Future of small farms

**Shrek** · #**101** 01/20/14, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miss Kay

My husband and I both came from huge families raised on small farms. We are the only ones today that has carried on the tradition in either family and none of our parents grandchildren are. We milk our own cows, raise a garden, can, cook, make cheese, etc. but the younger generation has no clue how to do most of what we knew from growing up. I see lots of folks on this web site that want to buy small farms but the price of land and the inability to make a living on that land is prohibitive. It makes me wonder what our country will look like once we are all gone with so few to carry on. I guess times change and maybe it really doesn't matter but I can't help but think we are losing something precious and important.

Farming times never really change . All that changes are the components those with farming facets of their lives choose to combine with the small family farm life to keep their lifestyle as rounded out as possible.

I will just about bet that if you think back there were times that your parents or siblings took off farm work to supplement those farm lives you remember so fondly since most every small farm family has.

If small farm families of past eras survived by farming and doing non farm work like custom woodworking, seamstress labor or whatever why should modern homesteaders think they should be able to live solely off a small acreage farm when they live in a techno age where they post their dreams of living only off a farm yield on the internet.

Why can't the current era small farmer work their small homestead farm and use the internet to do their "off farm " income?

Actually there are quite a few doing exactly that.

Even the Amish and Mennonites don't completely "live off their small farms.

The only folks who actually "live off the farm" are large scale single or maybe two crop corporate sized farmers who send all their yield into the commodity markets and receive subsidies to not produce and then live of the sales income to hopefully live an average middle to upper middle class lifestyle.

Even the Ingalls who inspired the Michael Landon TV series Little House on the Prairie, relied on off farm income sources to round out their lifestyles from the autobiography the daughter wrote of herself and the biographies she wrote of her parents.

geo in mi · #**102** 01/21/14, 08:49 AM

Shrek, I think you are right on with your post. A lot of homesteaders haven't yet learned to think outside the box. The current thinking seems to do everything with a mule and a scythe on twenty acres--or to get a bunch of worn out antique machinery to "farm: in miniature, with a commodity crop thinking. Either way seems to hold back, and wear out even the best intentions of people attempting to make it on the land

I think what you mention is the right way to go. Live on your homestead, produce and cycle most of your food and animal products into your own pantry, sell some, if possible, but ALSO make your living in town or on the internet.

Scott and Helen Nearing steered us wrong. They worked four hours a day at their so-called "bread work", then after a lunch of raw tomatoes and carrots, spent the next four playing the flute and reading poetry. I don't think that's gonna happen today. It'll take a lot of hard, creative work to make a homesteading way of life viable. One will be to create some new kinds of affordable and efficient equipment, to do the "in miniature" work needed to handle the small acreage and time windows for getting the food grown, harvested, and into the pantry. Another will be to learn ways to buy neglected and depleted--lower cost--property and get it into high production in order to avoid competing for land in agribiz neighborhoods. Another will be to convince people in high density, citified areas, that homesteading, when it's done right, creates no threat to their lifestyle--just the opposite, it will enhance it by providing local foods and products for them, too.

geo

Tango · #**103** 01/21/14, 09:26 AM

Found this on NPR and thought it might be helpful to some of our members: Young Farmers Looking for Land are Getting Creative.

ronbre · #**104** 01/21/14, 10:45 AM

i feel when we are gone our property will just be sold and all our work will be ignored, our son has no wife or children and has his own place

TedM · #**105** 01/22/14, 04:05 PM

I'm in my late 30's and I am looking towards a retirement where I mostly live off the land (homestead). I agree with the others that getting in is the hardest part. I am looking for land on the Olympic pennisula though I live in the 'burbs of Portland. My plan is to pay cash for land, build my dream home (PAHS underground) with cash and then use rent from my current house as my cash subsidy. I garden and compost in my small backyard (and as a child we had an urban farm of sorts, out of necessity: chicken turkeys rabbits and lots of garden on a 50x150ft lot). I plan to learn as much as i can until than about gardening, but in all honesty when I get there i expect to hire some youth to help manage the land. but for now, I have a single rabbit which eats all the weeds from my raised garden beds, in turn that rabbit and my compost bin produce rich soil which feeds those gardens. I can grow nearly year round by planting green leafy vegetables in the fall. Life is a process of trial and error. And just when you think you've got it all figured out nature will throw you a curveball.

The future as I see it, is that the industrial age is rolling backwards and more people will have to live rurally than in urban centers just as it was before WW2. We just don't have the natural resources to continue as we are today without turning more forests into desert (Did you know that at one time the Sahara was the largest forest in Africa?). Anywho, I want to start my family farm in my lifetime without the aim of making a profit but rather providing most of my food and getting back to nature. I love hard work but don't think that'll I be able to do it all when I'm 60 and this dream comes to fruition. It's all about one step at a time. Debt is means for enslaving man. My only debt now is my mortgage. I don't see security in holding money or retirement accounts; but I do in sustenance living. and there is my end-goal to work my butt off working my own land. I know tht no one can do it alone so I hope to create or join a farming village of like minded individuals. I just want to go back to the way mother-nature has operated for millions of years until man came along with a "better way".

Whipsaw,
What I've discovered is that forest land is the cheapest land to buy in NW Washington though the dry plains of central WA are far cheaper. Timber companies sell it reasonably shortly after they harvest. There is a large tax implication when you change the zoning.

whipsaw · #**106** 01/22/14, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

I'm in my late 30's and I am looking towards a retirement where I mostly live off the land (homestead). I agree with the others that getting in is the hardest part. I am looking for land on the Olympic pennisula though I live in the 'burbs of Portland. My plan is to pay cash for land, build my dream home (PAHS underground) with cash and then use rent from my current house as my cash subsidy. I garden and compost in my small backyard (and as a child we had an urban farm of sorts, out of necessity: chicken turkeys rabbits and lots of garden on a 50x150ft lot). I plan to learn as much as i can until than about gardening, but in all honesty when I get there i expect to hire some youth to help manage the land. but for now, I have a single rabbit which eats all the weeds from my raised garden beds, in turn that rabbit and my compost bin produce rich soil which feeds those gardens. I can grow nearly year round by planting green leafy vegetables in the fall. Life is a process of trial and error. And just when you think you've got it all figured out nature will throw you a curveball.

The future as I see it, is that the industrial age is rolling backwards and more people will have to live rurally than in urban centers just as it was before WW2. We just don't have the natural resources to continue as we are today without turning more forests into desert (Did you know that at one time the Sahara was the largest forest in Africa?). Anywho, I want to start my family farm in my lifetime without the aim of making a profit but rather providing most of my food and getting back to nature. I love hard work but don't think that'll I be able to do it all when I'm 60 and this dream comes to fruition. It's all about one step at a time. Debt is means for enslaving man. My only debt now is my mortgage. I don't see security in holding money or retirement accounts; but I do in sustenance living. and there is my end-goal to work my butt off working my own land. I know tht no one can do it alone so I hope to create or join a farming village of like minded individuals. I just want to go back to the way mother-nature has operated for millions of years until man came along with a "better way".

Whipsaw,
What I've discovered is that forest land is the cheapest land to buy in NW Washington though the dry plains of central WA are far cheaper. Timber companies sell it reasonably shortly after they harvest. There is a large tax implication when you change the zoning.

The only problem with your plan, Ted, is that the county won't let you do that. It's ILLEGAL. And yes, you will be responsible for all back taxes in order to convert that land. Oftentimes, they are so high that if the land were free it is still more expensive than buying something that is not designated timber land.

Patchouli · #**107** 01/22/14, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronbre

i feel when we are gone our property will just be sold and all our work will be ignored, our son has no wife or children and has his own place

Why not just hand your land on to a young farmer who needs it? There is no reason you have to give it to your son to sell is there?

ET1 SS · #**108** 01/22/14, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geo in mi

... Scott and Helen Nearing steered us wrong. They worked four hours a day at their so-called "bread work", then after a lunch of raw tomatoes and carrots, spent the next four playing the flute and reading poetry. I don't think that's gonna happen today. It'll take a lot of hard, creative work to make a homesteading way of life viable.

A large inheritance, book-writing income, and apprentices helped a lot too.

ET1 SS · #**109** 01/22/14, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

... What I've discovered is that forest land is the cheapest land to buy in NW Washington though the dry plains of central WA are far cheaper. Timber companies sell it reasonably shortly after they harvest. There is a large tax implication when you change the zoning.

Stump-farms are cheap. That was what I bought.

Keep it in 'forest' and you keep taxes low.

K.B. · #**110** 01/23/14, 12:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ET1 SS

A large inheritance, book-writing income, and apprentices helped a lot too.

Nothing wrong with getting help as long as both sides benefit.

Four hours for bread-labor sounds long

I'm a big fan of the work smart rather than hard philosophy.

Time and help are the big factors that I see in getting a homestead set-up. I think many folks try to push too hard, too fast and end up with a lifestyle that beats them down.

Working slowly to build up the infrastructure, keeping a solid focus on projects and designing for low maintenance is what I hope will be a strategy for long-term success.

Earnings from my original career will pay for the house/land, but after that it will be a slow process to build up income earning potential based off the natural, renewable resources.

ET1 SS · #**111** 01/23/14, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by K.B.

Nothing wrong with getting help as long as both sides benefit.

Four hours for bread-labor sounds long

I'm a big fan of the work smart rather than hard philosophy.

Time and help are the big factors that I see in getting a homestead set-up. I think many folks try to push too hard, too fast and end up with a lifestyle that beats them down.

Working slowly to build up the infrastructure, keeping a solid focus on projects and designing for low maintenance is what I hope will be a strategy for long-term success.

Earnings from my original career will pay for the house/land, but after that it will be a slow process to build up income earning potential based off the natural, renewable resources.

If you do not require a farm income, like in the case of the Nearings. Then you can afford to go slow and only work part days.

K.B. · #**112** 01/23/14, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ET1 SS

If you do not require a farm income, like in the case of the Nearings. Then you can afford to go slow and only work part days.

I enjoyed reading about their maple syrup operation, but I imagine it provided a very modest income.

Avoiding debt by having the land/structures paid off up front is a pretty critical component to the process, as I see it.