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There are organizations that train young people who are interested in Sustainable Ag.
Our regional Organic Certifying agency oversees an Apprenticeship / Journeyman program for example. There may be hundreds of kids going into it each year, and only a few dozen coming out. But that is the purpose of such a program. To train them and see which ones really will make it as farmers.
With a lawyer writing a contract for you, you can easily contract a young couple to share-crop your homestead. Include into the contract a reverse mortgage.
If they fail, you still own your farm.
Yep, this is exactly what I was talking about. It's a work-to-own agreement, with everything clearly spelled out in a legal contract and/or trust. If the estate is in a trust until the contract period and conditions have been fulfilled, no one would benefit from you dying early or mysteriously. However, if you do die (not by foul play) before the contract period and conditions are fulfilled, the estate is still held in trust and the inheriters that are working-to-own won't lose all the time and effort they've already put into the place.
I know a lot of younger people and couples who would LOVE to have a homestead and more than willing to work it... but since they're just starting out, they can't afford to buy all the land and equipment, or aren't able to recover from any mistakes they make while they're learning.
As long as interview applicants thoroughly to determine they have the same expectations you do and their lifestyle will work well enough with yours, and then give due diligence to background checks, I think it's a workable solution. Certainly better than walking away from all your hard work and freedom to live in a tiny apartment in an assisted living community for seniors
Yep, this is exactly what I was talking about. It's a work-to-own agreement, with everything clearly spelled out in a legal contract and/or trust. If the estate is in a trust until the contract period and conditions have been fulfilled, no one would benefit from you dying early or mysteriously. However, if you do die (not by foul play) before the contract period and conditions are fulfilled, the estate is still held in trust and the inheriters that are working-to-own won't lose all the time and effort they've already put into the place.
I know a lot of younger people and couples who would LOVE to have a homestead and more than willing to work it... but since they're just starting out, they can't afford to buy all the land and equipment, or aren't able to recover from any mistakes they make while they're learning.
As long as interview applicants thoroughly to determine they have the same expectations you do and their lifestyle will work well enough with yours, and then give due diligence to background checks, I think it's a workable solution. Certainly better than walking away from all your hard work and freedom to live in a tiny apartment in an assisted living community for seniors
when my old sick parents allowed me to pack them and bring them here it was best move they ever made.
they would have died within 2 years where they were at in the sticks. roughing it is for the young.
Americans have had an unusual farming system, since its beginning. American farmers predominantly lived within their farms, isolated from other farmers. In most other nations, agriculture was village based. Farmers lived in a village and commuted to their fields. This access to village society had a dramatic effect, not only on farmers, but on those who did not wish to farm, but remain in the village, close to their family, while involved in other vocations. It also insured that when farmers became injured, ill, or infirm, there were others who could step in and take over.
From perusing Google Earth, one can see such agricultural villages around the world.
This raises the question: Is it wise to maintain a farming mode that is unsustainable and inflexible?
And is the remedy for aging family farmers to seek to form agricultural villages, so the benefits of farming are not overshadowed by the disadvantages of isolation and risk?
Americans have had an unusual farming system, since its beginning. American farmers predominantly lived within their farms, isolated from other farmers. In most other nations, agriculture was village based. Farmers lived in a village and commuted to their fields. This access to village society had a dramatic effect, not only on farmers, but on those who did not wish to farm, but remain in the village, close to their family, while involved in other vocations. It also insured that when farmers became injured, ill, or infirm, there were others who could step in and take over.
From perusing Google Earth, one can see such agricultural villages around the world.
This raises the question: Is it wise to maintain a farming mode that is unsustainable and inflexible?
And is the remedy for aging family farmers to seek to form agricultural villages, so the benefits of farming are not overshadowed by the disadvantages of isolation and risk?
The term you seek is feudalism. The Laird owned the land. The villagers were his chattel, all of them. The blacksmythe, the millwright, the farmer, the dyer and weaver; all peasants lived at the mercy of the aristocracy.
I do not see how that is any more 'sustainable' though.
The term you seek is feudalism. The Laird owned the land. The villagers were his chattel, all of them. The blacksmythe, the millwright, the farmer, the dyer and weaver; all peasants lived at the mercy of the aristocracy.
No, feudalism is not what I am referring to.
Check out Michelfeld or Bibersfeld, Germany, 49.096931° 9.677831°
on Google Earth to see an example of a countryside dotted with ag-villages. And I doubt that they're "feudal". And as to "sustainability," I think you would agree that Europe has been sustaining itself for thousands of years.
Then compare that with a typical American agricultural area, dotted with isolated family farms.
For example, near the town of Hartsburg, IL. 40.249337° -89.440157°
You can see square after square of fields, with the isolated family farmhouse.
It presents a sharp contrast in lifestyle and opportunity. In America's family farms, if you don't or can't farm, you're not going to last. In a farming village, you can find other vocations to pursue.
Last edited by jetgraphics; 06-11-2013 at 09:27 PM..
when my old sick parents allowed me to pack them and bring them here it was best move they ever made.
they would have died within 2 years where they were at in the sticks. roughing it is for the young.
There are plenty of people in my area who are old and have health problems but who manage very well out in the country. Last year a lady of 104 was forced by bad health to move into town and a nursing home. She died six months later. But she lived in freedom and self-reliance for over a century. Many of us don't measure life by quantity but by quality.
if I have a heakth problem an ambulance is at least a half hour away. Maybe I'll die because it can't reach me sooner. That's life. I'll never voluntarily leave my place in the country where it's quiet and peaceful, where criminals don't bother me, where if TEOTWAWKI happens in old age I can still die on my feet with a gun in my hand. If I were in some urban hellhole, some place like urban California where the government has rules for everything I wouldn't be living; I'd be existing.
Keep your California paradise. I'll die in "the sticks" before I'll be a slave.
Americans have had an unusual farming system, since its beginning. American farmers predominantly lived within their farms, isolated from other farmers.
Funny you should bring this up. I'm just finishing a book on the social history of the earliest settlers along the northeast coast (through the seventeenth century). They indeed (in the beginning) started their farms with the centralized village in the middle of the surrounding "pie slices" that were the farms (the typical European model). The farmers worked their land, yet lived in close proximity within the community and shared labors to a greater extent. Over the years (in the mid seventeenth century), the farmers began building farther and farther away from the central hub of new communities and townships, and at some point the individual, relatively isolated, "American farm" was born.
But, even after that development, the farmers were not 100% isolated in this new "spread out" community. They still did share some of the labors collectively, but to a much smaller degree. And they no longer worked as a tight "social collective." Their sense of tight-knit community was fading. The fairly repressive life of the time, the almost caste-like system of hierarchy, and the value system was turned on it's head. Religion began playing a less significant role. In the Chesapeake and Virginia regions, farms were so spread out and isolated that many people didn't even attend their churches (which was a HUGE deal at the time) or place much value on the rigid structure of formal society up to that point. Colonial mandates were put in place, but were largely unenforceable and ignored. Thus was born the "individualist" farm.
The book goes on to imply that most of the southern colonies of the time were composed of "godless, often-drunk, heathen/farmers" that were uncontrollable by the colonial governments because they were largely inaccessible. It's been an interesting book that has challenged some of my assumptions -- at least for certain regions of the country.
On the other hand, farther north, most of my assumptions were true enough. New England was a pillar of orderliness (and rather repressive). But, at the same time, life expectancy was much higher, farms were more substantial and subsistence-oriented, law and order was much more widespread, and they were more regimented in their society and faith. In the north, there was a sense of permanency. But farther south... a fairly dangerous, disease-laden, ramshackle temporary farm, cash-crop-centered, free-for-all in many cases. Interesting histories!
When boundary surveyors laid out the border between North Carolina and Virginia they took a minister whose primary function seemed to be marrying settlers who hadn't seen a clergyman in years. Without benefit of clergy, however, they were doing just fine raising their families.
When boundary surveyors laid out the border between North Carolina and Virginia they took a minister whose primary function seemed to be marrying settlers who hadn't seen a clergyman in years. Without benefit of clergy, however, they were doing just fine raising their families.
What's the name of the book?
This one is Everyday Life in Early America by David Freeman Hawke. It mostly covers the seventeenth century. There are several volumes covering different eras in US history. Next, I read Victorian Era 1876 - 1915.
Your post reminded me of an excerpt from the book describing a couple "living out of wedlock." Since this was a big deal at the time, the couple was "scandalizing their Connecticut village." The end of the account is this:
One day a magistrate (purposely) met them on the street.
"John Rogers," he said, "do you persist in calling this woman, a servant younger than yourself, your wife?"
"Yes I do."
"And do you, Mary, wish such an old man as this to be your husband?"
"Indeed, I do."
"Then by the laws of God and this commonwealth, I, as magistrate, pronounce you man and wife."
This made my smile. I guess that's one way to get a quick, no-frills wedding.
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