> This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU
This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it.
But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.
I, as a former farm boy, would support this. Contrary as it is to the spirit of HN. My dad, and his father before him, ran a dry-land wheat farm out west. When he finally decided to sell, and get an actual job, the level of stress reduction was quite amazing. For example, the growing season for wheat is about 101 days, while the growing season available was 99 days. The rain was 12 inches a year, and you had to leave half the land idle to get enough moisture to grow a reasonable crop. As a young boy, I saw one year's crop destroyed in a 15-minute hailstorm.
The risks inherent in farming resemble those of starting a new business, but without the potential upside.
Monsanto is going to do what they will, with our without your small (to them) farm. Better plan of action is to remove the distortion in the marketplace caused by the farm subsidies.
But as daeken says, take the money and do good with it. Like start a small business helping small farmers.
Straw-man much? You are mischaracterizing both the letter and the spirit of what daeken said, framing a convenient caricature of it to say "hey look everybody, I disagree with this mean badie".
Sorry but I don't think your analysis of this particular argument is on the level...
Read it several times - I did no such thing as straw-man this argument. I simply disagree with his position. I didnt call him out as being completely irrelevant in any manner...
If I did, and I am unaware of this, please educate me.
Farmlog is a web-based CRUD app. Monsanto is a billion dollar, multinational behemoth. All daeken said was not to be afraid to sell out to big-agro if you have a chance, take the money and run, be a martyr on your own damn time and dime.
You somehow think selling your company to another is matter of morality. It's not. An stupid CRUD app is not gonna give big-agro powers they didn't already have. This is not a strain of grains that can feed the planet: it's just a web app, specific to the farm-management "line of business". This is the Remember The Milk of agriculture technology.
Biggest revolutions in agriculture will not be in software, but in geo-politics, law, finance, real-estate, insurance, equipment, transportation, fertilizers, packaging and preservation, and genetic engineering, etc. Real stuff.
Farming is our bread and butter, meat and potatoes. Food is the #1 on every living being's list of Important Shit™.
This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it.
But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.