211–217 of 217 posts
> The question of what will become of the farm is a very complicated and painful one for Eleanor. They are an academic and a writer, and their family wants them to pursue their passions. Eleanor has no interest in farming themself, but they don’t want to see the farm disappear. They now live in New York State and miss home all the time. The family wants to hold on to the property, if at all possible, so they can live…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a few generations ago, an overwhelming majority of humans were farmers, having 8-hour hard-focused physical workout every day. Do you think we lost natural ability for it in such a short timespan?
Why do you think there was ever a natural ability for it? If that's the only option available, you suck it up and do the work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because it is closer to owning the means of production and capturing the excess value of labor by those who are, well, laboring I would call this distributed capitalism. The farm owners can still run the farm however they like, keep the entire profit of the farm, invest in capital machinery over a long term that they have exclusive ownership of, etc. The outcome is indeed closer to socialism in that it's likely the…
This can best be framed (as Marx did) in terms of feudalism. Feudalism as an economic system captured the surplus value of labor right up to the monarch. This was done through a number of layers, what you'd call vassal lords. In some places these structures exist today (eg the various duchies in the UK that still derive an income from their holdings to whatever royal or aristocrat is appointed to benefit from them).…
You completely ignored the last bit of my comment where I pointed out a likely cause of much of the consolidation, that isn't just "capitalism". A privileged class of people getting a cheat code of easy money to buy up ever more of the productive economy is not what I'd call a level playing field.
I see many dynamics that should discourage concentrations of wealth, like the utility value of money goes down as you have more (rich people overpay for stuff), and centralization often creates extra waste to help uniformity. I'm not going to assert that the overall dynamic is definitely this way (and then just-world-fallacy the way things currently are), rather I'm just pointing out that distributed capitalism is most certainly not the experiment we're running.
And to head off the common retort that these subsidies are inevitable as capital captures the government - if this is true then there's really no point in analyzing any -isms as it means we'll always be stuck in this type of "capitalism".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
And it depends on your needs in eggs too. 3-4 chickens for a family of 4 is enough if you only eat eggs occasionally. My grandmother bought 12 chickens every two years for a family of 3.
From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. From a personal standpoint, the sensible thing to do is to scale it down to subsistence gardening for yourself and your family. That is what my family does. I remember, when I was still young, they still used to sell some produce. Nowadays it is entirely consumed by the family or gifted out. The benefit of this, is that you are free from economic…
Small farms benefit from greater attention and incentives of their owners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 regula…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I rather like having access to the "quaint farm stand" a couple miles down the road from me in the summer. Not everything needs to be about the quest for efficiency.
Sure. I'm just not sure why their existence depends on cheating the remaining tax payers out of tens of millions of dollars every year.
Ok, fine. They don't get the benefit, and they pay more in taxes...or they sell, the houses are demolished, and the land is put to more "productive use" (i.e. sprawl/suburbs). The county or the city or what have you gains more in property taxes, and the evil rich people are no longer getting away with not paying more taxes.
But now instead of uncultivated land (remember, it was a fake farm), you have concrete, asphalt, hardy board, one or two species of grass, crepe myrtles...you get the picture.
If anything, there should be a national wildlife sanctuary tax exemption program, so that this is actually codified.