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I've known many dairy farmers. 7 day a week job. Cows have to be milked 2x a day, every day without fail. I can't say about crops, but farming is generally not easy work.
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Originally Posted by Bygeorge
Farmer is the last one to get a paycheck. Tractor/implement dealership, tax man, seed supply, fertilizer sales, consultant for soil testing, insurance company, bank, herbicide/pesticide folks, fuel supplier, veterinarian, hardware store, extra labor depending on crop types and more.
Good luck with your dreams.
Good points.
My parents were married in 1942 and my mother died in 1992. During their 50 years of marriage my parents had two one night overnight trips (both to attend weddings), other than that they worked seven days per week and fifty-two weeks per year.
Hmmm. two days of vacation when you work for over 18,000 days? Is that what you want to do? That's the life of a dairy farmer.
The vast majority of people are talking about how dairy farming is very heavily schedule-oriented. I can assure you, though I have nothing against dairy farmers, that that's probably the very last type of farming I could imagine doing.
Years ago I had a dairy. I will never do that again
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... The type of farming I could see myself doing is a larger-scale version of what I'm doing now. Fruits, vegetables, chickens...
Chickens? No, Purdue, Foster Farms and a few others have tweaked that one, you can not compete.
Those are HUGE operations, and as soon as the diseases get too bad, they are abandoned, forever. Move on and setup again on new land.
Farmers I see who can support families mostly do veggies.
Maple does okay but again for 6-weeks a year you are busy around the clock
I have maples and fiddleheads, both do okay.
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... I have no experience with large animals and I probably wouldn't want to have them. I could see a work horse or two... maybe goats... but cows? I know nothing about cows or any other beef cattle.
My father stuck to cattle. He never made any scratch.
I breed pigs and do okay, but not real good.
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... I'm not thinking about doing a huge-scale farm.
My father was caught up in the "Get big, or get out" mantra.
Some made it. My father did not. My brother-in-law did though he lucked out.
Where I am now, small is good.
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... I don't need a lot of money and I don't really want to have a lot of expensive equipment that could break down. What I really want is to be able to weather any upcoming storm. To be able to feed my family into perpetuity, keep a roof over their heads even if I'm always the one who keeps the roof in good repair, and to make a few bucks here and there - enough to get by, with a bit to save, never having to be beholden to a boss who would fire me just to keep his job or other people whose often capricious decisions mean the difference between whether or not I get to make money.
I see a lot of farmers doing just that.
Farming to support their family.
Knuckle draggers will call you names, hobby farmer or gentleman farming, whatever. If you do it full-time and support your family than you are a farmer, like the rest of us.
They are trying to lure you into the 'get big' mantra.
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... Who says I'd pay much in tax? If I don't make much money, there's not much tax to pay. But admittedly, the tax man is always there... because productivity must always be punished to reward idleness.
Taxes are the same is ALL businesses.
Those who EZ-1040 pay the most.
Those you take the time to study taxes, avoid taxes.
When I was a teen our highschool had an income tax class required for graduation. It assumed that each of us was a farmer, gee I can't imagine why. 8 years later, my wife and I took a few classes on taxes and I have not paid a dime into Income Taxation since that was 1983. Income taxes are for the slow minded who EZ-form it. Once you learn to itemize, you will never pay that junk again.
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... Fertilizer? I'd be doing it organically, so the only fertilizer I'd buy is animal poop.
I get all of mine from neighbors who board horses. free.
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... Who knows. Some place with a long growing season but relatively mild summers would be ideal.
Beware of droughts.
My kin farmed in Kanasa, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, droughts chased them out of that area.
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... Water is not a concern right now.
It will be.
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... 5 acres sounds good. Maybe 10. I doubt I'd want to do more than 20 or so - by that point you need to have huge tractors and what not. I'd prefer to have an amount of property I could farm with only small motorized machines... or, heck, just work horses.
In this area, 4-5 acres is the absolute smallest you can go and still support a family.
10 acres is better.
Not fully understanding all of this, before I moved here we bought 150 acres and most of it we really do not need.
... Farming can't be all bad, though. Somehow we all get food, and that all has to be produced by farmers.
Nationwide there are fewer farms each year.
There are a few states that have more farms each year. My state is one of those. Farming is growing here.
But it is small scale farming without the bells and whistles.
I know a few current dairymen. Some are barely scrapping by, those who are doing okay and are into making artisan cheese. Different kinds of cheeses with each season. During maple season they make a maple cheese. During blueberries they make blueberry cheese, etc.
You know, these threads about how someone wants to get into self-sufficient farming crop up (pun intended ) all the time on CD, mostly in the "Rural" sub-forum, sometimes in the prepper sub-forum, and sometimes here. And the OP of each of these threads always seems to think that the issues we bring up won't apply to them.
I say, go ahead and try it. Then get back to us in 5 years. The likelihood is that your spouse will be working full time in a job with a boss and a schedule to support your dream "subsistence" farm. But go ahead and try it; at least your life will be interesting.
There are lots of organizations that support small farmers. Some include https://mosesorganic.org , landstewardshipproject.org (I went through their "farm beginnings" program, which I strongly recommend), Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program - Grants and Education and thelandconnection.org (they have a farm beginnings program too.) Looks like there are some Ohio specific ones like Begin Farming Ohio - Welcome. And don't forget to use your county extension office heavily - they are there to help farmers. Extension is better in some states than others, but use them as much as you can.
I guess my point is that you're more likely to succeed if you learn as much as you can before you start and continue to learn as you go.
But I still bet that one of you will be working off-farm full time to support your dream small farm.
My parents both came from farm families. One parent came from a family of 5 children, the other from a family of 9 children. Not one child from either family became a farmer.
My parents did have a small farm as newlyweds...& each had an outside job as well. They quit farming after about 3 years, & never had so much as a vegetable garden, or one animal after that.
On one side of the family, the oldest child was killed in a horrible farming accident...at age 9 years!
It really didn't sound like such a great life...in fact, my parents never wanted to talk about it.
Oh, yeah, my first job during high school was cleaning out turkey coops. No, thank you!
If you are not into it for the money, then growing fruits, veg, chickens, etc. can be very relaxing. Just don't confuse it with 'farming'. I live semi-rural and all my neighbors have paid jobs. Most of them also have a small garden for summer veggies and seem to be proud to grow good produce and keep the garden looking attractive. Because it is a hobby, and they are not dependent on it, they can relax if things go wrong. What goes wrong? Drought, hurricane flooding, insect pests, someone gets laid up physically, whatever. But while they are disappointed, they can take it in stride since they still have income and can go to the market and buy what they have lost. The point is, someone needs another type of job as a back up (and especially so the family can have health insurance!).
You know, these threads about how someone wants to get into self-sufficient farming crop up (pun intended ) all the time on CD, mostly in the "Rural" sub-forum, sometimes in the prepper sub-forum, and sometimes here. And the OP of each of these threads always seems to think that the issues we bring up won't apply to them.
I say, go ahead and try it. Then get back to us in 5 years. The likelihood is that your spouse will be working full time in a job with a boss and a schedule to support your dream "subsistence" farm. But go ahead and try it; at least your life will be interesting.
There are lots of organizations that support small farmers. Some include https://mosesorganic.org , landstewardshipproject.org (I went through their "farm beginnings" program, which I strongly recommend), Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program - Grants and Education and thelandconnection.org (they have a farm beginnings program too.) Looks like there are some Ohio specific ones like Begin Farming Ohio - Welcome. And don't forget to use your county extension office heavily - they are there to help farmers. Extension is better in some states than others, but use them as much as you can.
I guess my point is that you're more likely to succeed if you learn as much as you can before you start and continue to learn as you go.
But I still bet that one of you will be working off-farm full time to support your dream small farm.
They have been operating these programs for over 30 years. The apprenticeship program has around 150 participating farms. Most of these apprentices are seasonal workers, and maybe half of them will participate a second year. They are encouraged to rotate to a different farm for their second year.
The Journeyperson program starts where the Apprenticeship leaves off, these are fulltime year-round positions. The second year assigns you to be a Farm Manager usually over a few Apprentices. MOFGA works hard to get each Journeyman standing on their own personally owned farm as they complete the program.
In a recent survey, at 15 years Post-Journeyman 97% are still operating farms as their sole source of income.
These programs give anyone who may be interested in farming, a solid taste of farming, and the opportunity to become a fulltime farmer.
Before you get into farming you need land to farm. It's not cheap. The only farming I'd be interested in is something that can be totally automated, from planting to harvest. Corn, grain etc and for that i'd probably want at least 20 acres. That much land close to where I live now has to be in the millions.
Here is what the OP should do..........chase his dream and write a book detailing how he was able to support his family with just a 5 acre garden and no outside income.
There are over a million dreamers out there just like the OP .
They will buy his book.
Thus the OP can prove his point that it can be done if only enough people buy his book.
Jethro Kloss [Back to Eden]
Betty MacDonald [The Egg and I]
Helen and Scott Nearing [Living the Good Life]
Were all good book authors.
They wrote fictional books about fictional lives that drew in millions of reader / followers.
To assume any of those fictional books were 100% non-fiction would be a faulty assumption by the reader. However from the 'back-to-the-land' movement, we have this sub-forum [and many others].
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) all the time on CD, mostly in the "Rural" sub-forum, sometimes in the prepper sub-forum, and sometimes here. And the OP of each of these threads always seems to think that the issues we bring up won't apply to them.
