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A lot of life is repetitive grunt work -- you make the bed, wash the dishes, do the laundry, clean the house, mow the lawn, wash the car, repair the house... and a myriad of other no-brain "valueless" tasks in a daily corporate job.
I really don't see much difference between losing a crop to bugs and weather after hours of toil, and losing your job to downsizing after hours of toil.
While I agree that it would be difficult for the OP to compete with large agribusiness on a small-scale farm, he hasn't come back to tell us whether he's truly looking to farm or homestead. If he's looking to farm, he may or may not be looking to make a profit, maybe breaking even or offsetting costs is enough for his situation. If he's looking at self-sufficient homesteading, it may well be worth the "costs" for him to produce his own food and be self-reliant rather than relying on someone else to provide his food for him.
This is certainly true. A forty or fifty hour workweek was a vacation for many of these folks. The kids were well aware of how hard their parents worked and how they had little reward. If you have animals, unless you have a hired hand or other resource, caring for those animals is something that can keep you pinned to a farm more securely than a butterfly pinned to a display case. They need care 365 days a year, often more than once or twice a day. Does the OP realize this? Somehow I think not. I've seen too many wide-eyed innocents lulled into "natural man" nonsense by glossy magazine articles.
What does this have to do with your initial statement that there is no such thing as a self-sufficient farm?
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Tyson has gone into prepackaged foods which have a higher rate of return. In doing so it has put severe pressure on Pilgrim's Pride, another supplier which did not follow that path. It isn't $20 worth of chicken though, it is $1 worth of chicken combined additional processing, added ingredients, clever packaging, and an advertising budget that would buy a Senator or two. The distribution and retail sales then make up the rest.
You keep hearing about this retail and marketing channels expenditure.... If you are smart, ambitious and hard-working AND you live near a market of sufficient size (a city), you don't need all those huge expenditures - all you need is a REAL product that's fresh and flavorful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
I'll stand by my initial statement. Unless you want that last Atlanta rooster from GWTW, you can't buy the chick, provide the mash, keep it safe from hawks and coyotes and dogs and diseases, and consistently come out ahead financially compared to buying a broiler. That doesn't take into account any time or labor on your part.
Maybe this statement holds true for a antibiotic laden, hormone grown, boxed and debeaked chicken. It does not hold true for a REAL free-range grown and fed chicken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
You can offset some costs. If you have a market garden and a CSA group or LOYAL customers, you might even make a few dollars once you eliminate labor costs. As for making a real living at it, paying for health insurance, a vehicle, taxes, and so forth, your chances are miniscule.
Depends on your lifestyle. If everything you own is paid for, you can definitely make a decent living. No, you will not be owning a 6 ft TV or driving "the ultimate driving machine" but if that is your goal, you can always start your way up as a teller at a Bank...
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
One of the big gotchas that the newbies don't know is that every supplier to the tiny farmer or gardener has to have a big mark-up to stay in business. If you are working a market garden, chances are you aren't out with a hoe from dusk to dawn, but have equipment that costs money, requires fuel, and likes to break down. You have to purchase seeds unless you work diligently to keep heirloom varieties from cross pollination and spend more hours in the task of gathering seeds.
I did our garden here for a couple of years before I got smart and started writing down every expense and the amount of time spent. It was an eye opener to say the least.
Again, what does the above have to do with your initial statement that there is no such thing as a self-sufficient farm? You are talking about a commercial business as I can see from your above statements...
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
In general, my most reliable and prolific crop was blue lake green beans. We would freeze or can them, and easily had enough to see us through a couple of years. Cost of bean seeds, cost of tilling, cost of pumps for watering, cost of a minimal amount of Sevin to kill Mexican Bean Beetles and leaf hoppers, cost of fuel for the tiller and cost of processing fuel and equipment all added up. Then I discovered that if I shopped properly, I could buy canned blue lake beans at fifty cents or less per can, and skip the whole routine and hours of labor.
And have no idea where and how those things were grown. If that's your prerogative, that's fine . Again, this has nothing to do with self-sufficiency and farming in my mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
I totally agree with what you said, but I find the very concept of dismissing the loss of time on earth through the repetitive labor of what is essentially grunt work, to be troubling. I can see the value in learning it and experiencing it for a while, but otherwise there is, by definition, a lot of wasted effort. When a crop fails due to bugs or weather or pests or conditions, you have no value for your labor.
You said there is no such thing as a self-sufficient farm. I think you are confused and meant to say "no such thing as a self-sufficient COMMERCIAL farm"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
You are mixing the idea of closed-cycle ecology with farming. The Biosphere experiments pretty much showed that for all practical purposes, such closed-cycles don't work or if they do work, control is next to impossible. Recycling manure - did you know that there is a practice of feeding chicken litter to cattle as cheap feed? It is sound on an energy/cost basis, but is fraught with problems due to imbalances that can occur.
The only thing I do on my (almost self-sufficient) farm is feed chicken manure to the Earth. The Earth produces stuff that can be fed either to me or cattle. Now, if you are talking commercial farming, people have fed all sorts of stuff to livestock and I am sure if you knew the extent of what was fed, you would turn vegetarian in an instant
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
I agree that growing and raising your own food has merit, and that merit is not easily expressed in monetary terms. My point is that anyone going into such a project is better off going in fully informed and not reliant only upon the pap that gets printed or posted online. Dealing with such conundrums as dropped off household pets, which can either die the horrible death that nature usually supplies, or gang together in packs to kill livestock, is only one of the unpleasantries that can be part of that "natural man" experience.
"Going green" and "being self-sufficient" are buzzwords and big business nowadays. A lot of people make a living telling others how to be self-sufficient. Yet, all this still does not mean that you cannot have a self-sufficient farm just like you could two hundred years ago . What it does mean is that most people are unwilling to do the back-breaking labor for an ideal when all they can do is spend a $1 on a broiler and $.50 on a can of beans (and close their eyes to where it came from and how it was raised). You trade security for convenience - ultimately it is YOUR choice
There is such a thing as a self-sufficient farm. Also, you are not competing with the agri-business, there is plenty of space for everyone, especially if you are smart.
Now, if you intend to make your living selling produce, you need to be within a 50 mile radius of a large market. If you are in the middle of nowhere, just transporting the stuff will cost you an arm and a leg. But, that has nothing to do with self-sufficiency.
If you were set up in the right area, you could produce what you need to survive. Been done before many times.
Nearings were just one example of people who could write and wanted to write about their experience. There are many examples of people who just homestead, even today, fully self-sufficient. They just don't boast about it - since self-sufficiency is not a business to them.
OD
I do agree with you in principle. I would add, however, that our societal "machine" in general and our government in particular make the lifestyle very difficult to attain--not because of the hard work involved in the lifestyle, but because our infrastructure nearly dictates dependency and our government regulates, taxes, and fees the hell out of anyone striving for sufficiency. It's as if they place as large a barrier as possible standing in the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
Good point but I think the whole idea behind it, from SCG's viewpoint, is that someone may end up with a lot less "time on earth" due to lack of food from the usual sources (which I admit are cheaper and easier), than if they engaged in a little "repetitive grunt work" to be sure they had a supply. You seem to be comparing present good times with likely future hard times, which is like apples to oranges. Only if we sail placidly over the rough seas, would your observations be valid.
As for me, I'll gradly engage in a little repetitive grunt work to see that we all have something to eat!
Extending beyond what you've said...
//RANT ON
I'd gladly work ten times harder to sustain/fund myself than to waste away in a "nest" that is no more than a cage that has been decorated, adorned, and advertised as "opportunity." Sorry for ruffling a bunch of feathers here (as I know this will--I always do when I get on this topic), but our leisure culture is not all that it's cracked up to be for some of us. For some, it's an infernal waste of time on the planet--and unfortunately for some... it has taken over half our lives to realize it. You tell me what's so much more appealing to being a cog in a wheel at some factory or cubicle somewhere? Just so you can play golf on Sundays? Or eat Thai on Wednesday nights?
I realize that we are all different in our thoughts, interests, and philosophies. But it just doesn't work for some of us. At this point, I'm working my tushy off saving enough cash to withdraw from our 'societal machine' as completely as I can. Getting to a point where a sustainable outside income will only require part-time employment for a low wage, if even that. Right now it sucks, though. I live one or two days a week; the rest of the week, I am "dead." On those one or two days a week, I engage in the tasks I will be doing in the future as closely as I can--canning, building, practicing, working on skills, spending time foraging in the mountains/wilderness, learning about wild foods, and generally "decompressing." The rest of the week is a write-off of sold time.
So keeping these charming things in mind... , my advice to the OP is, before you become like me--bitter and fed up--like I and others have already said, start off small, but DO IT while you are young! Don't wait until you lose your drive to a society that entices you to become a debt slave, leisure addict, consumption derelict, and do things their way... and then one day you find a good chunk of your life completely wasted on things you've never really given a damn about in the first place. Because once you are older (like me), you'll find that everything you want to do is painfully delayed and you'll feel like you are walking around with a bunch of balls and chains around your ankles. If a sufficient lifestyle is what you want in life, do it NOW in the spring of your life--focus like a laser, don't waste time/money, don't listen to naysayers, and stay focused. If you make a few mistakes along the way... well, that's how we learn, right?
RANT OFF//
There are a lot of things you can start doing right now even if you live in an urban environment--find them and get started. That's what I've been doing, but things will come together much faster for you when you are young and not as "integrated into the system." Just keep at it.
"Going green" and "being self-sufficient" are buzzwords and big business nowadays. A lot of people make a living telling others how to be self-sufficient. Yet, all this still does not mean that you cannot have a self-sufficient farm just like you could two hundred years ago . What it does mean is that most people are unwilling to do the back-breaking labor for an ideal when all they can do is spend a $1 on a broiler and $.50 on a can of beans (and close their eyes to where it came from and how it was raised). You trade security for convenience - ultimately it is YOUR choice
OD
And that's the crux of the biscuit.
If green beans start going for $1.00 a can, will that change your mind about cost-effectiveness? $2.00?? $3.00?? or if they become unavailable at all??
I'd rather spend a lot of time and effort growing something that I KNOW where it comes from, I am SURE what was used on it, I am confident that I can save seeds from it and plant more next year, even if all of the seed companies are bought out by Monsanto or all of the seeds are bought up by Ted Turner (who invested millions in the International Seed Bank). Do they know something we don't - or are they just simply preparing to be on top of the food chain in the event something happens?
You can't just plow up a garden plot, throw seeds in, and expect to raise a crop year after year - you have to work at it, experience all of the pitfalls and downfalls - everything from late snows to early snows, bug infestations to hailstorms and tornadoes - and know what your possibilities/probabilities are; as well as your soil composition and water availability. You don't learn that from books, no matter how many you read, you learn by doing. And doing it now when it is relatively easy will make a difference when you might be the only one in 50 miles who saved seed...
Allow me to start off by saying that if you want to debate, great. If you want to turn the discussion into a high-ammonia content fertilizer distance contest, I've got better things to do.
You repeatedly ask why I say there is no such thing as a self-sufficent farm. You deserve an answer.
A true self-sufficient farm requires NO outside input once up and operating. If you want to claim that one year of crops makes a farm, you dodge the question. A farm that runs ten or twenty years without anything from the outside (worst case scenario - TEOTWAWKI) would be semi-self-sufficient. One that could operate for forty or more years would be a true self-sufficient operation.
Start listing what is needed for a farm - not a scratch a living out of the soil freehold like that of some peasant with a short lifespan.
You need viable seed over a period of years. Unless you have heirloom seeds and save them and use them, you are not self-sufficient. Any hybrid plant is a one-off.
For animals, you need reliable breeding stock in sufficient numbers that you don't inbreed. If you "borrow" a bull or semen, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you have chickens, you need to keep a significant flock throughout all disasters and diseases. If you buy chicks or even fertilized eggs, you aren't self-sufficient.
To keep many soils viable, you have to at least have immediate access to lime or greenstone. If you pay to have those trucked in, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you use machinery and you have to buy a single part, or a quart of fuel, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you want to reliably combat insect predation, you have to have access to substances that will slow or stop them. I don't care if it is eco-friendly stuff or chemicals from a chemical plant. If you have to buy it, you aren't self-sufficient.
You have to have constant labor available that knows how to do the work and not accidentally destroy it. If that labor does not live on site and from only the fruits of the farm, you aren't self-sufficient.
You have to have access to medical and veterinary care. If you don't do it yourself, you aren't self-sufficient.
Too many people have a loose interpretation of self-sufficiency and lose sight of all the interdependencies that make relative self-sufficiency possible. IF you could take your seeds and equipment to an island like Pitcairn, and live without aid for a couple of generations like those folks did, then I would grant that you had self-sufficiency. You might read the story of the Bounty and the life on Pitcairn after they destroyed the ship. By the time they were discovered, devolution had set in and the people were on the way back to savagery. THAT is your self-sufficiency in full flower.
You keep hearing about this retail and marketing channels expenditure.... If you are smart, ambitious and hard-working AND you live near a market of sufficient size (a city), you don't need all those huge expenditures - all you need is a REAL product that's fresh and flavorful.
WRONG. You can have the most wonderful food on the planet but if you don't have the customers, the food license, the tax forms, the business license, and a place to sell the stuff, you are S.OaL. If you want to try selling without that, you'll find yourself facing some irritated government types.
Me: I'll stand by my initial statement. Unless you want that last Atlanta rooster from GWTW, you can't buy the chick, provide the mash, keep it safe from hawks and coyotes and dogs and diseases, and consistently come out ahead financially compared to buying a broiler. That doesn't take into account any time or labor on your part.
Maybe this statement holds true for a antibiotic laden, hormone grown, boxed and debeaked chicken. It does not hold true for a REAL free-range grown and fed chicken.
<sigh> Have you ever been within a hundred yards of a broiler house? I've been in them. The "hormone" you are talking about is the same "hormone" that is in your organic tofu. It is illegal to grow broilers using artificial hormones. You either have no idea what you are talking about or you do, and you are purposely lying to make your point. Neither is very impressive to me. So you are saying that you don't have to spend any time or effort keeping your free range birds safe? I think I just figured out which of the two options in the previous sentence is the fact.
Me: You can offset some costs. If you have a market garden and a CSA group or LOYAL customers, you might even make a few dollars once you eliminate labor costs. As for making a real living at it, paying for health insurance, a vehicle, taxes, and so forth, your chances are miniscule.
Depends on your lifestyle. If everything you own is paid for, you can definitely make a decent living. No, you will not be owning a 6 ft TV or driving "the ultimate driving machine" but if that is your goal, you can always start your way up as a teller at a Bank...
To have a lifestyle, you have to stay alive. The local hospital wanted to charge me over $700 for three x-rays, even though I have a high deductible policy and had an insurance company "negotiating" lower rates for me. Your sarcasm gets lost around age 60, when even the CHEAPEST high deductible policy you can get STARTS at around $300 per month. Remember that if you work a farm, that is about the time your body starts breaking down, or getting melanoma from all the time in the sun. If you work on a farm and have no income, good luck on that big social security check when you retire. You have to show years of work, pay-ins and credits to get that check. yeah yeah, social security is going to die. Cry me a river. It hasn't, it would be political suicide to kill it, and drop the budget for a dozen military planes and you can fund it for decades.
Again, what does the above have to do with your initial statement that there is no such thing as a self-sufficient farm? You are talking about a commercial business as I can see from your above statements...
Larger question answered above. I was pointing out personal experience - which in my mind trumps any fantasy farming.
Me: I could buy canned blue lake beans at fifty cents or less per can, and skip the whole routine and hours of labor.
And have no idea where and how those things were grown. If that's your prerogative, that's fine . Again, this has nothing to do with self-sufficiency and farming in my mind.
Those "things" are still green beans. You are wandering off into eco-nut land. Have you ever been to your local water plant to see where your tap water comes from? They put chemicals in it, you know. Have you ever eaten out at a restaurant? Do you grill the guy at the grill where the food comes from? Do you ever shop at a store for anything food related? Your response is specious flummery.
You said there is no such thing as a self-sufficient farm. I think you are confused and meant to say "no such thing as a self-sufficient COMMERCIAL farm"?
Answered at the beginning.
The only thing I do on my (almost self-sufficient) farm is feed chicken manure to the Earth. The Earth produces stuff that can be fed either to me or cattle. Now, if you are talking commercial farming, people have fed all sorts of stuff to livestock and I am sure if you knew the extent of what was fed, you would turn vegetarian in an instant
As a type O blood type with food sensitivities, there is no chance of that happening and my surviving. Sorry to burst your veggie world bubble.
"Going green" and "being self-sufficient" are buzzwords and big business nowadays. A lot of people make a living telling others how to be self-sufficient. Yet, all this still does not mean that you cannot have a self-sufficient farm just like you could two hundred years ago . What it does mean is that most people are unwilling to do the back-breaking labor for an ideal when all they can do is spend a $1 on a broiler and $.50 on a can of beans (and close their eyes to where it came from and how it was raised). You trade security for convenience - ultimately it is YOUR choice
My uncle took over the family farm. (It has been in our family for about 200 years.) He wasn't much older than me and he died a few years back. Word was that towards the end his ears looked like he had been in a dogfight from all the cutting to remove the cancers. His son now runs the farm. He looks about thirty years older than me, and I don't think he can afford ANY health insurance. He almost lost the farm a few times; had to switch to goats for a while, then back to cows, and do custom cutting at all hours and have his wife work off-the-farm to make ends meet. Don't fly that stupid "security" flag in my face. I'll tear it down and stomp on it. Farming is NOT a secure business to be in and you know it.
I don't take your remarks personally, and I hope you don't take my strong rebuttals personally either. My point in doing so is to knock some sense into airheaded ideas on how you can quit society and live on Walden Pond. Shoot, even there his mother supported him and was the source of much of his literary output.
A true self-sufficient farm requires NO outside input once up and operating. If you want to claim that one year of crops makes a farm, you dodge the question. A farm that runs ten or twenty years without anything from the outside (worst case scenario - TEOTWAWKI) would be semi-self-sufficient. One that could operate for forty or more years would be a true self-sufficient operation.
Your not-so-distant ancestors did this in perpetuity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
You need viable seed over a period of years. Unless you have heirloom seeds and save them and use them, you are not self-sufficient. Any hybrid plant is a one-off.
For animals, you need reliable breeding stock in sufficient numbers that you don't inbreed. If you "borrow" a bull or semen, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you have chickens, you need to keep a significant flock throughout all disasters and diseases. If you buy chicks or even fertilized eggs, you aren't self-sufficient.
To keep many soils viable, you have to at least have immediate access to lime or greenstone. If you pay to have those trucked in, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you use machinery and you have to buy a single part, or a quart of fuel, you aren't self-sufficient.
If you want to reliably combat insect predation, you have to have access to substances that will slow or stop them. I don't care if it is eco-friendly stuff or chemicals from a chemical plant. If you have to buy it, you aren't self-sufficient.
You have to have constant labor available that knows how to do the work and not accidentally destroy it. If that labor does not live on site and from only the fruits of the farm, you aren't self-sufficient.
You have to have access to medical and veterinary care. If you don't do it yourself, you aren't self-sufficient.
Hang on, are we talking here about a farm that feeds a village or a farm that feeds a family? If you are feeding a family you need no machinery, you need no chemicals and you definitely need not have that many animals. Yes, you need to have a few good horses and a few good cows with a good bull. Your basic large garden can sustain you for everything else. Plus a field to grow corn or wheat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Too many people have a loose interpretation of self-sufficiency and lose sight of all the interdependencies that make relative self-sufficiency possible. IF you could take your seeds and equipment to an island like Pitcairn, and live without aid for a couple of generations like those folks did, then I would grant that you had self-sufficiency. You might read the story of the Bounty and the life on Pitcairn after they destroyed the ship. By the time they were discovered, devolution had set in and the people were on the way back to savagery. THAT is your self-sufficiency in full flower.
We agree on this. Read on below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
WRONG. You can have the most wonderful food on the planet but if you don't have the customers, the food license, the tax forms, the business license, and a place to sell the stuff, you are S.OaL. If you want to try selling without that, you'll find yourself facing some irritated government types.
Again, you are talking about a commercial farm here. That's not your initial statement - you said you cannot have a self-sufficient farm. I said you can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
<sigh> Have you ever been within a hundred yards of a broiler house? I've been in them. The "hormone" you are talking about is the same "hormone" that is in your organic tofu. It is illegal to grow broilers using artificial hormones. You either have no idea what you are talking about or you do, and you are purposely lying to make your point. Neither is very impressive to me. So you are saying that you don't have to spend any time or effort keeping your free range birds safe? I think I just figured out which of the two options in the previous sentence is the fact.
Yes. I have also been on an organic, grain fed, free range chicken facility (a real one and true to all the big words used in this sentence) - it is VASTLY different than your Tyson contracted chicken production facility. Now, you almost called me a liar here but forget that - go see one of them places that sell their chickens to Tyson - dead animals on the floor, overcrowding, they never see the light of day, have to be fed antibiotics etc...
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
To have a lifestyle, you have to stay alive. The local hospital wanted to charge me over $700 for three x-rays, even though I have a high deductible policy and had an insurance company "negotiating" lower rates for me. Your sarcasm gets lost around age 60, when even the CHEAPEST high deductible policy you can get STARTS at around $300 per month. Remember that if you work a farm, that is about the time your body starts breaking down, or getting melanoma from all the time in the sun. If you work on a farm and have no income, good luck on that big social security check when you retire. You have to show years of work, pay-ins and credits to get that check. yeah yeah, social security is going to die. Cry me a river. It hasn't, it would be political suicide to kill it, and drop the budget for a dozen military planes and you can fund it for decades.
Self-sufficiency entails loss of convenience and higher mortality risks. I think you are a bit confused and are trying to place the self-sufficiency concept in the framework of today's world. Yes, being poor AND self-sufficient may exclude you from the hospital visits and you may die because you could not afford the X-ray. However, NOT being self-sufficient and being poor may result in the same. Self-sufficiency has nothing with what you are talking about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Those "things" are still green beans. You are wandering off into eco-nut land. Have you ever been to your local water plant to see where your tap water comes from? They put chemicals in it, you know. Have you ever eaten out at a restaurant? Do you grill the guy at the grill where the food comes from? Do you ever shop at a store for anything food related? Your response is specious flummery.
Again, being self-sufficient would exclude restaurant visits and buying food at the grocery store so I honestly don't see your point. The tap water? If you lived somewhere in the middle of nowhere on 20 acres, you would most likely have a well. Not that the well would be guaranteed to dispense clean water but some things you cannot control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
My uncle took over the family farm. (It has been in our family for about 200 years.) He wasn't much older than me and he died a few years back. Word was that towards the end his ears looked like he had been in a dogfight from all the cutting to remove the cancers. His son now runs the farm. He looks about thirty years older than me, and I don't think he can afford ANY health insurance. He almost lost the farm a few times; had to switch to goats for a while, then back to cows, and do custom cutting at all hours and have his wife work off-the-farm to make ends meet. Don't fly that stupid "security" flag in my face. I'll tear it down and stomp on it. Farming is NOT a secure business to be in and you know it.
I think we are talking about two different things since you go talking about the farm being a business. I am talking about someone on 20-30 acres of good land, some of it wooded, some not, building their own house, growing their own veggies, grain and meet and living without outside interference or dependence on the outside world, INCLUDING the flawed medical system or running some kind of a business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
I don't take your remarks personally, and I hope you don't take my strong rebuttals personally either. My point in doing so is to knock some sense into airheaded ideas on how you can quit society and live on Walden Pond. Shoot, even there his mother supported him and was the source of much of his literary output.
Nah, why would I get offended, you have strong opinions. Anyways, I just think we are talking different things - in my world the person owns his land and has built his domicile, works his own land and provides everything for his family. He may need the local doctor but he does not have the money to afford one, sadly. This person doesn't pay homeowners insurance (they own their land outright), neither do they pay car insurance since they don't own a car. They live in a place where property tax is extremely low. There is no such thing as a fully cut-off life from the world - when I talk about self-sufficiency I mean as much as possible (complete food, water, energy and transportation independence).
"Anyways, I just think we are talking different things - in my world the person owns his land and has built his domicile, works his own land and provides everything for his family. He may need the local doctor but he does not have the money to afford one, sadly. This person doesn't pay homeowners insurance (they own their land outright), neither do they pay car insurance since they don't own a car. They live in a place where property tax is extremely low. There is no such thing as a fully cut-off life from the world - when I talk about self-sufficiency I mean as much as possible (complete food, water, energy and transportation independence)."
We own our land and domicile. I use a doctor rarely for the reasons stated above. I don't pay homeowner insurance. I pay a minimal amount of car insurance because that is a reality. We live in a place where property tax is extremely low. We have our own water. We tried the food independence and it didn't make sense. Guess who has walked the walk?
Your not-so-distant ancestors did this in perpetuity.
Hang on, are we talking here about a farm that feeds a village or a farm that feeds a family? If you are feeding a family you need no machinery, you need no chemicals and you definitely need not have that many animals. Yes, you need to have a few good horses and a few good cows with a good bull. Your basic large garden can sustain you for everything else. Plus a field to grow corn or wheat.
We agree on this. Read on below.
Again, you are talking about a commercial farm here. That's not your initial statement - you said you cannot have a self-sufficient farm. I said you can.
Yes. I have also been on an organic, grain fed, free range chicken facility (a real one and true to all the big words used in this sentence) - it is VASTLY different than your Tyson contracted chicken production facility. Now, you almost called me a liar here but forget that - go see one of them places that sell their chickens to Tyson - dead animals on the floor, overcrowding, they never see the light of day, have to be fed antibiotics etc...
Self-sufficiency entails loss of convenience and higher mortality risks. I think you are a bit confused and are trying to place the self-sufficiency concept in the framework of today's world. Yes, being poor AND self-sufficient may exclude you from the hospital visits and you may die because you could not afford the X-ray. However, NOT being self-sufficient and being poor may result in the same. Self-sufficiency has nothing with what you are talking about.
Again, being self-sufficient would exclude restaurant visits and buying food at the grocery store so I honestly don't see your point. The tap water? If you lived somewhere in the middle of nowhere on 20 acres, you would most likely have a well. Not that the well would be guaranteed to dispense clean water but some things you cannot control.
I think we are talking about two different things since you go talking about the farm being a business. I am talking about someone on 20-30 acres of good land, some of it wooded, some not, building their own house, growing their own veggies, grain and meet and living without outside interference or dependence on the outside world, INCLUDING the flawed medical system or running some kind of a business.
Nah, why would I get offended, you have strong opinions. Anyways, I just think we are talking different things - in my world the person owns his land and has built his domicile, works his own land and provides everything for his family. He may need the local doctor but he does not have the money to afford one, sadly. This person doesn't pay homeowners insurance (they own their land outright), neither do they pay car insurance since they don't own a car. They live in a place where property tax is extremely low. There is no such thing as a fully cut-off life from the world - when I talk about self-sufficiency I mean as much as possible (complete food, water, energy and transportation independence).
OD
It's a very common thing these days to confuse farming for business purposes and farming as in self-sufficiency. It's just that there is so much less "sufficiency farming" or subsistence farming these days that many people don't understand the concept or goal. And they certainly don't understand why it would appeal to anyone in our gadget/toy/leisure based society.
My grandfather (Yeah, here we go again with my grandfather ) was basically a subsistence farmer, or at least close to it. He never had any money to speak of, but he always had food on the table. He worked his butt off... for himself and his family, not some corporation or big business. He did sell some of his grain and alfalfa to buy or trade for the things that he could not produce on the farm, but it was a small farm and it was essentially a sufficient farm.
Sufficiency does not mean that EVERYTHING is produced on the farm. He didn't have an iron mine or steel mill on the farm. He didn't have a coal mine. He didn't have an equipment or automobile factory. He wasn't a gunsmith. Didn't have saltpeter. Didn't have a furniture factory. He couldn't make his own kerosene. Wasn't a doctor.
That's an unrealistic requirement. You don't need to make/have everything on your farm to be sufficient. The general idea is that you need very little money from outside employment or otherwise because you produce much of what you need on your own and you really just don't need that much money in general. It's a different way of living. And nobody said it was an easy lifestyle. It has very little in common with our modern lifestyle. My grandfather only traveled out of the region once or twice in his entire life--didn't even know what a vacation was like. Never played golf. Hardly ever ate anything away from his farm. Had none of the activities we call "leisure" these days that I know of. He was busy from sunup to sundown pretty much every day. It's not for everyone. No mystery there.
But the mysterious thing I've noticed is that for those folks it doesn't appeal to, they for some reason feel they need to discredit it or brand it as impossible. Or come off with the "peasant dying at 23 years old" thing. My grandfather lived to be over 90 and grandmother nearly 90. I never remember my grandfather going to a doctor until he was way up into his 80's, except for the time he nearly blew his foot off with a shotgun. But work didn't kill him. Reasonable physical work never hurt or killed anyone.
thanks everyone very much for all of the advice. the reason i was asking this question was to get some suggestions and a decent reality check. the reason i thought 80 acres is because ive always liked the idea of having a small farm but with the ammount of money it would take it sounds like that would have to be a much more long term goal. with what you all said im thinking 10-20 acres with a house already on it would probably be a much smarter idea. the only reason i mention 3 bedrooms is because i plan on having kids a while down the line. would it be possible to just have two horses and use the rest to gorw some winter feed for sheep and chickens and have some land to graze the sheep? how well would potatoes grow in a montana climate?
"Anyways, I just think we are talking different things - in my world the person owns his land and has built his domicile, works his own land and provides everything for his family. He may need the local doctor but he does not have the money to afford one, sadly. This person doesn't pay homeowners insurance (they own their land outright), neither do they pay car insurance since they don't own a car. They live in a place where property tax is extremely low. There is no such thing as a fully cut-off life from the world - when I talk about self-sufficiency I mean as much as possible (complete food, water, energy and transportation independence)."
We own our land and domicile. I use a doctor rarely for the reasons stated above. I don't pay homeowner insurance. I pay a minimal amount of car insurance because that is a reality. We live in a place where property tax is extremely low. We have our own water. We tried the food independence and it didn't make sense. Guess who has walked the walk?
I'm going to have to side with Harry here because he's talking about the same problems and economic realities that have been leading people to leave farm life for the big city for generations. I know exactly two full time farmers and neither one is self sufficient but by specializing in just one thing (one owns a vineyard and makes wine while the other grows exclusively nuts and olives) they can make ends meet (if with difficulty) and both of them have their spouse work in the cash economy in order to bring home extra money not dependent upon the farm.
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And that's the crux of the biscuit.
) was basically a subsistence farmer, or at least close to it. He never had any money to speak of, but he always had food on the table. He worked his butt off... for himself and his family, not some corporation or big business. He did sell some of his grain and alfalfa to buy or trade for the things that he could not produce on the farm, but it was a small farm and it was essentially a sufficient farm. 
