
When the cows come home - mastazi
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/when-the-cows-come-home
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owyn
Sure... I would love to play Stardew Valley in "real life" too but it's hard
work and economically it's not that lucrative... Most of them got their land
for free because it was in the family and when you look at their individual
stories:

"Her biggest challenge is staying in the black; she makes just enough to live"

"The house that Gherpelli and Piana live in, and the land on which their
greenhouse sits, have been leveraged as collateral for their bank loan, along
with the homes of a few family members."

"He has taken up bee-keeping, with 200 hives distributed in ten apiaries
around a neighbouring valley, selling his honey under the label Dietro al
Monte. He needs twice as many hives to make a living."

"So far they have been able to support themselves and run their enterprise by
pooling their own savings, selling their honey and drastically reducing living
costs, but it is hard graft. Other than occasional forays to Turin to see
friends, they spend their time working their farm."

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johnchristopher
> Sure... I would love to play Stardew Valley in "real life" too but it's hard
> work and economically it's not that lucrative...

The thing is... some people have to “play Stardew Valley in "real life"” so
you can have things to eat. How come their job isn't more stable and they
don't have the time to play Silicon Valley App of the day Sim 2019 ?

~~~
adrianN
Small time farmers are not competitive with large scale industrial farming. In
general society regards this as a good thing, since industrial farming allows
us to pursue jobs other than farming. I wouldn't want to live in a world where
we still require 90% of the population to be farmers.

~~~
johnchristopher
But large scale industrial farmers don't have time to play Silicon Valley App
of the day Sim 2019 either.

It's been debated to death and I am not sure the benefits of large scale
farming outweigh smaller units.

Now you say they "play" Stardew valley... 60-80 hours a week in the field and
having to take odd jobs to pay the farm's bill doesn't sound like "playing" to
me. Actually, that's really aggressive to mock people like that.

~~~
owyn
Good point, and it wasn't my intent to mock the farmers, it was aimed at the
tone of the article which is like "this is a totally awesome lifestyle thing
that you could totally do" while simultaneously pointing out that most of
these people inherited their farmland and are still working really hard and in
most cases barely scraping by.

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marktangotango
I was intrigued so I did some research, apparently the “laser guided milker”
is one of these [1]. The operation must have been a significant capital
expenditure to start. Surely there’s down time or equipment failure that
requires traditional milking equipment to be available. Cows must be milked
twice a day or bacterial infections can occur. Milking a large herd by hand is
quite labor intensive.

Note how polite the cows in the video are, to not piss and shit in the stall
and all over the equipment, nor kick, breaking the equipment or arms.

I grew up milking and shoveling manure on a small family dairy farm. It wasn’t
a bad life, just all consuming, morning and night, 365 days a year. I suppose
my father had a similar goal going back to the land. That’s how he’d been
raised. Looking back I’m sure he was more than little disappointed how quickly
my siblings and I left, and how little interest any of us expressed in taking
it on. He eventually sold the herd and most of the land.

[1]
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tdD5LncaJ-8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tdD5LncaJ-8)

~~~
phillc73
That's a pretty interesting machine, but as you point out far too clean!

I also noticed that the cow's teats weren't sprayed or dipped with iodine
solution post-milking to prevent mastitis. Each cow should also be inspected
pre-milking for mastitis, cut or damaged teats etc, and the milk diverted away
from the main vat. I think there would still be requirement for human input
and monitoring even with this machine.

The other thing is this machine seemed quite slow to attach to the teats.
Generally, you'd want to get the cows back on the pasture quickly. This system
would take half a day to milk any decent sized herd.

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1stcity3rdcoast
I mean, if someone wanted to move to the country to become a gentleman or
family farmer, there’s simply no better place to do it than rural Italy.

~~~
keyle
That's exactly my point. Rural Italy was really poor in the past, I imagine
it's not too expensive still, and it's drop dead gorgeous in some parts.

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jimbokun
Maybe the trick is to extend agriturismo, and offer not just the opportunity
to stay on the farm grounds, but also pay for the authentic experience of
traditional artisanal farm work!

~~~
reidjs
Perhaps they’d be able to make living wages by putting their barn on Airbnb.
It will be just like that episode of the office.

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PhasmaFelis
A friend worked for a horse owner who had a rather lovely guest apartment on
the upper story of her barn. He stayed over there sometimes when he was
working with the horses.

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hi41
I hope we are not romanticizing farming. In India, over a quarter million
farmers have committed suicide due to poor crops.

~~~
lm28469
It's the blowback of romanticising city life. Just like these "van life" and
"minimalist" trends

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jessaustin
150 cows (plus the ~75 bull calves she's fattening every year) on 12 acres?
That's not a farm, that's a feedlot. I don't see anything about her manure
arrangements? Somehow I suspect a different article would have been written
had this farm been located in USA.

