
What nobody told me about small farming: I can’t make a living - SwellJoe
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/01/what_nobody_told_me_about_small_farming_i_cant_make_a_living_2/
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TulliusCicero
Duh. Do these people just forget about the principle of economies of scale?
How do they think they can possibly compete against huge factory farms? I can
understand if you're doing a small farm 'for fun', but don't understand how an
otherwise intelligent person can think they can (or should be able to) make
good money from it.

> As the average age of the American farmer neared 65, I knew young farmers
> were badly needed in this country.

If they're truly in demand, one would expect wages or profits to signal that.

> none of these things address the policies that dictate how our country’s
> food system works, policies that have created a society in which the small
> farmer can’t even earn a living.

Some of the policies might not help, but the fundamental reason small farms
can't compete is that farming has large economies of scale. Some people may be
able to find a niche charging high prices for uncommon goods, but that's never
going to be the bulk of the industry. Expecting small farms to be profitable
in that way is like expecting cobblers to make a comeback.

~~~
asuffield
> How do they think they can possibly compete against huge factory farms?

As with so many of these things, there's this idea floating around that the
factory farms must be "bad" because they are big and wealthy, and that
smaller, less efficient farms must be "good" because they are small and poor.
Much like with all the other cases, this idea is somewhere between confused
and blatant denial of reality.

Money is the unit of caring. The amount of money that you're willing to spend
on something is how much you care about having it, as precisely defined by the
point at which it's too expensive and you don't care enough to pay that much.
The factory farms are big and wealthy because they provide what people care
about: an efficiently produced, consistent solution to the problem of what to
have for dinner.

If people really cared about their food coming from small, inefficient,
"organic" farms then they would pay for what it really costs to produce food
in that manner. The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us
that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. This is normal: most
people will tell you they care deeply about something up until the point when
you ask them to open their wallet, and then they remember that they don't care
all that much.

It seems to me that what's really wanted here is better factory farms with
modest adjustments to reduce pollution, antibiotics use, and improve animal
welfare. That's entirely achievable. It won't be achieved by things like this
article; it'll be achieved by somebody who sets out to make a better factory
farm and builds a business around that.

This is already happening. [http://spread.co.jp/en/](http://spread.co.jp/en/)
plan to have what could be a game-changing approach to vegetable farming up
and running in 2017. Whoever gets that system to work well enough at scale
seems likely to sweep the 1990s-style farms off the map. It's the exact
opposite direction from what the "organic" farmers have been doing: no low-
wage labour, no battles over land, no getting caught up in politics.

The next couple of years will be an interesting time for the food markets.

~~~
vacri
> _The fact that people aren 't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't
> actually care as much as they claimed._

Or that they don't know. Supermarkets don't usually label their vegetables
"BigCo" and "littleco". The problem with the 'market solves everything'
approach is that it requires perfect knowledge on behalf of all parties.

~~~
CountSessine
This is something I've often thought about with regard to organic farming.

A claim is often made that modern agriculture and growing methods can decouple
food's nutrition from traditional signals of nutrition like size and colour
and blemishes. I don't know how true that is, but it seems like there's a
branding failure here - that we somehow need to be able to select fruit and
vegetables based on which specific producers made them rather than vague and
inherently porous regulations governing what can be called 'organic' or
'natural'.

Supermarkets might not like that - they'd have to better manage sales space to
accommodate multiple known 'brands' of apples or oranges, but consumers would
have a lot more reason to 'trust' self-interested brands of farms than they
would an 'organic' commodity label. Any kind of a label that doesn't involve
individual self-interested reputation but instead involves regulatory
compliance is going to be gamed and ultimately ignored.

------
analog31
_...we gained no equity because we didn’t own the land..._

Farming on rented land seems like the original Uber. You're workers, with no
guarantee of even minimum wage.

A couple of friends in the restaurant business have told me: Never open a
restaurant if you don't own the building.

~~~
sjtgraham
Feudal serfdom is the original Uber.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Everything seems to run in circles, some apparently greater than others.

------
chasing
"That quirky lifestyle business I got into without really knowing much about?
For some reason it didn't wind up being a gold mine."

------
vermontdevil
10 acres is not enough. A friend of mine owns 200 acres in Iowa and he has to
work off-season to ensure a steady income. But the 200 generated enough $ for
him to retire. Wasn't easy though.

~~~
peter303
Do you mean by selling the land? The last few years until this year there was
boom in farmland prices.

~~~
vermontdevil
No still owns it. Rents it out now. But the ups and downs of income from
farming made him work two jobs. Some years the crops brought in good money.
Some years nothing. He managed to saved enough so he can retire.

But he told me he thinks 200 acres is the bare minimum to see some money if
you are smart about it. The more acres the better obviously. And the farmer in
the article only has 10???

~~~
vacri
On the other hand, farmers will always find a way to complain. I was reading a
farming rag from a nearby town, and the canola crop was a bumper one, the best
year ever. Response from the farmers? "Yeah, well with so much canola on the
market, the unit price will be down"

Don't get me wrong, farming is hard work, but the farmers I've encountered
rarely have much positive to say about their work particulars. A bit like
sysadmins, really.

~~~
vermontdevil
ha I guess a complaining farmer is a happy farmer?

------
mikestew
Ten acres? Has anyone _ever_ made a living off ten acres? Where I come from
(Midwestern U. S.), that's a hobby farm.

And that assumes the person running the place is even a decent business
person. Some won't succeed whether they own ten acres or a nail salon.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Ten acres is just a big garden, not a farm.

------
snydly
My great grandparents had a small farm in Massachusetts between the 30's-50's.
They had 8 kids (free labor for ~20 years). They did well enough to send all
their kids to college, but not much beyond that.

Something tells me you can do okay with a small farm if you're a poor German
immigrant who fought in WWI because you're not expecting much anyway. Happy to
not be starving. The woman in the article should've expected less from the
beginning. They can chalk it up as a learning experience, I guess.

------
bachmeier
To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "I didn't know it was possible to not know that."

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah. She actually references the national statistics in her article; I'm
surprised that apparently neither she nor her partner checked them out
_before_ starting the farm.

------
peter303
I live in Colorado. Lots of profitable small farms here. You just need the
right crop :-)

~~~
SwellJoe
I suspect that is temporary. The bureaucracy is already very large in the pot
industry, and will grow with time...the big players will guarantee regulators
stack the deck in their favor. As legalization spreads across the country,
growing will be concentrated in a few areas where it grows most easily and
with the cheapest labor and most favorable legal climate (just as tobacco is
concentrated in a few places). The big players may be new ones, but
agricultural history in the US indicates the small players will get pushed out
as the market matures.

~~~
unabridged
I think the marijuana industry will more resemble the wine industry. Large
bulk producers will cover the cheap end of the market but there will still be
many highly respected small players.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't have much experience with marijuana. Does it actually have the kind of
brand dynamics wines have? Can we expect people to prefer indulging in the pot
equivalent of 10 or 50 years old wine if they can afford it?

------
a2tech
My grandfather ran a farm. Small farming isn't profitable. Full stop. Farming
scales up really well but not down.

~~~
greggarious
And if you can make back the costs of the equipment, own the land, and create
enough food for your family, what value does money have?

~~~
rdancer
It's good while it lasts, but being a subsistence farmer has its downsides.
Once you get a few bad years in a row, or the government decides that farmers
don't really matter so eff them, you will appreciate the profits you've put
away during the fat years.

------
TeMPOraL
I just got bitten by not having an ad blocker installed on the current
browser.

You know what _this_ [0] looks like? That nice "You may also like" box? Like a
_fucking end of the article_. Except it isn't. It's only a half of it.
Seriously, fuck you Salon. I guess you don't care if people actually read the
stuff you post.

EDIT Oh, I know why it tricked me. Because the rest of the article only loads
when you scroll past that ad. What the fuck.

[0] - [http://imgur.com/SMBtRkO](http://imgur.com/SMBtRkO)

~~~
detaro
WTF. I wondered why the article ended so suddenly...

------
PaulHoule
I don't think you talked to too many people.

------
contingencies
If these people are looking to make money, then they need to either lower
their expenses or up their prices.

On the former side, there are very well documented examples of commercial
success from organic farming using naturally focused practices instead of the
fertilizer and weeding processes common to traditional western-style farms. A
good point to start reading there is the Japanese microbiologist that
popularized the approach -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka)

On the output side, direct supply deals with restaurants or consumers in
higher income areas (ie. possibly not local, but a large city nearby ... SF
comes to mind) could be an excellent way to get higher return on individual
crops by volume. Yes, this would necessitate a drive. But they probably do it
now and then anyway, and it might just pay for itself. As a bonus, the article
mentioned that the author's husband was a woodworker: knocking together some
rustic wooden crates for deliveries to look the part is not something
difficult at scale.

As a bonus, these type of delivery deals can be worded "by the crate" and "in-
season", allowing more reliable distribution of crops and releasing pressure
to grow things on the edge of or out of their natural season, which can
necessitate higher investment, time inputs and risk on a per-crop basis.

I firmly believe that being relatively close to SF, it must be possible to
distribute organic crops and make money. The author simply hasn't figured out
a working model yet.

------
warmcat
Small farmers are always just on the edge of poverty. I know this first hand
since my parents own a farm (~3 acres and not in the US) and don't generate
enough revenue to even get to a point of breaking even. The equipment, water,
fertilizers, pesticides always have to be paid for regardless of whether you
get a good crop or not. Add nature's whim on top of that too and you will see
why small farmers are disappearing from the map.

------
vonnik
It's probably good to remind people yearning for the simple life that you
can't make a living on most small farms, but it's not really surprising. The
Green Revolution made it easy for a few people to feed a lot of people,
fundamentally altering the ratio of farmers to consumers.

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Green_Revolution](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Green_Revolution)

And despite concerns about food security, the US has consistently used
agriculture as a bargaining chip in its trade agreements and foreign policy,
opening our markets to countries that can produce food more cheaply than US
operations can. Reagan, Hollywood's rhinestone cowboy, did a lot to destroy
cattle ranching in the US by opening the market up to Canadian beef. Same
dynamic.

Small farmers will only make money by focusing on cash crops that are organic,
local, and other adjectives that Whole Foods customers are willing to pay
for...

------
tptacek
10 acres is microscopic. The average small family farm is over 220 acres.

~~~
tptacek
Further into the article:

 _According to USDA data from 2012, intermediate-size farms like mine, which
gross more than $10,000 but less than $250,000, obtain only 10 percent of
their household income from the farm, and 90 percent from an off-farm source._

The words "like mine" here are misleading, because this farm is nothing at all
like the farms the author is referring to. For one thing, virtually all the
farms the author is comparing itself to are an order of magnitude bigger. But
then:

 _One day late into my second season owning the farm, a customer walked in
while I stood behind the counter spraying down bins of muddy carrots. The man
asked how things were going. Financially, I mean. He held a head of lettuce in
the crook of his arm, a bundle of pink radishes dangled from his hand._

Most small family farms are not walk-up retail operations; they work through
distributors and co-ops.

Modern farming is also intensely technical. There was a time in American
history where you could make a living as a wheelwright, too. It's not an
outrage that you need to be a major corporation to build vehicles today.

------
CapitalistCartr
My parents were small farmers. It is hard, hard work. They succeeded by
focusing carefully on areas that weren't being served by the Agri-biz
corporates. They chose several different specialties and worked them each hard
to make a modest living. What I learned from it was to stay away from farming
as anything more than a hobby.

------
tejohnso
Six thousand pounds of food on a tenth of an acre bringing in $20,000/yr.
How's that for scaling down?

[http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-homestead](http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-
homestead)

~~~
knughit
Ate you saying that $20k/year is a good living? For how many people? You can't
even get family health insurance for that.

------
wooooo
In addition to not doing their research, this is a great example of how
destructive the west coast "fake it 'til you make it" attitude can be. Not
only are they missing out on numerous opportunities by not being more honest
with their neighbors (local farmers giving advice, neighbors patronizing them
more if they know they aren't doing well and really do need their business,
someone who knows a guy who runs a restaurant getting them a supplier deal,
etc), I'm sure the stress and senseless alienation they suffer from "living a
lie" isn't healthy either.

------
mysterypie
The typical family farmer in the U.S. is a millionaire because of _assets_.
They have poor earnings and they whine a lot, but they are sitting on top of
land, tractors, and buildings worth millions.

The average U.S. farmer could cash out, buy a house in Miami, and never work a
day again in their lives. But they don't do so. They apparently like the
country lifestyle and continue their struggle even though they don't have to.

Obviously the couple in the Salon article can't cash out and retire because
they don't own their own land, and it's just a sliver of land at that.

~~~
knughit
Is that true? They don't have mortgages?

~~~
mysterypie
The average farm family has owned it for generations. The Salon couple is
atypical in that they got into the business rather than inheriting it.

------
tcskeptic
Has the American small farmer _ever_ been able to make a living?

~~~
jacquesm
Small time farmers in NL have cash crops growing in their attics. It is quite
amazing how many people will consider doing something illegal if it makes
enough money.

Even people you'd never expect it of suddenly become experts in photosynthesis
and hydroponics. Who'd have known that so many people discovered that they had
green fingers after all when they can't distinguish a weed from a crop plant
under other conditions.

~~~
WJW
Only because it's still illegal to grow it legitimately. How many of those
small time farmers will keep doing it (for the money) when the government
finally gives out some licenses to farm it commercially and the bulk marihuana
price becomes a hundred to a thousand times lower?

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zekevermillion
Hobby farming can make sense if you want to own a lot of land as an
investment. If you don't farm it, in most states it gets assessed at a _much_
higher residential rate for tax purposes. So it pays to farm, even if the
business is break-even.

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biggestbob
Is this the USA problem or do small farmer have same problem in other country
too? If all world has same problem it is very sad.

