So you want to buy a farm?

https://zenx.medium.com/so-you-want-to-buy-a-farm-c56af5d85a7e

259 197 6 years ago

zenx.medium.com

yalogin• 6 years ago

Is there a similar article for farms in the US? This is a unique perspective from India and appreciate learning about it.

mod• 6 years ago

I would look at youtube, there's a very active homesteading community.

waheoo• 6 years ago

... of successful homesteaders.

The survivorship bias of this movement is akin to vanlife. A lot of people burn out.

I've seen some get themselves into a poverty trap they can't get out of. Can't pay off the farm, can't make enough to survive, can't make enough to sell up and move back to the city, been out of job market too long to get a job on their old industry and would be stuck unemployed / on povo wages.

spiderfarmer3• 6 years ago

What’s their main revenue stream? The homesteading itself, courses or the Youtube advertising dollars?

Selling the dream is always more profitable than living it.

disown2• 6 years ago

Even better. There are youtube videos of people setting up homesteads all over the US. Buying property, clearing land, raising animals, planting crops, logging, etc. It's mostly geared towards the family farm, but I'm sure there are channels of large scale business farms.

bregma2• 6 years ago

Do they ever do an episode where the pay property taxes? How about one where they encounter healthcare needs?

vram226• 6 years ago

Yes, somewhat at least. Gabe Brown's Dirt To Soil book (haven't read it, but seen some of his videos (~1 and 2 hours length), and my guess is the main points of the book should be roughly the same as the videos. You can see them too, on YouTube). I have mentioned his work a few times in HN comments linked below[1].

Others have, too. Search for those comments by searching for his name in the search box at the bottom of HN thread pages, powered by Algolia, or directly do it at hn.algolia.com.

[1]:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24996445

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24827234

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24669509

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24669458

Make sure to watch some of his videos too, not missing Treating The Farm as an Ecosystem", a 3-part series by Living Web Farms on YouTube.

As a related aside, Living Web has other good videos too, including one called "Ferment Everything" (or "Anything") or such name, by Meredith Leigh.

vram226• 6 years ago

I think I read somewhere that he (Gabe Brown) is one of the 25 most influential farmers in the US (at least in the regen ag field, if not overall). Edit: Googled "Gabe Brown 25 influential".

First hit:

https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/authors/379-gabe-brown#:~:text....

techsupporter• 6 years ago

The colloquialism "to buy the farm" meaning "to die" made this a funny click.

My thought process went from "not really, but let's see what the author is on about" to "ohhh, the kind with acreage not caskets, got it."

User23• 6 years ago

This dark joke comes from back in the day when if an airplane crashed on your farm you’d get a significant insurance payout from the federal government. So the joke became that the failed pilot “bought the farm.”

disown2• 6 years ago

Interesting, TIL. But is there no profit in kicking the bucket?

meekrohprocess• 6 years ago

My grandparents told it differently.

To them, it was a dark colloquialism from the world wars. Infantry would often talk to each other about how they were looking forward to "buying a farm" once the war was over and they went home to their families.

When the soldiers died in the trenches, as they often did, it was said that they had "bought the farm" as a euphemism. Usually it was better than saying how they actually died.

lowbloodsugar• 6 years ago

Huh. I thought it was because you got a small plot of land (about 6' by 2', with a nice headstone).

retox3• 6 years ago

Off-topic but what is the original source of the trend of talks/articles that start with "So you want to..."? I find it very annoying, though I don't know why.

azhenley• 6 years ago

I was also curious, so I looked it up on Google Ngram Viewer. Looks like the phrase became relatively popular in the 1940s and then started a steep rise around 1994 up until 2012 when it peaked.

retox3• 6 years ago

Thanks, I hadn't thought to try there. It does have the ring of a 1940s public service announcement.

zenxblr5• 6 years ago

Haha :) yes it was a little clickbaity. But as long as it gets many to understand and act on this a little better than trying to flog dead soils to produce something, worth it.

retox3• 6 years ago

I didn't mean any animus towards this post in particular :)

m0zg3• 6 years ago

My parents had a rather large garden (I wouldn't call it a farm), and we grew 3 crops a year in it. As a kid/teenager I hated it at the time, since they made me work there. Fast forward 30 years I have a bunch of raised beds in my backyard, grow produce, and find it more rewarding in that non-monetary fashion, than just about any other thing I've done. Properly set up (basically just automatic drip irrigation, which is super cheap) it's very low maintenance.

So yeah, I agree with the author. As an engineer, doing this to make money is stupid. But as a lifestyle thing I think it's a lot of fun. And then you also get to eat what you grow, in addition to the "lifestyle".

Scoundreller2• 6 years ago

basically just automatic drip irrigation, which is super cheap

Any preferred go-to guide on setting that up? I'm thinking of something with an IBC, and some type of moisture sensing automation, so I can pre-fertilize the water and walk away for 2 weeks if I wanted to without coming back to death.

m0zg3• 6 years ago

I didn't go high tech like that. I just went to home depot and bought some cheap tubing, fittings, pressure compensating drippers (which auto-regulate the flow), stakes, and a 3-way Orbit timer. They have free catalog at the store, which you can just take to plan out your set up. I also don't use fertilizer in the water - instead I use manure in the soil. So I laid out the thicker plastic tubing, then connected smaller tubing that goes to each plant. Set up the timers to give it sufficient time (you may need to set them up to water twice a day if you have very hot weather and want to save some water). Then you just turn it on and walk away. It takes care of itself. In my garden I also have to sprinkle some pellets against slugs, and install a motion sensitive scarecrow sprinkler which scares away the deer. That's pretty much it. Check on it every now and then to make sure your plants aren't wilted in the afternoon. Once you dial in the timings, it's completely hands off.

dylan604• 6 years ago

Seems to me if you want to do this, you're missing out on the experience. Push a button, get a prize is not very rewarding in the long run.

When I started my backyard growing habit, it was never meant as a self-sustaining venture. It became part of my morning routine, I'd water the plants and just keep an eye on things. Watching the plant's growth from day to day is rather impressive. It's amazing how fast different plants grow in 24hrs. I even did a timelapse overnight of a squash plant's journey. I also started checking things out with a flash light right after dark. The slug hunting became sport. TL;DR if you honestly think you can have a small raised bed/container garden survive with nothing more than drip irrigation, then disappointment is in your future.

a012• 6 years ago

So there are people around me who also are interested in buying some acres to living the dream. But as the post listed, there are a lot overheads and surround issues/problems. Like do you want to grow things "organically" or have to buy *icides to battle enermy of bugs or diceases? At scale, it's too hard to manage the use of chemicals to keep your farm bountiful year round.

driverdan4• 6 years ago

"Organic" farming still uses pesticides and herbicides, much worse outdated ones.

dehrmann4• 6 years ago

Good ol' nicotine.

dejv• 6 years ago

Organic farmer here: I haven't seen country that allow herbicides for use in organic farming. Speaking of different pesticides you are basically left with nonsystematic fungicides (a lot of them as sulfur or copper based) and biological control against living pest.

ozborn• 6 years ago

Reference for this claim?

My understanding is that oeganic farming uses less inputs overall (including pesticides and herbicides ) and some organic farmers use no pesticides or herbicides at all depending on the crop.

driverdan4• 6 years ago

I always laugh when someone who has never worked on a farm talks about buying one. Most farming is hard work, much harder than an office job. And most small farms do not make much money, especially if you don't know what you're doing.

If you're thinking about it go get a job on one first before you buy anything.

R0b0t1• 6 years ago

What they're probably thinking of is buying land, which you can lease or pay to have tended. Getting into this market is understandably more difficult; if it was easy free money everybody'd be doing it.

onlyrealcuzzo• 6 years ago

Or I see this a lot from people who live in an apartment with no yard or balcony who really just want a small garden.

dehrmann4• 6 years ago

A lot of land within a few hours of the Bay Area is pretty expensive because it's very productive, it's often bought with Bay Area money, and people pay a premium so they can "have some land." Oh, and you're competing with people with low taxes because of Prop. 13.

With land priced like that, especially when you lease it out, it's even harder to make money. If there's a house on the property and it's halfway close to a town, you might make more leasing the house than the property.

At least when people get into buying apartment buildings they're not competing with someone who will pay a premium so they have room for a horse and can watch the sunset over their field.

dehrmann4• 6 years ago

There's the other big that gardeners (especially home covid gardeners) forget: almost nothing you want to grow on your "coupla acres" has enough calories to sustain you. Potatoes are probably the only exception. Everything else--beans, wheat, corn--is a pain to grow and process, especially at a small scale.

samvher• 6 years ago

I think if you're not aiming to be fully self-sustaining it makes a lot of sense to buy things like these and focus on growing fresh fruits and vegetables. From a sustainability perspective beans/wheat/corn and to some extent potatoes are fairly easy to store, making them suitable for central/slow processing. I don't have numbers on this but my sense is that a lot of the resource usage of our agricultural system is due to perishables - food that needs to be cooled, that gets thrown away if no-one buys it on time, that's easy to damage in transportation, and that has high water content (making it heavy to transport).

mgiampapa• 6 years ago

The sweet spot is when you have passions about products, expensive things or impractical crops to scale... We have a homestead with acreage in Hawaii. Chickens and eggs are zero effort. We don't even need to feed them, just collect the eggs. We grow heirloom tomatoes in the greenhouse because they are crazy expensive to ship from the mainland and we love them. Likewise, we also grow a lot of white pineapples because they are amazing, but not commercially viable to ship... There are lots of small scale / high margin areas to work in, you just need to explore and find them. You won't build a business empire, but you can find a lot of satisfaction.

jelliclesfarm6• 6 years ago

Millets. And lentils. Calorie and nutrient dense.

gabereiser2• 6 years ago

I can confirm the hard work part. Up before the sun, down long after it leaves. It’s not a job, it’s a life. I worked on a farm for a summer when I was 19. I’m still ripped from it, you’ll be physically fit in no time. If you want to buy a farm for the purpose of profit, you’ll fail immediately. If you want to buy a farm to learn to farm (profits will come when you can actually grow in bulk) then dive in. There’s also “alternative” farms that maximize vertical space vs acreage. To reiterate the last sentence, go get a job on a farm for watermelon season and ask yourself if you can do that everyday for 20+ years.

(Kennedy Farms in Stony Creek, VA if you’re curious).

altdatathrow• 6 years ago

Farming is easy money [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE

redis_mlc2• 6 years ago

Funny video. He didn't mention getting the land, barns and equipment for free too. Just inherit and profit!

hardwaregeek• 6 years ago

It's up there with buying a restaurant as poor business decisions go.

pueblito• 6 years ago

I dunno about that, I'm in agriculture and I'm doing just fine

grecy2• 6 years ago

Certainly it is a lot of work - bu if you're growing food for yourself and spend your days outside, why do you need to make much money?

onetimemanytime• 6 years ago

Food in itself cost relatively in USA too. So with $400 a month you can eat all you want and spend your days outside doing nothing. But you need more than $400 a month, right? Same with farmers and people living in villages.

lotsofpulp• 6 years ago

In the US, you need decent cashflow to pay for healthcare. You probably also need to save for natural disasters or injuries that disable you. And if you have kids to support, even more costs.

m4632• 6 years ago

A friend had a farm and we plucked an onion out of the ground for a salad. That onion was so good, I could have eaten it like an apple.

Your body rewards you for eating fresh food and I think it's because it is really really good for you. Same with fresh air and a little sunshine.

So there's something to be said for growing food and spending time outside. I think it's what our bodies were designed for.

dirktheman• 6 years ago

I know some farmers and they all have one thing in common: they work around the clock, 7 days a week. No days off or vacations. Their farms might be worth millions, but it's also both their home and their job.

Also, a lot of people don't get that a farm (anything other than subsistence farming) is a business. It requires careful long term planning, crop rotation, dealing with buyers, collectives, auctions, risk mitigation and pricing. The farmers I know are all extremely proficient with spreadsheet software and most of them attended the Agricultural University two towns from here. Farmers are often regarded as a bit simplistic country boys, but the opposite is true.

I don't envy them.

arethuza2• 6 years ago

I've known a lot of farmers over the years and they always struck me as some of the most hard nosed and astute businessmen I've ever met.

Edit: Having done a bit of both (and a lot of family in both areas) I'd rather be a fisherman than a farmer and I really don't want to be a fisherman!

jaclaz• 6 years ago

In Italy we have an old saying:

"La terra è bassa."

(translates to "the earth is low" implying that to get food out of it you have to kneel and bend a lot, i.e. it is hard, hard, backbreaking work)

With animals, it is (IMHO) even harder, another saying (Tuscany) goes like:

"Le bestie non conoscono feste comandate"

(translates to "animals know nothing about holidays", it is a 7 day a week (from dawn to sunset) 365 days a year job)

znpy• 6 years ago

My grandad was a small farmer in South Italy, and my parents used to curate the land they inherited (and some land they bought on their own).

Yup, it's a full time job, the land doesn't go on vacation.

Yes it can give enormous satisfaction. Every time I'm at the store buying fruit I sigh at how much fruits our grandad used to bring home, for free, it was way better than the fruit I guy at the grocery stores, and it was the surplus from the sales...

pragmatic3• 6 years ago

Only the ones left in business. The rest are long gone as business savy became just as important as hard work.

brnt• 6 years ago

I don't know how things are in your jurisdiction, but here in Europe making a profit on farming just isn't possible. This sector lives and dies by subsidies.

You're going to have a cash crop or market the hell out of your product, both seem opposite to the goal of starting the farm in the first place.

holoduke• 6 years ago

Depends on which farm sector. Part of my family is into flowers. I can tell you that flowers are like gold. Almost every flower farmer in our region is loaded. Lowest tier for farming are traditional crops. You need lots of acres and good machines to get efficient en break-even. Only a few manage, but most do not. I would probably focus on farm tech. Automated greenhouses growing tomatoes, cucumbers etc is for example big business. If done right you can be 10-50 times more profitable per square feet than a outside potato field. 100k isn't enough to start something like that. More in the line of 5-10m start capital needed.

adwww2• 6 years ago

My family make more profit renting an old workers cottage on the farm as an Airbnb than they get revenue from the entire organic diary operation.

leemailll• 6 years ago

It might depend on which crop to grow. I remember in KING CORN (2007), farmer can't make a profit without government subsidy.

carlob• 6 years ago

I think it's pretty much the same in the US, even though it's sometimes less apparent. Look up the Reclamation Act of 1902: most of the West would not be cultivated without the huge public investment in irrigation which have never made any economic or ecological sense (growing alfalfa in the Colorado highlands for example).

m4632• 6 years ago

remember to marry eva gabor before you purchase.

DavidPeiffer• 6 years ago

As a friend of mine put it, the shear breadth of knowledge you need to break even is astounding. Depending on scale and focus area, they'll include:

* Accounting (cost of production, allocating overhead expenses, cash flow analysis, financing terms and outcomes)

* Efficiency calculations and cost benefit analysis for equipment comparison

* Buying and selling commodities contracts

* Marketing your product (locking in the price optimally)

* Biology for dealing with animals and anything you plant

* Ever changing government subsidies and regulations

* Maintenance, repair, and troubleshooting of equipment. This helps keep you productive when the weather is good and the vendor techs are busy. Welding is really handy.

If you mess a couple of those up to a moderate degree, you'll probably lose gobs of money. Do it too bad or for too long and you'll be visiting my dad or brother for a bankruptcy.

snarf21• 6 years ago

Exactly this. Been there, done that. I always joke that the only people who want to buy a farm are people who've never worked on one. I also joke to people that farming is really just a part-time job. Everyday you get to pick which 12 hours you are going to work!

sethammons• 6 years ago

“[I work part time.] There are huge chunks of time.. at night.. where I’m just asleep. For hours. It’s ridiculous.”

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

My way was to buy 80 acres and rent out half. The local farmer gets to amortize his equipment over a larger crop; I pay the property tax with the income (when there is any income).

pragmatic3• 6 years ago

So true.

However...

... all my grandparents were spry into their 80s and lived to their 90s. There was a an article awhile back that the most longed lived or healthy groups were New Jersey Asian females and South Dakota male farmers.

I’ve been at a desk for 20 years and I’m almost crippled.

The difference is the variety of work. Fix fence in the morning, do the manual stuff before it gets too hot. In the afternoon get in the ACed tractor (if you’re lucky). Get back in the house at 10pm. Maybe not till age midnight if the combine breaks, etc.

Lots of physical activity, lots of fresh veggies and a bit of fruit seems to be the recipe for a long healthy life. Wealth not likely or guaranteed.

For better or worse that life is economically impossible now.

zenxblr5• 6 years ago

I wrote that. Thanks @happy-go-lucky for sharing that.

This is indeed an India based pov. And based on real life experiences and learnings over 4 years now at this farm. Lots more to learn and understand, surely. I'm sure there's some stuff that translates well across geography too, especially the patience bit.

Do want to see regenerative farming grow, because as it happens today is eventually a dead end.

FlyingSnake• 6 years ago

First of all kudos for sharing your wonderful experience. I must say geography also helped you a lot with your experience. Your experience would've been much different if your farm was in Bidar or Anantpur. I would love to hear more about your journey and keep sharing your tales with us!

happy-go-lucky2• 6 years ago

Your experience would've been much different if your farm was in Bidar or Anantpur.

I'm from the latter, own some ancestral land there. Here, we're always on the lookout for ways to counter the extreme aridity of the region. We know it's not easy and like asking the impossible.

exolymph• 6 years ago

My friend Travis Corcoran recently ran a very successful Kickstarter — $95k+ raised — for a book called Escape the City which is a practical guide to the non-fantasy version of this dream.

Seven years ago I moved from the city to a farm where I taught myself to garden, raise animals & cook "farm to table". I show you how.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tjic/escape-the-city-a-...

If you're interested there's a button on the Kickstarter page to buy copies via BackerKit. IIRC you get immediate access to a GitHub repo with most of the book already in it, although don't quote me on that.

voldacar• 6 years ago

I saw his interview on justin murphy's podcast - he seems like a super interesting guy! Glad to hear the book is doing well

LunaSea2• 6 years ago

Why would someone need 90K to write a book while already having a profession?

Interviewing three people is also apparently worth 5K.

And the book's photos are black & white ...

pjc502• 6 years ago

For the same reason as raising a billion dollars of series A funding: it's not about what you need it's about what people will give you.

Despite all the defensive language, kickstarters are really pre-sales. 90k sales for a book is very respectable but not overwhelming. It means he's found a great market for this book.

TuringNYC• 6 years ago

To determine whether there is a market for the book, not via soft commits like "interest" but with hard commits like pre-sales

tjic2• 6 years ago

Author of "Escape the City" here.

I didn't "need" $90k to write the book.

I chose to sell copies of a book, at typical book prices. Thousands of people chose to buy the book. That's where the $90k number comes from.

And the book's photos are black & white ...

"The food is terrible...and the portions are so small".

The wonderful thing about the free market is that those who want to buy a thing can, and those who don't, need not.

Cheers!

bluntfang• 6 years ago

Always good to look at "How To" books with a healthy dose of skepticism. Probably more relevant to the "get rich quick" type books, because if they got rich quick, why would they be selling a book to give away their secrets?

Although I find things like farming and agriculture and outdoors to have a less capitalistic shade and more of a genuine "i want to help people achieve their goals and not die" shade.

emilecantin• 6 years ago

The kickstarter was for 2K, which seems like a reasonable "minimum sales" target to start a printing run. The fact that 90K was raised seems to prove there is demand for that kind of book.

dkarp• 6 years ago

thanks! I've placed an order

raptorraver• 6 years ago

I'm starting to sell my city apartment this week and we are going to move to the country side to start a small scale farm! I've worked in the farm all my youth and this summer we lived on the place and did some small scale gardening.

I don't have any (at least many) false thoughts about how cool and romantic it will be. It will be hard and frustrating at times but waay more fulfilling than the current tech job. We're planning to start scaling little by little, year by year, me working still remotely. The main reasons we're doing this are that I've dreamed about this past 15 years and to raise our kids in a healthier surrounding and teach them how to grow food and take care of animals.

For anyone having similar dreams checkout Richard Perkins' educational job in the regenerative agriculture space. He has written excellent book Making Small Farms Work[1] and he has active Youtube channel[1] as well as internet courses.

[1] http://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/blog/new-book-making-sm... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/user/mrintegralpermanence

PopeDotNinja• 6 years ago

How much land does one need to become self sufficient? Let's assume that means producing enough biomass to generate the resources necessary to have a surplus of food or money.

philshem• 6 years ago

It depends on your growing zone but 10 acres is typically suggested.

(There are many opinions so I don’t put one particular source here.)

fogihujy4• 6 years ago

It depends on how you use it, but at least a couple of acres. Potatoes are quite efficient, and rabbits and chickens can pretty much live off left-overs and patches of land that are otherwise unused. That would be a rather boring existence, though.

3-4 acres should be more than enough for the basics for a _small_ family, if you accept to buy the more exotic items from a store, and that you will probably never grow fat.

jcims• 6 years ago

It's kind of a 'how long is a piece of string' question. You could probably do it on 2-3 acres but you're going to be making sacrifices that you wouldn't need to if you had 10-20.

The typical term is 'homesteading' and there are tons of resources for it. My aunt does it and is part of a collective and it's nearly a full time job.

anticodon2• 6 years ago

Thanks to the collapse of the USSR and with help of our inept corrupt leaders (Gorbachev and Yeltsin and their US "friends") destroying all the industry and economy, millions of ex-soviet citizens know exactly how hard it is to become self sufficient.

I worked really hard on our family "farm" all my childhood and that's maybe the only thing that helped us survive. Although we did experience hunger from time to time.

It's not even a question of land, it's a question of how much work you can put into that land. It's a backbreaking work every day.

It's a good option if society collapses and there's no other option to survive. Otherwise, it's just not worth it. Millions of current Russia population hate working on the land because they already have that inoculation from 90s.

Dylanfm2• 6 years ago

I prefer to aim for community sufficient, rather than self sufficient. You probably won't do a good job of being entirely self sufficient. A small healthy community could be, or almost.

fest• 6 years ago

My relatives who run a farm (some tens of cows, pigs, chickens, various crops for sale and food) do it on I believe around 25 acres of farmland plus a few acres of forest (for firewood). They are able to sustain a family of 5 people (3 grown ups, 2 school age kids) this way, plus hire a few seasonal/part time workers.

It does require quite a bit of machinery though- several tractors plus all the attachments (plowing, harvesting, cutting etc).

user5994461• 6 years ago

A quarter of an acre will give you plenty of food to fill multiple freezers for the year. Some vegetables have a very high yield (potato, tomato, carots). Hens/eggs also have a very good yield, most farms used to have hens.

It's nowhere near self sufficiency though. The amount and the variety of things you eat today is tremendous and coming from many places, you're not going to cultivate a fraction of that at home.

If you're talking bare subsistence, 1-2 acres of wheat should be enough to feed a family in grain/bread.

clemParis• 6 years ago

How much land does one need? Tolstoï wrote a short story with this title on this topic: https://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/

unnouinceput2• 6 years ago

You're asking the wrong crowd. Go talk to an Amish about this, you'll get a lot better answers.

pbhjpbhj2• 6 years ago

This question was addressed on HN recently with much talk of potatoes and how much yield one needs to survive. Might be worth searching.

jelliclesfarm6• 6 years ago

1 acre per person not including oil and grain and fiber.

vram226• 6 years ago

Yes, Richard Perkins knows and has done a lot of good stuff over years in this space, at his permaculture mixed farm in Sweden. I mentioned him and a few other successful people in the regen ag space, like Gabe Brown and Geoff Lawton, with brief descriptions, in the recent thread about a long-running no-till no-herbicide farm here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24827234

Edit: Also, Aanandaa Farms, started and run by a couple of ex-city-job professionals, the Guptas, in the Morni hills near Chandigarh, Punjab, is another good example of success, this one in India, although there are many others in India as well. They too have good instructive videos about starting and runnning a small-scale permaculture farm on YouTube. I believe they are starting a PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) course in the near future too, which may be a combination of online, and learning time on their farm.

vram226• 6 years ago

Another well-known long-running (20+ years) successful permaculture / regen ag farm in India is Krishna McKenzie's Solitude Farm, Auroville, Tamil Nadu. Again, mixed crops, herbs, fruit and other trees, multi-layer. On-site farm cafe with raw / local / vegan food. They also know well about and use local edible weeds as food, further reducing work and increasing efficiency - no need to even plant them, let alone cultivate! He has a video or two about that too, along with Nina Sengupta, who wrote the book Edible Weeds of the Auroville Region. He also does talks, local outreach and education, and has a good video channel on YouTube about it all.

Mentioned it before too, in that same recent thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24876047

vram226• 6 years ago

For anyone interested, Richard Perkins has an annual Regenerative Agriculture Masterclass, which is coming up in the near future. Sign up here to be notified of details:

https://regenerativeagricultureonlinecourse.com/

Just got that link from his email newsletter, which I subscribe to.

Dylanfm2• 6 years ago

Also his latest book Regenerative Agriculture. Mostly composed of varied farm enterprises with financial details amd so on. Pick and choose the enterprises that appeal to you and work with your land... e.g. market garden, tree nursery, pastured eggs and mushroom cultivation.

https://www.regenerativeagriculturebook.com/

person223• 6 years ago

I work full time (now remotely) and live on 32 acres of woods and fields. It used to be farmed but hadn't been for a while when I bought it 12 years ago. My initial idea was to grow produce to sell but it didn't work out.

Here are some of the problems I encountered: 1.) Deer - we are overrun with white tail deer. If I don't surround anything I grow with 6ft welded wire fence, it doesn't last a week. I have set up electric fence wired in many different configurations, but the deer seem to figure it out. Usually just as I think I found something that works. 2.) soil - we don't have quality top soil and amending the soil take time and money 3.) rodents - initially we had great success with raised beds (4ft x 8ft) but after several years they eat the roots (really bad in terms of carrots and potatoes) and pretty bad for aquash and beans. We have cats, but they can't kill the rodents fast enough. 4.) time - working full time and trying to pull everything together is really hard. When a crop is ready it needs picked and doesn't care that you are trying to meet a deadline at work. Especially for crops like peas where it seems you have a three day window to pick them at their peak. 5.) time2 - I have equipment so that I can use diesel fuel instead of muscle power. This allows me to get a lot more done, but there are two type of equipment, broken and about to break. I find it impossible to have the time to fix everthing. My back hoe has a broken hydraulic line for over a year now. 6.) selling produce - nothing in more annoying than the customer at the farmers market that comes at the end of the day and tried to buy whatever you have left at a huge discount. Also, there is a fine line between collusion and competitiveness when it comes to pricing at a farmers market. There seems to always be a guy that buys a stall once because he has too many tomatoes and sells them at a price I would lose money at if I had to match it. 7.) seasonal animals are easier than crops because you have more control. We lost all of the produce this year because of drought, but did well on eggs and free range chicken. I'm thinking about a small number of pigs or lamb next year. We don't keep anything but egg layers over winter.

One thing to mind is that I work damn hard at physical labor. My parents are in good health in their eighties, but I don't see me getting there. The toll on my body is very evident to me. I really hope I don't live that long as it won't be pleasant.

I do love growing things though. we have a beautiful orchard of pears, apples, plums, and cherries. Rasberries and blueberries that I can pick at any time. Probably the highest quality chicken and eggs you can find. Great parties when the sweet corn comes in.

nickthemagicman2• 6 years ago

Thanks for the breakdown on this. Very interesting infor.

I realized the equipment issues with my lawnmower recently. I had to maintain the lawnmower in order to maintain my house. Then you have to maintain the tools that maintain the lawn mower that maintains your house.

It's a spiral of complexity.

at_a_remove• 6 years ago

Couple of questions on behalf of some friends who are dabbling with produce on their property:

1) I have heard about how tremendously troublesome deer are, but have also heard good things about the "impossible to purchase in quantities less than a ton" Dippel's Oil ... has that worked at all for you?

2) So the rodents are burrowing under the raised beds and up to get to the roots? I didn't realize they would go that far down. How far down are the "walls" of the raised beds?

msisk6• 6 years ago

We have 10-acres and have similar problems.

The amount of time and physical labor to get anything done is crazy. We have rodent problems, too, and our collection of six-towed barn cats do the best they can. Chickens do an amazing job on rodents, BTW. Chicken and duck eggs fresh from the farm are amazing.

We had an opossum get into the barn last night and killed some of our ducks. Normally these aren't hard to get rid of but this one was very aggressive and I had to shoot it. Earlier in the year it was raccoons and they were able to break into a cage and do an amazing amount of carnage.

Bugs got to our pear and apple trees this year before we did so that was a bust.

I've been trying to get bees going but mites are killing everything.

Oh, back-hoes. Mine is new but even new farm equipment has problems. I cut the end off one of my fingers working on our tractor/back-hoe earlier in the year. Which is fun since my day job is software.

So, yeah, farming isn't for the faint of heart.

AnimalMuppet4• 6 years ago

Can you get (or make) raised beds with a floor under them? That should keep the rodents from being able to tunnel. (Unless they can chew through the floor...)

jelliclesfarm6• 6 years ago

Do you think a small robot that is like an extension of yourself help you in a small farm?

I am working on a small acreage/homesteader farm robot. It is not sensors or measuring nitrogen in soil etc. but it’s suitable for replacing 10-15 man hours/week (a seasonal part timer I usually have to employ) for a 1-5 acres farm. Small acreage = sub 100 acres in California. But the first package deal will be for homesteaders and also starting with medicinal herb co-op.

foxhop3• 6 years ago

I have a YouTube channel which follows similar processes and I document the procedures I use for growing plant based foods on small scale in Connecticut, Agricultural Zone 6b.

Check out my latest video here: https://youtu.be/IAaBBjMFWEs

I'm trying to get to 1k subs to unlock mobile streaming so I can stream my garden chores to show the work involved. If you are into this stuff please subscribe, I look forward to answering your comments.

spiderfarmer3• 6 years ago

Why do you need subscribers? Do you want to be a farmer or a Youtuber? Do you want to live the dream or get rich by selling it?

theodric• 6 years ago

As folks like Richard Perkins, Moreno, and others have made clear, you don't have to choose between those two options. Nothing wrong with having a small side income that generates interest in your farm and opens up a broader market to which to sell your products. Self-sufficient subsistence farming is unrealistic, but selling your vegetables and eggs to Yippies at retail prices is potentially a decent living.

dageshi• 6 years ago

What point is expertise, if you cannot share it?

foxhop3• 6 years ago

I want to show people it's possible to work with natural systems to create self-renewing wealth and document my journey so others may reap the benefit of learning from my experiences so they may avoid simple mistakes.

Especially starting out, there are plenty of places to waste time and energy and the feedback loop of waiting multiple years to see results of a test is too slow, if we are to gain adoption we need a better way to transfer to each other what works and what doesn't.

A video is one way to do that.

A person might watch a 5 minute YouTube video and take with them something which took me years to get right. That 5 minutes could translate into many years of learnings which may be applied immediately to their system if they share a similar context.

Being rich is a mindset, and therefore anyone who identifies as it, is it. In most ways, I'm already rich.

Sharing my journey could be considered philanthropy for the planet and all living things on it.

Yes, I spend time making videos but I think this is my most important work so far, if I don't share then the experience dies with me.

I will have no regrets for trying.

I'm only one person after all, and we need global change so I need help and community. This post is a call-to-action, will you join me?

prteja11• 6 years ago

Subscribed.

vmurthy• 6 years ago

I miss home already :) (I'm from Bengaluru/Bangalore referenced in the article and Coorg is ~5 hours drive). For some of you who may not be familiar with some of the terms: 1 lakh = 1 hundred thousand

selfinvariant• 6 years ago

I know that the motivation behind the question is outside of the blog post, but I'm really curious, and would love to ask folks here, what is so exciting about living on a farm? Is it about independence? Or radical self reliance?

As a person who lived my whole life in cities, I have a very hard time to find an appeal in a lifestyle like the one described in an article.Can someone share what they like / appreciate about the life on a farm?

akiselev• 6 years ago

The food. When it's small scale and the varieties aren't selected for industrial efficiency, many fruits and vegetables taste like they're from another world. Coming from another country, the biggest appeal is eating strawberries and blueberries that taste like the blueberries and strawberries I remember as a child and tomatoes and cucumbers that have actual flavor that can carry a salad without globs of "dressing." I think I've had a proper blueberry once in 20 years and only because it was some celebrity chef known for obsessing over his ingredients.

Thankfully, I have family members living out this dream so I don't have to do all the hard work myself :)

fogihujy4• 6 years ago

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case:

* Peace and quiet. It's quite evident whenever I visit a city, but it is, of course, a matter of getting used to it.

* Safety. Out here I only need to worry about the casual pack of wolves, or getting run over by a drunk neighbour out on the road with a tractor. Where I lived before, getting stabbed or shot during a mugging was an actual risk.

* It's away from the grind. Working from home, no matter if you do farm work or just work remotely, is much quieter than being in an office and you are able to concentrate and work uninterrupted in a way that simply isn't possible in most office environments.

* No commuting.

* An active lifestyle without having to resort to things like going to the gym.

* Community. Most people don't know their own neighbours. Out here, people stick together because there really isn't many other options. That's both a blessing and a curse, though.

Independence and self-reliance are nice bonuses, but they really just come with the lifestyle; you can't live on a farm without some of both.

redis_mlc2• 6 years ago

I grew up in a farming area, and worked on farms as a teen.

There's nothing good about it if you need the farm to make a living.

The wisdom for the past few decades is to have a city job to subsidize the farm.

I have relatives (a couple) who sadly quit their city jobs and bought a farm without local office jobs. They lost everything, even though the husband grew up on a family farm. Common sense isn't that common.

On the other hand, I have friends who grew flowers until weed was legalized, and they switched crops and are making millions now. Already had the land, greenhouses and equipment, just changed the seeds one year. Bam!

bregma2• 6 years ago

I bought a farm 20 years ago and moved out of a large city. The benefits I get are:

(1) I can not see me neighbours. They can not see me. Cities just seem live hives of scum and villainy now.

(2) I can see the stars at night. All of them. The milky way is milky.

(3) The sky is not yellow-brown. It's blue and doesn't smell like car exhaust and human urine.

(4) It is quiet. Really, really quiet. No roar of traffic. You get annoyed by how loud the loon calls are at 06:00 because it disturbs the quiet, but then you smile because you can hear the loon calls.

There are, of course, down sides.

(a) rural internet speeds (b) you want the trades to come or a delivery service? No. (c) the snakes in the house keep the mouse population under control (d) where I live, there are a million little things that want to suck your blood and spread disease until the snow falls, then there is lots of snow and you're left wondering which hell is worse

autumn_unlaces• 6 years ago

From a US perspective I imagine people read Walden and want to have a life in the woods.

carapace• 6 years ago

It's really fun.

A long time ago a friend of mine was trying to convince me to try surfing. He finally got me in the water when he said, "Dude, when was the last time your were tired out from having fun?"

(It didn't go well. At one point I managed to actually land on his back, surfboard and all. But that's beside the point.)

bluGill11• 6 years ago

A lot of it is what you know. Different areas support different lifestyles. You have learned to enjoy the things you can do in a city: restaurants, walking where other people are walking, concerts, shopping, people watching (not a complete list). In the country we substitute respectively: cooking, solitary walks, listening to wildlife, making our own things, and watching nature. Of course you can do anything from either list in either place if you want to, but it is much harder so you do it less. Even where you can do something from the other list, your environment places limits (My workshop is larger than most houses...)

If I took you out of the city and forced you to work for me as farm labor (yet somehow as a free person not a slave) you would hate the first year or two. However after a few years you would learn the things you can do in the country. One day you would find yourself shooting a deer off your back deck and realize that you used to think guns should be illegal...

zenxblr5• 6 years ago

I wrote this - thanks for posting it @happy-go-lucky

Yeah the subject is a little clickbaity but hey, as long as many do read it :p

And yep, this is from an Indian pov and for those with cash to spare looking to get involved again, but some of our experiences at TVC will likely be universally relevant.

Of course, it's a journey and we're still learning much.

gscott• 6 years ago

Not farming but if you get a chance to watch Homestead Rescue on Discovery it is great.

nbzso• 6 years ago

I am happy now. There is a hope. Now we are talking about real decentralisation. Make this way of thinking popular and use technology properly on a small scale and really good things will start to happen.:)

evidencecrime• 6 years ago

Buying a farm doesnt look like it is a bad idea. You just need to keep and healthy life and make sure not to be overloaded by the work load that there is, especially at the beginning. I think being a young farmer in 2020 can be difficult, but there is a possibility of bringing something new, some freshness into this depressed industry.

tim333• 6 years ago

Don’t do it in lieu of a mutual fund investment... Not for the “investment portfolio” your wealth advisor will track.

My dad bought a farm (UK) and it did far better as an investment than the wealth advisor "investment portfolio" in terms of capital appreciation. Also the UK has great tax breaks on farms. Just saying it can be a mistake to disregard that stuff.

nicbou2• 6 years ago

People vastly underestimate how much work "simple" lifestyles are.

It's the same with van life. It sounds great in practice, but simple things like showering, defecating and preserving food become very difficult.

I suspect that with farming or homesteading, you forego things like financial safety and the ability to take vacations. I value those things a lot.

In my opinion, the best way out is a lifestyle business, or spaced out consulting gigs. Work all winter, play all summer. Alternatively, spend a few hours a week on your project, and the rest of your time doing what interests you.

This is what I do, and it made me realise a few things:

- I really like programming when it's not for someone else. It's what I end up doing the most with my free time.

- The biggest benefit is having so much free time to fill with things you enjoy. This probably isn't the case if you try to live off what you grow.

- I don't spend nearly as much time in the garage as I thought. Woodworking or motorcycle repair are hard, and the initial setbacks are extremely demotivating. You won't hit the ground running, so you better prepare for disappointment.

My initial dream was to work on motorcycles all day, but I can barely find the courage to work on my daily ride, let alone the 40 year old Honda gumption trap that's spread all over the shelves. It's hard to jump from something you're proficient at to something that you completely suck at. I'm just glad that my life doesn't depend on it.

woohoo7676• 6 years ago

Woodworking or motorcycle repair are hard, and the initial setbacks are extremely demotivating. You won't hit the ground running, so you better prepare for disappointment.

This mirrors my experience as well - also there is a dollar cost to each try, and no undo button, which puts more pressure on each attempt.

I still enjoy doing hobby woodworking, but it's not quite as zen in the beginning as I imagined.

yazanobeidi• 6 years ago

The joy of construction comes from the difficulty of combining design thinking with entrepreneurial financial prudence and first principles engineering to overcome obstacles that (often) arise. And then of course, translating these ideas into tangible functional art. It is very much like software engineering, but as you say ; the stakes much higher.

0x445442• 6 years ago

Every read Matthew Crawford? If you haven't you might enjoy his work. In particular, Shop Class as Soulcraft.

nickthemagicman2• 6 years ago

Isn't that kind of lifestyle more luck than anything? You stumble onto something people want. Nothing you can plan for or take direct steps towards.

imglorp• 6 years ago

you forego things like financial safety and the ability to take vacations.

This sounds like there's a need for some kind of part-time deal.

* farm work share - maybe also called a kibbutz or commune - you can take vacations and share the ownership, work, and benefit

* farm-b-and-b - there's a regular owner keeping things on the rails but you can stay a week, eat fresh eggs and clean the barns, and then go home at the end

Frost1x• 6 years ago

As labor markets reduce financial safety through job instability and push for hypercompetitiveness, I'm not sure farming is any different than most peoples' jobs in terms of leisure time or financial stability.

My grandparents and relatives farmed quite a bit and I helped during summers. It's not glamorous but its less stressful than most positions I've recently worked in and has more opportunity to take necessary breaks.

driverdan4• 6 years ago

It's the same with van life. It sounds great in practice, but simple things like showering, defecating and preserving food become very difficult.

I have to both agree and disagree. I've been living in my converted bus for about 3.5 years. It's harder and more complex than living in a fixed location but it depends a lot on the setup of your vehicle and how you use it.

If you have a low end conversion with no shower or toilet it's a lot more complex, especially in COVID times with limited access to public facilities.

If you have an RV or something like my bus with a full conversion it's not bad. I have to refill my fresh water every 2-3 weeks, that's it.

The hardest part is dealing with repairs. Typically when something in your home needs repair you don't have to move out.

birdyrooster• 6 years ago

Are mobile mechanics not a thing for RV?

rjyoungling2• 6 years ago

Woodworking or motorcycle repair are hard, and the initial setbacks are extremely demotivating.

Out of curiosity, then how did you become a good software engineer? Doesn't programming follow that exact trajectory?

Excellent comment btw.

pixl97• 6 years ago

In wood working and software time is used by doing it. If you program software wrong you lose time by having to do it again. In woodworking you lose both time and materials.

nicbou2• 6 years ago

I have one simple secret: start 15 years ago

cafard• 6 years ago

Vacations. My father once said that a distant relative in Europe should come and visit the US. His remark was "Who will feed the cows?"

bluGill11• 6 years ago

Missing from the above is step one: go to your local university and learn how to farm. Every area is different so what is smart in one area is bad in another. This is why you need to find a local university: researchers there know what works in your area.

this article repeats a lot of common "sustainable farming" and "save the soil" type phases, but what most people think is sustainable is in fact harmful in the long run. Other things might be okay, but your local university knows something even better to build up your soil.

zenxblr5• 6 years ago

What the univs around here have been teaching have killed soils and the ecosystem to near collapse levels :/ There's a need for those who can afford to be patient for 4-5 years to try regenerative methods. And many farms have gotten there, esp given the tropical climate and monsoons that we have.

bluGill11• 6 years ago

There are many different universities so I have no idea which one you mean. However I do know that all the ones I know of are doing real scientific research into the question. They have been trying to spread what works.

Many of the things people think of as good actually harm soil, while what you think of as harming the soil may in fact harm it. Most of the people talking about Organic good are using their voice to make money, not spread the truth.

mhb• 6 years ago

I liked the movie The Biggest Little Farm about getting a farm running: https://www.biggestlittlefarmmovie.com/

Realistic? Idealistic? Impractical? I don't know and I'm sure others with more knowledge will comment, but I thought it was interesting and entertaining.

jelliclesfarm6• 6 years ago

Entertainment

jelliclesfarm6• 6 years ago

The article doesn’t even touch upon ground realities re labour issues. esp during covid times in India. Or on the ground practical challenges.

Hobby farmers in India should stick to fruit orchards(coconut/mango) or spices.

The govt incentivises small farmers a lot. Also, in India..you can’t buy farmland unless your family..father or grandfather has been a farmer or land owning farmer. Indian origin foreign citizens cannot buy farmland. Altho some states are trying to change it(Karnataka where Coorg is being one of them)

I am disappointed with this article. It has the opportunity to create new farmers and guide them but ended up like rah rah self help fluff piece.

known• 6 years ago

“I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world” —George Washington (b. 1732) https://archive.is/X0UJc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_Uni...

In my experience, farming is 24x7 hard work;

So you want to buy a farm?

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