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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

#31

Post by fundad »

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…

That close to Boston, they have an 8-figure net worth.

That must be why they can't hire help and want to hold onto the land to bequeath to their daughter.

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

#32

Post by btilly »

randomdata wrote: post #22
dauertewigkeit wrote: post #7

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…

> From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. So long as there is residual value in the "hand-me-down" equipment, there will be economic value in operating it. At the same time it is not economically sensible for large scale farming to continue to operate old and outdated equipment, so the smaller scale farm actually fills a useful role in the economy.

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.

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

#33

Post by throwway120385 »

msla wrote: post #14
kasey_junk wrote: post #2

It’s important to remember that this was a specific policy decision. Earl Butz[1] famously said to our farmers “Get big or get out”. I don’t have the background or inclination to prove it but my conviction is the death of the small town, and the ancillary costs like the meth and opioid epidemics can be traced directly to the “fence row to fence row” approach he pushed forward and still exists today. [later] thanks ni…

The death of the small town seems like it was fore-ordained by simple economics. In big cities, you can afford to have businesses like restaurants that aren't Sysco retail outlets, movie theaters that show more than the five most popular films on Earth at the moment, libraries that have books beyond romance novels, bestsellers, and out-of-date nonfiction. Moreover, cities are the economic drivers, even in the agricul…

I understand that these quotes are poignant symbols of how dependent rural areas are on cities, but you can't expect to base an argument about economic change on some quotes that you liked from books.

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

#34

Post by btilly »

flangola7 wrote: post #30
randomdata wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. So long as there is residual value in the "hand-me-down" equipment, there will be economic value in operating it. At the same time it is not economically sensible for large scale farming to continue to operate old and outdated equipment, so the smaller scale farm actually fills a useful role in the economy.

Are there really that many innovations in how to harvest a wheat field?

Yes.

https://www.geoforce.com/how-can-gps-be-used-in-precision-fa... https://wheatfoundation.org/innovation-to-feed-the-future-a-... https://www.corteva.us/Resources/graininnovations/grain-inno...

And a whole lot more.

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

#35

Post by jacobsenscott »

tsunamifury wrote: post #24
Maursault wrote: post #15

> the 17-acre Willard Farm This is a very small farm even for family farm-sizes. Article does not mention if it was once larger, but I have a suspicion that it was. > “Today, the cost of producing anything is way out of line,” Paul tells Harasimowicz. “A dollar gets spent almost before you earn it because of the cost of pesticides, diesel fuel, labor, insurance—everything has gone up. You can only get so much for a t…

I really want to know why entitled and toxic millennials forced your friend off his farm and into accounting…

Ever since the EPA banned the "toxic uneducated millennial"icides they've really started to overrun the corn and soybean fields. Grouchy boomers and gen x'ers can drive them away organically by telling tales of how they worked 8 or even 10 hours nearly every day, but these deterrents are getting harder and harder to find in the heartland - they are migrating to Florida and Arizona.

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

#36

Post by bendbro »

btilly wrote: post #32
randomdata wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. So long as there is residual value in the "hand-me-down" equipment, there will be economic value in operating it. At the same time it is not economically sensible for large scale farming to continue to operate old and outdated equipment, so the smaller scale farm actually fills a useful role in the economy.

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.

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

#37

Post by WoahNoun »

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…

[flagged]

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

#38

Post by crtified »

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 workers are minimum wage jobs. Over recent decades, the minimum wage in NZ has risen by a great deal more than the price of apples has. Profitability slumped.

The powerful industry, rather than cede ground or change crops, instead loudly complained and politically lobbied to have special conditions put in place for their industry: since 2007, they can 'temporarily import' hundreds of foreign labourers from the islands of Tonga and similar - a special workforce of large muscled young men for whom any NZ wage is a fortune back home, and to whom the powerful orchardists and their cronies are like little gods.

The natural local market forces that-would-be are being manipulated for commercial purposes, with significant and complex environmental, economic, and cultural side effects.

Whose fault is it? What should we do instead?

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

#39

Post by sokoloff »

fundad wrote: post #31
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…

That close to Boston, they have an 8-figure net worth. That must be why they can't hire help and want to hold onto the land to bequeath to their daughter.

Harvard isn't particularly close to Boston. It's 25-30 miles outside of Boston and outside of even I-495, the outer loop highway encircling Boston. (Still River, where the farm is, is on the far end of Harvard.)

Article says they used to farm two fields they owned and three they leased and have backing away from some of the leased land. From a quick search (unverified/fact-checked), it looks like it's a <20 acres of owned farmland, which would fetch close to $3M in all likelihood. Add $1M for buildings and equipment and, assuming no debt, it's a modest 7-figure estate, seemingly split two ways. Many regular employees on this board have more in investments than each of the owners of this farm and didn't have to farm for 60 years to get there.

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

#40

Post by dekhn »

colechristensen wrote: post #20
mikewarot wrote: post #16

There goes another possible experiment in regenerative agriculture, the only sustainable way for our great-grandchildren to avoid mass starvation. Industrial farming depends on oil as a chemical input , because the soil has been sterilized and turned into dirt in most places by ammonia based fertilizers. The process of tilling the land resulted in most of the remaining dirt being eroded over the past century. We're g…

Oil isn't "turned into fertilizer". Methane is used as a source of hydrogen to fix atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, but it's entirely possible but slightly more expensive to use hydrogen from splitting water. When natural gas prices go up, it'll be cheaper to use electrolysis on water so that's what will be used, no starvation involved. You don't know what you're talking about. The generational BS about not being a…

I believe the H from the oil (literally the hydrogen atom) is incorporated chemically into the resulting ammonia, which would be consistent with saying "oil is turned into fertilizer" in most worlds that I move through.
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