/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.684148]

How does one go about becoming a farmer? Is it a decent profession these days? I live in the city and I've always been a rustic kind of person. I feel like I would enjoy it.

[Swifts !WiNDUPyWhk No.684149]

Well.. every farmer I've ever known always complains about it, is never happy and is always tired.

But you get to drive a tractor.

[Anonymous No.684155]

>>684148
There are 3 kinds of 'farmers' that make their living producing food; landowners, corporations, and laborers. The first two require you to have metric shittons of money or at least a good patch of land, so thats probably out. The last job generally falls into several different categories. You could be a highly paid and skilled operator several million dollar farming equipment or some such or you could be a minimum wage or worse picker, cleaner, etc. The first requires years of apprenticeship and training, the latter is done almost excursively by illegal and recent immigrants.

[Anonymous No.684158]

I've really enjoyed the time I've spent working on a farm. I got into it through wwoof.org and would recommend it, even though it's like $30 for a year subscription. You can find a dope place to visit and learn the ins and outs of whatever kind of farm you're interested in. From winery to small farmers market types.

Shit definitely doesn't pay for shit unless you can really crack into a niche market, which I'm thinking about trying. But, and this is a very large but, you get to eat really delicious food that you worked and sweated over which is a immensely satisfying. And, that delicious food is good for your body, so fuck getting cancer and having heart disease, only to die at 50.

Go to your local farmers market and ask anyone you can find if you can come up for a weekend and help them out. I bet you might get a chance. GL OP.

[Anonymous No.684165]

>>684148
see the latest Homegrowmen thread in /out/,
>>>/out/365449

I'm a subsistence farmer. I run a "small farm". I grow vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, tap maple trees, have bee hives, and raise chickens for eggs and occasional meat.

Your local government (state level in USA) determines the requirements your place needs to meet to have a official farm status. Like you need to own $XXX amount of farm product. Some people become a farmer to get the tax break. They do that by getting a horse or two. That way they meet the minimum dollar amount for small farm/farm status. They also have normal jobs and are only in it for the tax break mostly. I suggest contacting your local agricultural department for details and forms to read.

I employ a great many methods to make my life as easy as possible. For instance, the move to raised bed gardening has pretty much eliminated 3/4ths of the work I had to do before with open ground gardening. I don't even have to till now and the crops do far better. I can farm through the winter using polytunnels over the raised beds. I had tomatoes in January last year with a foot of snow on the ground.

The hardest part isn't even the farming. It is processing of the food I grow and raise. Right now, I've been canning lots of tomatoes, peppers, salsa, and vegetable stock. Last year I grow over 1 ton of vegetables and was getting 2 dozen eggs a day.

What I don't eat, store away, or use as animal feed/fodder, I sell or trade with friends and neighbors. Today, I made $40 just for selling some tomatoes and peppers to a friend. Tomorrow, someone will get paid with canned tomatoes for helping me can produce all day.

I make it so it is easy and simple work with maximum return on my effort. I don't spend money on it anymore even for chicken feed. The only chemical I put on my crops is water.

[Anonymous No.684313]

>>684165
>>684165
Fucking how?!

You've got to have a few hands besides your own.

[Anonymous No.684364]

even though farming seems like sitting on your ass for 50 weeks of the year and spending a week of your time ploughing and seeding, a week harvesting, it is a job that leaves you in a constant state of anxiety.

you need to constantly monitor crops obsessively. one small bug infestation, missing it for a few days and all your crops are unsaleable once their eggs hatch.

hail? fucking wrecked
slightly cold evenning with frost, everything turns to sludge overnight. fuuuuuu-

[Anonymous No.684396]

>>684313
Why? It isn't difficult. I farm less than an acre of land.

>>684364
>it is a job that leaves you in a constant state of anxiety.

Don't monocrop. Learn companion planting. Having many different things you are growing ensures that you always have a crop. Having them growing together enhances how they grow and helps protect them from all sorts of stuff.

[Anonymous No.684422]

>>684396
>less than an acre of land

Is that your sole income?

[Anonymous No.684430]

>>684422
Yes.

[Anonymous No.684432]

>>684430
What country you in bro?

>Captcha knows

[Anonymous No.684433]

>>684432
Derp

[Anonymous No.684435]

>>684432
USA

It helps that I am completely debt free. I own my land and vehicle. No car loan, no mortgage, no credit cards; also, no food bill, no health insurance. Just a couple utility bills (nat. gas and electric), extra low property taxes (due to small farm status), some basic insurance for house and vehicle, little bit for gasoline, no food bill, no health insurance, no other expenses, I even get my phone and internet for free.

[Swifts !WiNDUPyWhk No.684438]

>>684435
d-do you have a tractor?

Can I see it?

[Anonymous No.684440]

>>684435
Interesting. I have an acre here, half of which may be usable. No debt either but I suspect my expenses are more than yours.

[Anonymous No.684441]

>>684438
I wouldn't think he would on on half an acre. Rotary hoe perhaps.

[Swifts !WiNDUPyWhk No.684445]

>>684441
Maybe something small like this thing?

[Anonymous No.684450]

>>684438
>>684441
No. Neither. I once hada relative plow the gardens for me and I once had a rototiller. Now, I have raised beds and there's no reason to till them. The soil is super loose since there's no one walking on it. The action of harvesting, removing old plants, and planting are more than enough tilling. I use cover crops too, so the mycorrhizal function of the soil is maintained and plants do far better than full tilling.

>>684440
I barely have any expenses really. Other than my computer, I am not really a part of the "system" of commerce and capitalism. I make a lot of the stuff I need.

[Anonymous No.684451]

>>684440
Not half an acre. Nearly an acre. Probably like 4/5ths to 9/10ths of an acre. I have an orchard and pond on that amount too.

[Anonymous No.684496]

>>684148
No. It's more of a lifestyle kind of business. Margins are thin, and you don't have control of the weather.

[Anonymous No.684532]

>>684148

1. Go to farmer
2. Ask for job
3. ???
4. Very minimal profit and you will never be a real farmer.

Seriously unless you have a millions of dollars or a family farm you will never be a real farmer. You might one day become a farm manager if you start on a tractor and progress your career like any other job. Or you could be a hobby farmer like this guy >>684165.

Depends what your looking for, if you want to be "rustic" then hobby farming is great, if you want a real job then go get on a tractor and work your way up.

[Anonymous No.684584]

>>684450
Damn, you've been really informative. I'd love to see your setup. I'm very seriously considering doing the same. But I'd really like to have a green house or high tunnel.

Zone and crops you grew this summer? What you're doing for fall and winter?

[Anonymous No.684612]

>>684148
Farming what, though? It costs a lot to start farming something like corn, because the product is fairly cheap, and requires a lot of acreage to make it worth your time.
As far as I can tell, the vast majority of farmers inherited their family's farm.

[Anonymous No.684649]

>>684364
>it is a job that leaves you in a constant state of anxiety
I used to work at a farm for a while, driving tractor and shit. My boss (aka the actual farmer) was a nervous wreck who had fits of rage for very small reasons. No wonder why. Heavy physical work 24/7, little profit and even that's not guaranteed.

[Anonymous No.684656]

Happy to chat more at a later date, if this is still up.

I run a small meat operation in Vermont. It pays half the bills. It's not too hard. But, I think I'm pretty lucky. My clients pay top dollar and they're easy to find. I still think there's plenty of room in that market, but getting your clients can be a lot of work.

[Anonymous No.684659]

>>684148
This is how my family does it.

>Own lots of land
>Lease land to farmers
>Rake in the dough doing nothing while the farmers upkeep everything
>Still go and hunt and fish where you want because it's still all yours

Some years farmers make a lot of money and some years they lose money. Five bad straight years will ruin most folks and there's been droughts and hailstorms and things that have caused that before.

But if you own the land, you get the same cash guaranteed every year as long as you have good quality acreage in cultivation and willing farmers to lease it. Plus you get to see the beauty of everything growing and being harvested without lifting a finger.

As the old saying goes. Land man always trumps cowboy.

The key here is not having big loans leveraged over a long time though. If you buy land for a good price outright in cash or pay it off in a year or two you're golden. If lease return on the land is 5% and you're paying 7% in interest for a twenty year mortgage, you're digging a hole. But if you bought it in cash, it's paid you back in 20 years and free money after that, not including pipeline easements or powerlines or gravel pits or oil and gas wells or stuff like that.

It's a great way to get all the advantages of being on a farm without the headaches of farming. Plus you still have the time to work a normal job.

[Anonymous No.684661]

>>684148

My parents live out in the country and keep a very large garden (the size of the average front yard). They plant whatever they like (squash, corn, pumpkins, watermelon, certain medicinal herbs, green beans, tomaters), and easily grow enough to feed themselves for months at a time. It's a lot of hard work keeping it all watered and weeded, but it'd be a good place to start.

Find your local farmers' supply store and ask the boys behind the counter. In my experience, they love to show off their expertise and answer any questions you might have, as long as you're respectful and buy something.

[Anonymous No.684687]

>>684584
>I'd love to see your setup.

If you peruse /out/ much you probably already have. This year I've only been working on getting new raised beds up to speed, but I'm already exceeded the minimum small farm requirements by 2x.

I have most of the supplies to build a greenhouse. I have tons and tons of used patio glass doors both with and without the frames. I have enough to make 3 good sized greenhouses probably.

Zone 5. I've been growing:

Corn (several varieties)
Sunchoke
Purslane
Carrots
Tomatoes (2 types)
Acorn Squash
Yellow of Paris Pumpkin
Lamb's Quarter
Common Plantain
Ribwort Plantain
Dandelion
Tomatillo
Peppers (2 kinds)
Kale
Romaine Lettuce
Pineapple

Orchard stuff:

Apples
Plums
Peaches
Blueberries
Blackberries

I also harvest a laundry list of wild greens. Through the winter, I'll be growing more wild greens like Lamb's Quarters and Plantains. Other stuff Pineapples, Romaine Lettuce, Kale (if mine ever bolts), Carrots, Peppers, Tomatillo, Broccoli, Chard, and other things I've not decided on yet.

[Anonymous No.684692]

>>684687
>>684687
Probably have seen you then, I'm always lurking homegrowmen.

Haha, what an interesting way of doing it, I've never seen anything like that. Is it really that much cheaper?

Grew a lot of similar crops this summer then. But it cracks me up to see
>Lamb's Quarter
>Plantain
>Plantain
that stuff just grows like crazy anyways around here.

Thanks again.

[Anonymous No.684696]

>>684687
What is the climate there?

[Anonymous No.684709]

>>684696
Temperate Rainforest, Zone 5

>>684692
The wild greens are delicious when they are younger and bitter when older. So, you have to plant them in succession in order to have the best for eating all the time. The wild ones just grow into older, bitter, and stringy plants. My seed stock does come from ones that grow wild. Mostly from my chicken yard. One common plantain is 3 feet wide and the seed stems are over 2 feet long. It grew right near the coop where there's more chicken crap and water.

>Is it really that much cheaper?

For the greenhouse? Of course. all the supplies are free. I got the glass mostly through freecycle.org

[Ellie No.684768]

>>684148
It is stunningly difficult to break into and make money at post 1970's "traditional" farming. This type of farming focuses on mono-cropping huge tracts of land with stunningly expensive equipment at very low margin and then extracting profit from subsidy programs and commodity markets. If this is your bag, then you'll need an MBA more than an Ag degree.

New-style farming IS possible and can be very profitable if you are willing to work hard and smart.

Dairy Farming - High initial investment, fidgety regulations that vary by state. Read "Millionaire Model Dairy Farms" by Larry Tranel.
Cattle - Low initial investment, high return, moderate labor requirements. Read No Risk Ranching and Comeback Farms by Greg Judy. To Mr. Judy's ideas I would add that there is an interim step between custom grazing and having your own herd. If you grass feed out bottle calves you can sell them as quarters, halves, or wholes at a really good margin direct to consumer. You can make a fantastic return by feeding, breeding, and training up Jersey Heifers as nurse cows. Selling at the auction barn is your last resort. Tack on "Pastured Poultry Profits" by Joel Salatin if you want to stack more income on the same land.
Market Gardening - CSA programs can give you a prepaid market for your produce. An acre of land is a LOT. Start really small or you will be overwhelmed. If you've never grown anything before then start gardening for yourself, and sell the excess. From experience, I would not attempt this without a small tractor. Mechanical cultivation is the bee's knees.

Specialty products: i.e. Honey, Mushrooms, nursery plants. The farm I worked at did all of these. Having customers come out to the farm for CSA pickups gives you a captive audience to market these. We included a potted Petunia in our spring CSA baskets and a potted mum in our fall baskets. We had fantastic add-on sales from customers who wanted more. (size limit hit, cont'd.)

[Ellie No.684769]

>>684768
We also asked our CSA customers to bring us their old coffee grinds. They dumped it in a bucket and we added pieces of oyster mushroom to it. When the mushrooms came fruited we added them back into the csa boxes. When they fruited again, we offered them for sale. we already had the buckets, so our cost for 100 pounds of mushrooms was about $20, and the effort of dropping mushroom pieces in them.

Honey: I have a hive of bees, and I don't enjoy it. If you want to make money with Bees, the big money is in selling Packages and Nucs.

Hydroponics/Aquaponics: I have not figured out how to cover the capital costs on these and still be profitable.

HTH

[Anonymous No.684888]

>>684532
>hobby farmer

A hobby farmer is one that has a normal job and has a garden and a few animals at most. Gardening and farming for them is really just a hobby.

A subsistence farmer is a person whose job is only farming and they get all or nearly all their food, year round, from what they farm. Gardening and farming for them is a livelihood.

>>684768
>It is stunningly difficult to break into and make money at post 1970's "traditional" farming.

Indeed industrialized monocropping is pretty terrible on many levels. There are massive up-front equipment costs. If you go the subsidy route then you buy from corps like Monsanto and Syngenta, signing terrible contracts with them. Monocrops require more pesticides and fertilizers simply from the methods employed to grow them and they are also more susceptible to disease and complete failure if one thing goes wrong; which is why pesticides are heavily used.

>No Risk Ranching book

Nice recommendation. That is exactly how my neighbors do all their cattle and horse farming. And, all of Joel Salatin's stuff is worth a look.

>CSA

Where I live there's pretty much no CSA-type programs at all. The closest might be the bee club since we help each other from time to time.

>From experience, I would not attempt this without a small tractor. Mechanical cultivation is the bee's knees.

I used to think like that until I started researching no-till methods and raised beds. I have many raised beds. Now you'd have to drag me back to tilling methods kicking and screaming. It just makes nearly everything soooo much easier it is insane to think of all the work I'd been doing before.

>Honey: I have a hive of bees, and I don't enjoy it.

Bees are surprisingly a massive amount of work and it is really better to have two people working the hives together. It makes things go so much smoother. For me, it doesn't pay off very well for home use because I can't eat the honey they make because I'm super allergic to it for some reason...

[Anonymous No.684890]

>>684656
I'm thinking of starting a hobby farm in maine. What animals do you raise? I'm thinking goat mtself. As I enjoy them and there a large lack that I think I could fill with hipster demand.

[Anonymous No.684891]

>>684148
Well there are "Agri-Cultural" farmers, ruin ground by over grazing and over producing the same crop (Cattle, Wheat, Corn etc.) year after year, and think they fix the ground every year by dumping tonnes of NPK fertilizer on the ground, which ruins alot of eco systems. usually tradition in a family or a rich city boy who want to "Be a Farmer"

then theres perma-culture, using natural rhythms of the year and lunar cycle, companion planting (google: 3 sisters planting) very responsible farmers and very varied work practises.

There are other "Cultures" for farming but google will show some of them to you. (Aqua,Micro, etc.)

All in all, just get a job on a farm shovelling shite like everybody else starts, doing crap work, no big machines, no fancy tractors, go shovel shite, grape silage and de-horn cattle, if you still "want to be a farmer", well done, if you don't: don't even think about taking any animal under your control unless you think you can manage (or manage to LEARN) every single thing about say, cattle, like if it needs help calving, or is it sick, this is a profession most learn about as soon as they can walk, its not a job its a way of life and any time i ever hear of someone from a city "wanting to be a farmer" i shiver, because city people havent the slightest idea about how look after an animal, nothing specific, but unless you know how they are naturally, your going to fail, work for someone else and learn from their mistakes, or else you could have 30 dead calves/lambs/pigs/acres of wheat to deal with.

[Anonymous No.684893]

>>684661
What's an average front lawn to you? I find that to be the most inconsistent thing about yards. Some no more then a sidewalk buffer and some an acre or more.

[Anonymous No.684894]

>>684888
Do you eat fresh crop year round or do you store it?

[Anonymous No.684895]

>>684888
continued... I stick to the maple syrup use instead of honey. Maple syrup is so simple to make, I'm kicking myself for not doing it all these years. For instance, it is a winter crop and making the maple syrup in the house during the winter is free. It is free because the heating require to render it down just becomes heating for the house so the cost evens right out. I bought some stainless steel steam table trays for super cheap online. I use some thick metal plates under them when they are on the stove. I can boil down about 5-10 gallons of sap a day with those and one standard oven. I only tap a few trees and last year made 4 gallons of maple syrup with only 6 trees and I even missed most of the tapping season.

>>684769
>Hydroponics/Aquaponics: I have not figured out how to cover the capital costs on these and still be profitable.

The best way to do these is to DIY your own system. On /out/ there's many references you can use in the OP of the Homegrowmen thread: >>>/out/365449

Specifically, "And.Aquaponics.DIY" where Murray shows how to make an Aquaponics system from salvaged/alternative containers. Which can be easily adapted for all 3, Aquaponics, Aquaculture, or Hydroponics.

>mushroom farming

I love doing this and want to expand into more log farming. The next flush of shiitake I have I'm going to start making plug spawn, cut a few small oaks down or cut off a few limbs at least, and make a rather large area for logs. I love shiitake, but pear oyster I didn't like so much even though it is super simple to grow in pretty much anything. I only use it for my gardening as a mycorrhizal fungi.

>>684894
I have about 6-8 months worth of food canned year round that gets rotated all the time. I try to have as much fresh stuff as I can though. My biggest concern is lack of electricity in the winter during storms. The polytunnels can't last all that long without heat circulation. So....continued.

[Anonymous No.684896]

>>684895
continued....So, I use thermal mass in the form of sanded, black-painted, 2-liter soda bottles full of water. I stack as many as space will allow in the polytunnels. They REALLY help with keeping temps even and soak up tons of sun to make thermal energy. These give me time to react and start up my generator if grid power goes down; which happens every year.

[Anonymous No.684931]

>>684890

We do cattle, lambs, goats, pigs and chickens. THe goats are really just to teach the lambs to eat weeds. We have 80 lambs and 10 goats, and almost all go to one restaurant. Goat meat is getting more popular with foodies. Depending on how far you are from some cities, you should do ok.

[Anonymous No.684940]

>>684931
Maine has one of the biggest foodie hubs on the east coast. It's great but as a market and enjoy.

[Anonymous No.684943]

>>684888
>>From experience, I would not attempt this without a small tractor. Mechanical cultivation is the bee's knees.
>I used to think like that until I started researching no-till methods and raised beds. I have many raised beds. Now you'd have to drag me back to tilling methods kicking and screaming. It just makes nearly everything soooo much easier it is insane to think of all the work I'd been doing before.

I get that, but I still want to have a small tractor. I have a crabgrass* problem (even in the raised beds) and there is no comparison between hoeing a 100 foot long wide bed vs. running a cultivator down it.

* Crabgrass and Highway Traffic Barrels are neck-in-neck in the competition to be Tennessee's state flower.

[Anonymous No.684991]

>>684891
This is where WWOOFing comes in. You can pick up 50 years worth of experience and lessons learnt over 1 year of moderately hard work and polite questioning. Most hosts are also first-time farmers so they are able to articulate their experience to city folk fairly easily. You also can compare and contrast and see "the difference that makes the difference" as the NLP guys put it.

[Anonymous No.684997]

>>684943
>crabgrass* problem

Uhhh, but crabgrass is highly edible! lol I juice it and have made flour from the seeds for short breads. Sometime, maybe this year, I'll make beer from it.

You also don't need to use tools in raised beds, since it isn't compacted soil. Just use gloved hands and stuff just pulls up without problems at all or any real work. Compacted soil like in a normal yard or garden makes crabgrass nearly impossible to pull up. Weeding, in raised beds, is really easy. If you use mulch then weeding is almost non-existent. When I need to weed, I just toss everything into 1 of two places, 1 is my compost pile and 2 is my juicer then the compost pile, while I drink the juice.

I never really understood people's problem with 95% of weeds since most of them are edible and rather palatable. The only "weeds" I have problems with are starcucumber (because it tricks me sometimes and I think it is normal cucumber for a while) and trumpet vine (because it still sends shoots up every 4th day through 24" of soil, but is easy to remove at least.)

[Anonymous No.685031]

>>684997
>Uhhh, but crabgrass is highly edible!
SON OF A @*#@!@. Wish I'd known that before. :/ I put strawberries in a plot that I mulched with (I now know to be weed seedy) hay and It's everywhere in it. I have to dig to find my strawberry runners. Are just the seeds edible, or the whole plant?

[Anonymous No.685036]

>>685031
You'd more than likely just eat the seeds. The USA has mainly Digitaria sanguinalis and Digitaria ischaemum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitaria_sanguinalis

>The grass is also highly nutritious, especially before the plant exhausts itself producing seed
>For human consumption, crabgrass necessarily must be harvested by hand, because it produces grain throughout summer, rather than simultaneously. Machine harvesting would require monthly passes, and even then much of the seed would go to waste. This said, crabgrass produces an exceptionally high amount of grain, it smothers other weeds, it acts as its own mulch, and it can survive both heat and drought. Its adaptability makes it a candidate for environmental small-farming.

http://www.eattheweeds.com/crabgrass-digitaria-sanguinalis-2/

>While we try to get rid of crabgrass in America in parts of Africa crabgrass (fonio) is a staple grain, and as forage it can produce a whopping 17 tons per acre. Crabgrass seed can be used as a flour, couscous or as a grain, such as in porridge or fermented for use in beer making. Now that’s a label I’d like to see: Crabgrass Beer. Crabgrass is not only nutritious but one of the world’s fastest growing cereals, producing edible seeds in six to eight weeks. It grows well in dry areas with poor soils, and fantastically in watered lawns. It’s a horrible weed and a wonderful edible.

You could DIY your own fonio-husking machine. It uses 2 slightly flexible plates to rub the grain's bitter husk off,

http://www.rolexawards.com/profiles/laureates/sanoussi_diakit/overview

Most grasses are edible for juicing and for their seeds. I have a backyard full of different grass grains that can be turned into food.

[Anonymous No.686088]

>>684888
I farm shit too, I own and farm 40 acres currently. Right now we are growing hay in half and growing soybeans in the other half. I also own 3 horses, two of them are belgian drafts and one is a quarter for riding, along with 20 sheep and 10 cows. I also have 30 chickens which produce quite a few eggs (more than we can eat so we sell them every weekend) and 3 bee hives. But along with that, I also have a day job 9-3 during the week.

Am I a "hobby" farmer?

[Anonymous No.686094]

I grew up on an ok sized farm/ranch in the northern USA. If you really want to get into farming/ranching, don't worry about college or what half of these people are talking about. Every farm needs extra laborers, or hired men. We personally always had about one, who made decent money. We paid for his utilities, provided housing, and gave a decent salary on top of that. So go to the midwest/northwest and look around a rural community for a while. Be ready to wake up at six and work at least a twelve hour day. Out of season.

[Anonymous No.686096]

>>686094
telling retard basement dweller on 4chan, to go get a job that requires hard ass physical labor, on a daily basis, seven days a week.

Yep, you are the current troll king from hell.

[Anonymous No.686098]

>>686088
and you are a lying SOB, as the amount of feed you would have to have would far exceed what you could possibly make.

[Anonymous No.686104]

>>686096
We always gave Sunday off. I guess I didn't think that through, but you can always hope.

[Anonymous No.686105]

>>686098
yeah no shit sherlock, that's why I also get grain and allow the animals into pasture to supplement the food i give them

[Anonymous No.686114]

>>686105
and your pasture, from what you stated, is about four times too small. Try again nigger.

[Anonymous No.686127]

[Anonymous No.686331]

>>684891
If a city person steps on a farm without about 3 years experience at whatever they want to do (Tillage, Beef etc.) all the produce will die, slowly, and painfully.

[Anonymous No.686361]

>>684438
The fuck's your thing with tractors? I ride one daily, they're not special.

[Anonymous No.686381]

>>686088
>I also have a day job 9-3 during the week.
>Am I a "hobby" farmer?
>doesn't grow all his own food

Yes, you are a hobby farmer, not a subsistence farmer. There's no problem with either one and both can be fun and rewarding.

>>686094
>don't worry about college or what half of these people are talking about

Which half?

>Every farm needs extra laborers, or hired men

Hardly. The need for part time labor is dependent directly on size of the operation more than anything.

>wake up at six

That's a bit late to be getting up. I get up at 5am every morning to get all the work out of the way before 7am. After that there's no work until the sun is over the hill and animals need fed again. My day is 5am-7am work, 7am-7pm research, 4chan, movies, games, hobbies, etc. 7pm-8pm work. The "work" is mostly feeding and counting animals and checking vegetables.

>>686096
>a job that requires hard ass physical labor, on a daily basis, seven days a week.

Farming is only difficult if you use antiquated or industrialized methods and are doing vast amounts of land with those methods (or you are unhealthy). Half the farmers I talk to don't know shit about actual farming, but they know a whole lot about hosing everything down with pesticides/fertilizers, shooting up all their animals, medicating feed, breaking their backs, and grinding their fingers to the bone. When you tell them about all the work-saving, feed-saving, and yield-increasing methods you use, they balk and say something willfully ignorant like, "this is the way my pappy farmed and his pappy before him farmed and this is the way imma gonna do it and my son is gonna do it". At which point I shut the fuck up and don't waste my breath or time.

Never mind trying to teach them about sprouted grain fodder and no till farming.

Farming is only as hard as you want to make it. The biggest factor is getting around the fact that you don't know everything and should be open-minded to everything "new". Research everything.

[Anonymous No.686397]

I'm not a farmer per se but I talk to farmers almost every day. (I actually work in agriculture in the broader sense).
All I can say is don't plan on living off of it. Do it because it's fun or you like working outside or with animals, but don't plan on it being your only source of income.

Depending on where you live getting some arable land can be very hard to almost impossible. Where I live you already have to be a farmer to buy farmland, making it impossible for normal folk to get their hands on a prime piece of land. The consequence is that many farms are simply inherited maintaining the status quo of terrible agricultural practice.

If you want to sell your produce grow veggies, fruit and berries (and maybe get some goats and chickens, forget about cows and grains.) Thank god nowadays there's a lot of people who are okay with their veggies not being perfect as long as they are organicly grown. Make sure you can get customers before you start growing anything. Buy the machines you need, but don't overdo it.

Be prepared to work a lot and worry some more. Failures will be inevitable, some years will be total shit while in others will be great.

[Anonymous No.686406]

>>684991
>You can pick up 50 years worth of experience and lessons learnt over 1 year

No you cant. A years experience will teach you how little you know. You will come out a lot smarter and with a lot lower opinion of your current knowledge.

[Anonymous No.686412]

>>686381
>Half the farmers I talk to don't know shit about actual farming, but they know a whole lot about hosing everything down with pesticides/fertilizers, shooting up all their animals, medicating feed, breaking their backs, and grinding their fingers to the bone.

Maybe it is different with all the welfare US farmers get but here if a farmer is stupid they go broke very quickly. All that fertiliser and chemical you deride cost a shit tonne of money, if you are using it poorly youre not going to get a return. If you dont get a return no one is going to finance your operation and you either lease out or sell.

I also hope you realise that while you like subsistence farming most people dont. So unless you are going to step up and produce a few thousand tonne of food to feed those who would rather live in the city then shut up and let those close minded farmers feed the world.

[Anonymous No.686427]

I'm actually saving up money to start a hydroponic romaine lettuce farm for Chipotle Mexican Grill (resturant)

I've done all the research and tests, I have all the data and knowledge.They already approved my application,

I just need around 3,000 dollars to start.

I would be making an estimated 1k a month and there's literally no overhead. You basically set it and forget it for 30 days

(using the method I chose)

I just wish I had the fucking money or the means to make the money needed to start.

[Anonymous No.686490]

>>686427
>hydroponic romaine lettuce farm for Chipotle Mexican Grill

Can you talk a little more about this? I.e. NFT or raft, how you found out about the opportunity, how to apply, etc?

[Anonymous No.686522]

>>686427
>I would be making an estimated 1k a month and there's literally no overhead. You basically set it and forget it for 30 days
>(using the method I chose)

As someone that designs hydroponics buildings and setups, there is NO set and forget for 30 days without a HUGE investment in auto-adjusting systems, which you're not doing PLUS hydro for $3,000. Nu-uh, not happening even if you got lucky and found all the stuff at a ReStore, you'd still be out about $5,000.

[Anonymous No.686547]

>>686427
i tried this one summer, i had 60 romaine heads growing at one time, and it was a pain in the butt because i had 5 rezz's to keep in check. it was fun though and man was it beautiful. cheap setup, but i use anything i can find for cheap and build my own.

[Anonymous No.686556]

>>686547
pic of the raft setup i used, now i want to do this again, damn you lettuce guy, i tore this down years ago :(

[Anonymous No.686584]

>>686556

Thats a happy looking weed right there

[Anonymous No.686603]

>>686412
Hardcore Monsanto Shill spotted.

[Anonymous No.686615]

>>686603

More like hardcore antifamine shill

GM anything is illegal here.

[Anonymous No.686617]

>>686615
Cont.

Sorry that was a bit hasty. While GM is banned monsanto does still sell plenty of chemical. I just wanted to point out the obvious flaw in most stupid peoples reasoning.

[Anonymous No.686629]

>>686603
The fuck is with you Americans and Monsanto? Why is it always Monsanto, instead of some other similar faggot company? Why this paranoia?

[Anonymous No.686630]

>>686629
Yeah, let's make sure the other big-name GM food manufacturers are exposed, like...um...uh...

Or what about...no...um...huh...

[Anonymous No.686631]

>>684888
>A hobby farmer is one that has a normal job and has a garden and a few animals at most. Gardening and farming for them is really just a hobby.

I understand your distinction and I apologise. It is just you are a very rare breed so your type are very easily passed over.

[Anonymous No.686637]

>>684165
I would suggest this to you, OP. You don't need to sell your shit to anyone, but can if you want. Plus it's more fun to spend time with cute farm animals than to shove them in tiny cells hooked up to machines.

[Anonymous No.686643]

God dammit, my post just got deleted, here's a short version:
Working on a farm != Running a farm
You do not become a farmer, you are usually born a farmer, since you need land and machines (these are expensive).
You have a lot of free days, but you're gonna work your ass off during the other time.
Study agricultural science before you think about running a farm.

[Anonymous No.686740]

>>686617
>making up flaws for other people that were not displayed ITT

uwotm8?

[Anonymous No.686743]

>>686643
>machines are needed to farm and be a farmer

[Anonymous No.686773]

>>686630
>Yeah, let's make sure the other big-name GM food manufacturers are exposed, like...um...uh...

You are potato-level retarded.
>Syngenta
>BASF
>Croplan
>Pioneer
>DynaGro
>ProSeed
>Gold Country
This could go on and on. I know it's the internet, but why not try to state things you know something about. I worked on two farms for most of my life, now in sales for a seed company that competes with Monsanto.

Monsanto is the biggest and was first in GMO, but:
>All first-generation BT and Roundup-Ready crops are off-patent and anyone can save seed and grow them
>Roundup (glyphosate) has been off-patent for decades and dozens of companies make it.
>GMO saves pesticide use because BT corn eliminates the need for some insecticide and RR crops can use only gly instead of up to 6 different herbicides.
I know this stuff because I applied these sprays. I guarantee all of your knowledge comes from environmentalist propaganda. Modern-day environmentalism has become more of a religion than a science. And you are a dupe who fell for it

[Anonymous No.686851]

>>686643
>You do not become a farmer, you are usually born a farmer, since you need land and machines (these are expensive).
I don't know about that... However, I guess your perspective is telling from your post. There are some individuals like Michael Pollan who think a return to small-scale farming is inevitable. There have been a few posters in this thread working on small plots of land. It is completely possible that they may be the future of farming in the US as opposed to the huge operations that have taken over so much agriculture. Small, local farms growing a polyculture beat out factory farms in pretty much every measure anyway.

In addition to that, since in the coming decades we are going to have so many people that are just completely unemployable due to mechanization, I think this return to small-scale farming is just something that should definitely happen. It is really kind of inspirational for me to read all the posts ITT to be honest.

Semi-related video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

[Anonymous No.687121]

>>686851
I live in small town situated @60 degree longitude, 60 degree latitude. Most employed people have jobs related to mining industry.
If you take people older than 30, probably 70-80 percents of them have 600-2500 square meter pieces of land, and do gardening on them rather successfully than not, despite very sharp continental climate (this summer was particularly nasty with temps between 12-15C, cold nights, rains, very few sunny days).
My parents are one of them. With weekend gardening they provide themselves with 100% of vegetables through summer, cabbage, potato, carrot, squish, onion, garlic, different pickled vegetables, preserved salads, lechos, jams last till spring. This is on 600 square meters minus 4x5m cabin,drive in and sauna. With nasty weather and without pesticides and industrial fertilizers.

[Anonymous No.687199]

>>686773
Do better research please. All signs point to Monsanto. Also, are you sure your company "competes" with Monsanto?

>Gold Country

Monsanto owned.

>ProSeed

Gets their seed from Monsanto and Syngenta

>DynaGro

Uses Monsanto products and sells Monsanto-licensed seeds.

>Pioneer

Dupont owned, bought rights for GMO seeds from Monsanto.

>Croplan

Sells Monsanto-licensed seeds

>BASF

Collaborates with Monsanto and sells its products to Monsanto

>Syngenta

Monsanto is trying to rake them over and buy them out.

>I know this stuff because I applied these sprays.

This is the very definition of a, "shill".

[Anonymous No.687201]

>>686851
>>687121
Segregation of food sources is a must for humanity in the first place. Relying on giant monocrop industrialized farming just sets everyone up for a really bad and hard fall. On the other hand, if everyone who can, raises their own food and trades/sells with friends, neighbors, and locals everyone will fair better in the face of any calamity that might befall them.

[Anonymous No.687292]

>>687199
It is normal that giant businesses like those have all kinds of financing, licensing and sales agreements with each other, as well as other collaboration projects. Turning that to a claim that Monsanto, and Monsanto alone is responsible of all the shit is ridiculous.
I really don't understand your bizarre monodemonistic view. You know, you can hate several companies at the same time. Your hate for Syngenta or BASF does not need to diminish your hate for Monsanto.

[Anonymous No.687353]

>>687292
Monsanto is the head of the demon. You cut off the head of the beast before chopping up its other parts.