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More Young People Are Becoming Farmers (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: "For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest Census of Agriculture," the WashPost's Caitlin Downey reports in a front-pager with the lovely headline, "A growing movement." 69% of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees -- significantly higher than the general population.
Subsidized corn to make ethanol crap? FTFY
Better known as 318230.
Just like how the Apollo program got many interested in STEM careers we can see now that our investment in FarmVille has also paid off.
Now just wait for the uptick in the number of confectioners to come around...
Well, you look at open space offices, the daily grind, lack of job security, the housing market and voilÃ, farming keeps looking better and better. With the whole bio/organic trend, you don't even need to treat animals like crap and all the newfangled technology makes the hard labor much more bearable than a few decades ago.
It ain't for me but I do get it.
Maybe some are realizing there are other paths to life than spending a majority of it sitting in traffic and in a cubicle. Good for them. Farming is no picnic of its own, of course, but definitely a different road.
It's because the government is incompetent and young people are smart enough to realize the future of the current system is uncertain. Buy land, learn to live off of it, learn to shoot, learn self defense and protect your land. Learn how to build dwellings and maintain them. Move your family onto the land and live in a self sufficient way. It's not an easy life but when the government is incompetent and influenced by corporations to keep us all in wage slavery, it's not surprising that people would consider this lifestyle as a better alternative to what is going on today and what might be down the road in the future. FWIW - I really do hope our country gets back to the principles it was founded on so that people will trust in it again. That trust at this point is battered.
We'll make great pets
We are living in a post-production, post-oil, post-leviathan, post-wealth world.
Cities are decaying, and increasingly Dickensian.
Industries have eaten themselves from the inside out.
Education has become a trap instead of a means of escape.
Debt is everywhere.
Wealth is gone.
Increasingly fragile financial video games cannot keep the whole rotten structure from crashing in much longer.
Opportunity is dead within these mouldering husks of of a civilization well past its zenith.
Soon paper "assets" won't matter anymore.
Soon, iPurts and SV Apps won't be valued enough to spend money on.
When the system brakes down, or turns into what it's slowly becoming, people will spend money on food.
They'll have to.
People will move out of our dystopian, insane urbanities and back to cheaper, slower, simplistic rural and smaller town economies.
They'll have to.
Wealth will transfer from unproductive, scammed out the ass ponzi assets back to real assets. Back to people who make things, move things, fix things.
It will have nowhere else to go.
Farmers will sit at the top of the an economy that will value things that are real, which people need. As owners of land and (real) productive assets, they will hold most of the cards in a world where neither education, technology, qualifications, or institutions mean very much anymore.
If the politicans allow them.
Facing Rising Unemployment, Young People Return to Subsistence Living
Modern Farming is often more Technically advanced then many of these so called Tech jobs. Automated Robotic Systems, Big data collections, Bio and Chemical Engineering... Farmer Brown needs to be just as Apt in front of a computer as he does with a pitchfork.
Farming may be tough work, but it is challenging hands on career that for some people is very reward. Me growing up on a Farm, it is the furthest thing I would like to do, but for others it is a good rewarding job.
With the rise in interest of more natural farming, and locally sourced food etc... It would make sense that a renewed interest in farming is becoming more popular. Besides a lot of people think we are going to hit some big disaster that will knock us to the dark ages, so being a farmer is a good place to be.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The average age of farmers in the US is about retirement age.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Legal Weed
Not a real article. Just a few quotes from another article. The original WP article is also full of holes. It is comparing the number of new, very small farms of today to the multi-generational, larger farms of previous generations. Apples to oranges. I lived in New Hampshire for a while. Right outside Hanover. Half the people I worked with at the tech firm had small farms, raised chickens, goats, vegetables, and grain. None of these would have been counted in this article as farmers.
The most important quote says it all - "This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age."
Unless someone gives you a productive farm what sense does it make to acquire one? A farm is like a roulette wheel. Once in a rare while you hit a jack pot but usually something bad ruins your season. Drought, bugs, wilt and fungus and all kinds of changing laws and tax rates stack the deck. So not only must a farmer fight the obvious problems but new farmers also have to pay off mortgages, pay for major machinery etc..Farming is a hard path to survive. Odd ball types of farms may do better than traditional farms. In my area some farmers get by with sidelines that are gimmicks such as selling dwarf goats that are usually kept as pets or odd ball chickens or baby pot belly pigs. Collecting honey for curb side sales can add to the till. And if you have enough room for a horse barn and path you can make a buck keeping other peoples' horses or even have a catfish farm.
In the current job market, farming is probably the easiest job someone can find or start for a young person.
Not to mention all the new technologies that make it easier than ever before.
I credit farmersonly.com
Nullius in verba
I think I will start a farm right now!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah yeah yeah the governement is incompetent corporations are evil bla bla bla. Heard this all before a million times.
There's a huge difference between acquiring skills and becoming self sufficient on one side (good thing) and becoming a paranoid para-military prepper on the other (bad thing)
Must really suck to view everything as a threat and everyone as an ennemy. That's not the kind of life I want to live. But that doesn't mean I'm delusional either.
I really do hope our country gets back to the principles it was founded on
Not with that attitude it won't. Countries don't simply "fix" themselves while their citizens retreat to their bunkers cutting themselves off from the world. Do you know what "countries" are ? People. Tired of incompetent governements ? Stop electing incompetent people. Tired of evil corporations ? Stop giving them freely and wilingly your money. Presidents and CEO's are just people too, picked from the pool of the general population.
As a great man once said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Educate sourselves. Get involved. Become more knowledgeable, smarter, wiser, more mature, more rational. People do get the kind of governement (and corporations) they deserve. Become a people worthy of the kind of governement you demand.
See subject: ... & I don't think you're merely speculating either. Sounds like logical conclusions (grew up next to a farm & was an AVID 'farmer' myself (not weed etc. like others are stating here, often by unidentifiable anonymous - go figure)).
* I did gardens on my land (big ones) circa 2002-2008 for fun initially but found out it is FREE food on the VERY cheap & doesn't take very much land to feed 1 person from spring to winter (13 week outta April into October easily as far as crop - preservation vs. winter via canning etc. in mason jars was next step beyond it... it works).
APK
P.S.=> I was @ this a decade++ ago just learn (actually, re-learn from my youth 1-13 in the countryside BEFORE I became a suburbanite (highschool years) & then "urbanite" then onward - & I agree on your most stressed point - urban centers would be a NIGHTMARE if the logistics of society were cut-off (or the welfare))... apk
I work in the tech industry. I live on a farm.
...Also, running a small farm, our only "equipment" is a pickup, a four horse stock trailer, and a bobcat loader with two attachments. The cost of entry is not too bad.
We do not have a sprawling farms with hundreds of acres. Our farm is less than five acres. We have two homes, a barn, a shop and cross pastured land. We use the land to raise our own meat. We raise dairy and meat goats and cows, chickens, turkeys, hogs, sheep and lamb. We like to say that our animals were conceived here, born here, raised here, died here, and were processed here.
We know exactly what is in our meat. Mothers milk, hay, grass, alfalfa, corn, oats, peas, wheat, rye, barley and a few treats like salted peanuts and apples. They also get, do to the naturally low levels in our soil, a magnesium supplement. That is it.
We have friends who grow the hay and grains we get, some who raise veggies (we only raise a few items). The barter system goes a long way.
Why do we do it? I find myself looking at the paragraph above, "We know exactly what is in our meat." Do you? After we process an animal, they are kept in one of our six freezers. Have some for us and some we barter/sell from. When they are not used, they are unplugged.
Try it, you may like it.
Procrastination; I'll think of a sig tomorrow.
With attitudes like this being pervasive in the SJWs that run HR, who wouldn't prefer a good self-employment option if they can find one they like?
They realized: Tech has failed us.
And they're going the other direction.
No, the three free range chickens and window box full of "organic" wheatgrass you have in your condo don't count.
I raise young people, run them through a gauntlet and use a stun bot gun right in their useless heads.
Peep this! *thunk*
-linux... they can't *give* that shit away.
See subject: Online @ YouTube (so, then take it w/ a grain of salt perhaps?) that said "the powers that be" don't want to let you grow your OWN food on YOUR OWN LAND (trying to make laws vs. it) - have you heard OR seen the same?
* Just curious...
APK
P.S.=> I could "theoretically" see those selfsame "powers that WANNAbe" (as I call 'em lol) trying to keep you DEPENDENT on them & THEIR system - things like running your own business (not being dependent on paychecks from some large controlled corporation) or farm would be contrary to that & set a "bad example" others MIGHT follow so they would try to make it "illegal" etc. - et al... apk
Because in the country, you'll never, but never, have to deal with assholes like him!
It skips a generation. My brother-in-law (in IL) doesn't run his dad's farm - he has his own deal. My nephew, OTOH, will be taking over as the ol' man gets older. -T
I've seen a massive rise in aquaponics in particular.
It makes a lot of sense in crowded cities especially.
It's fairly trivial to set up and maintain. It gives a decent return. It's failure rates are pretty low.
If you live in colder regions, you might need to heat it a bit in winter. Solar panel on the roof can help.
I just saw a pretty new solar tech that absorbs only some of the spectrum on the roof, and the rest goes straight through to the plants. Really neat idea and hope it takes off quickly. If will be a huge boost to aquaponics if it can at least partially or fully power itself. Any gain helps.
I remember one dude in Detroit even automated his with a raspberry pi and it tweets its general health and status periodically. Used a large metal container for the fish-bed. But you can easily make one with 5 bits of wood (hell, 4, or none if embedded in ground) and a plastic sheet, just as if you were making a pond / swimming pool but end prematurely at the waterproofing stage.
I thought farming as in gaming, coining, etc. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Farm workers make up about 1.4% of the US work force. At such a low rate, it's not hard for statistical noise to result in an "increase."
Organic produce has become more in demand in recent years. Organic farmers have met the demand. The down side of organic farming is that it does require more labor. Maybe we're seeing some of this in the statistics.
If you think farming is an easy way to earn a living, guess again. Farmers have little control over costs (seed, fertilizer, crop insurance, cash rents) no control over property taxes, weather, crop yields, crop prices, have to invest hundreds of thousands of $ in equipment. Subsidies are almost non-existent on my crops (corn, soybeans).
I think you missed that it's song lyrics.