America's Young Farmers Are Burning Out. I Quit, Too

https://time.com/6966324/america-young-farmers-exhaustion-essay/

by jelliclesfarm • 2 years ago

25 8 2 years ago

delichon• 2 years ago

I dunno, I've been simulating it with Farming Simulator 22 and it isn't that hard. The secret is to go the configs and turn off rocks, weeds and lime, and set the economy to Good. You could get the Government Subsidy mod for $100 Million per year but that's a bit cheaty. It turns out that sugar cane is very profitable and will grow anywhere, who knew. For the burnout problem try the autodrive and courseplay mods.

iancmceachern• 2 years ago

This sounds like SF city planners explaining a bike route or public access they designed. It's clear they've never actually ridden a bike through the route themselves. Not once.

he0001• 2 years ago

I think that this is a universal issue. Not just in SF this is happening. Sometimes it just looks like the planners never even been there.

downrightmike• 2 years ago

Our water distribution agreement wasn't made for climate change and will not survive climate change. California isn't good farmland if they don't have water. If we want it to be, we have to stop water intensive crops and prioritize the others.

defrost• 2 years ago

Lots of pressures, eg:

Farmers around the world to grow fewer grain crops as increased production costs narrow profit margins

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-04-18/global-grain-pr...

Why this WA farmer is digging a mass grave for 3000 sheep

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/why-th...

voakbasda• 2 years ago

Small farms are dying by design. The amount of regulations required to operate a farm and sell to the public are positively unbearable, unless you can operate at a scale that can no longer be called “small”.

I have been farming for a little over 10 years. I have pivoted many times, and I have yet to make anything approaching a living from my efforts. If not for my day job writing software, I would have lost the farm.

I currently am suffering serious farm-related burnout. I know the symptoms intimately, as I have burned out several times in the decades of my software career. I can’t just take a break, as I have herds that represent years of investment. My wife is not in the same headspace and doesn’t really understand burnout.

I have grown to hate the USDA, the state Ag department, the state water rights division, the local zoning department, and other departments too numerous to count. I hate the government (and the people that support it) for allowing big business to write the regulations that ruin everything for the little guy.

The food you buy in the grocery store is utter garbage. It’s only going to get worse and more expensive, and those profits are not going to end up at small farms. You reap what you sow, ‘murica….

Clubber• 2 years ago

Small farms are dying by design.

To make it real, during the Live Aid concerts in the 80s, there were an uncomfortable amount of farmers committing suicide due to losing their family farms of generations. Farmers hit the Great Depression in the 1920s and never really got out of it.

You reap what you sow, ‘murica….

Next time I vote, I'll be sure to look for the [ ] Not Corrupt checkbox on their campaign poster for the 1 - 2 candidates that are available to vote for.

All joking aside, the main thing a politician needs to get elected is name recognition. Name recognition can be obtained by lots of commercials which are very expensive. Politicians pay for commercials mainly by using corporate donors. Those corporate donors don't just write checks because they like someone, they expect reciprocity. Every politician whose name you recognize is most likely compromised due to this quid pro quo. Citizens don't have a chance.

The food you buy in the grocery store is utter garbage.

What makes it garbage, specifically produce? Time to market?

jelliclesfarm• 2 years ago

Same boat. Everything you said resonates. I lost my farm after 12 years. They terminated my land license on baseless ‘weeds’ allegations AFTER I informed them that I wouldn’t be available for ten days after surgery and that was my recuperation period.

I was out till May 21 last year. I mowed down my field on May 26. They sent me license violation letter on June 7th. And the ‘weeds’..it was cover crop(mustard).

And all this was by a California PUBLIC agency called ACRCD. I can’t even go into the full details here. What happens when you fall ill? And you farm land you don’t own? It’s gnarly and it’s by design.

My dim opinion of public employees enjoying great powers to destroy lives for their casual amusement got dimmer and is flaming hot now. And not one lawyer wants to touch this. You can’t fight the govt is what some of them told me. It’s like a circle jerk.

But I am older and I have lived my life and I have done other things. But..they are stealing young people’s best and most productive years. They are encouraging people to crash and burn with lame platitudes and setting them up for failure.

This is not going to end well. Not by a long shot.

And don’t get me started on the state of ‘Agtech’.

I think I will shut down the farm business by the end of the year.

America's Young Farmers Are Burning Out. I Quit, Too

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