will change when I'm older but speaking from my perspective, I was born and raised in a dense suburb, moved to the countryside because my folks grew up in the country and wanted to leave the dense suburb/corporate dystopia or what have you. Its just not for me, I'm a city boy. I like being close to other people. I feel comfortable with busy areas (like a downtown district or a beach). My teenage years spent on a 1.5 acre lot was filled with lots of manual labor (help build a retaining wall, care for horses and other livestock) so in my mind I see living in a metropolitan area as an easier life.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the outdoors and nature, I do immensely. I just think the whole 'gotta get away from it all' attitude is interesting because it's the exact opposite for me, what I guess could be described as the 'feeling of missing out'.

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

#220

Post by mseebach »

Nomentatus wrote: post #211
mseebach wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only intuitively makes sense -- there are quite a few assumptions. The local product is typically more expensive because it's production is less efficient (if it wasn't, it would just compete with the non-local product at regular market conditions). Being less efficient means using more inputs per output, so what is the local farmers inputs, and -- crucially -- where are those inputs made? Is he using his not-loca…

The biggest efficiency is nutritional, and taste - varieties that travel very, very well trade off a lot of nutrition for that trait.

If you're buying a better product for a price you're considering fair, you're not meaningfully "buying local" - the product you prefer just happens to be locally produced (and possibly can only be locally produced).

The kind of buying local that you need campaigns to encourage people to do, is generally either more expensive or poorer quality than the non-local alternative.

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