God knows I had enough to do without sitting and listening to the city people tell me what an idyllic life I had and how they envied me. But I didn’t notice any of them grabbing a hayfork and pitching in. FULL ARTICLE by An Ex-Farmer
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15557/to-hell-with-farming/
To Hell with Farming
Previous post: The Euro Debt Crisis and Economic Theory
Next post: So now it’s the weather!
{ 37 comments }
According to Jim Rogers, Farmers Will Drive Lamborghinis
For all it’s humor, this article is grossly misleading about what such a life COULD be. I happen to have had an old aunt and uncle back in the forties and fifties who really did live pretty much up to the stereotype of the idyllic life. They had the 40 acres and a mule, a small very decent cottage he’d built himself from local lumber, an ancient Ford, a refrigerator, tv and such. Their income consisted of an occasional cow sold, a few watermelons, and the eggs from a couple of dozen chickens. Those eggs were sold at the grocery store every Saturday and brought enough to pay for whatever groceries they bought that week, not much more than staples like sugar, salt, and flour. For the time and place they lived as well as most people and better than most, because of the really vast knowledge they had about doing for themselves. Of course they did work hard; that’s to be understood. But my uncle hunted and fished whenever he felt like it, my aunt had plenty of spare time for entertainments, they had time to visit and be visited by family and friends.
I have to say the author of the article had problems not because of the situation but because of his ignorance of how to live in it.
I have to agree with you. The man had a bad attitude. He wanted his life as a farmer to fit his ideal, whatever that may have been. He could have taken pride his newly developed skills, for example. Of course, there may be a certain amount of tongue in cheek to this article.
He became an entrepreneur of sorts when saw a need that some people have to experience
the “idyllic life” and who are willing to pay for it. This is a common reality now. I have friends who own 500 acres high up in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia. City folks pay to come for a week or weekend to learn the various skills of country living. One example: all of the cabins, bunkhouses, dining facilities that are now a part of their business were built with the labor of these city folks who paid good money for this experience.
Reminds me of this post from survivalblog.com:
You may have concluded by now that while my husband is a “guns and groceries” style survivalist, I can more accurately be called a homesteader. A modern homesteader is a person who tries to live self-reliantly on their own land. Our satisfaction and peace of mind come from growing our own food, heating with our own fuel, and even knowing how to make our own clothes if necessary! Happily survivalism and homesteading dovetail nicely…
My homesteading mindset was developed early in my childhood as I listened to parents and grandparents talk about living through the Great Depression. My father’s parents were town people. His Dad soon lost his job at the newspaper. They had meager savings. My father said after that they ate potatoes–just potatoes. At harvest time each year they found a bit of work picking fruit. Then they ate whatever fruit they were picking, and only that fruit. Then it was back to potatoes again. And forget about money for new clothes, or gas for the car, or doctor’s bills, or anything else.
Meanwhile, my maternal Grandpa worked in town as a machinist, but they always lived out in the country on a small farm. Grandpa cultivated a large garden and orchard, had a few milk cows, raised a couple of hogs, and Grandma raised 100 chicks every year to sell as fryers. My mother’s father lost his job during the Depression too. But they had fresh milk and butter from their cows, eggs, chicken, and beef and pork, fruits and vegetables in season, and lots of canned produce. (Plus my mother’s family still had a small income and a ready source of barter from the farm produce.) It so happened that their house was next to a church on a rural highway. And many times Grandma fed “poor folk” who had come to their house thinking it was the church parsonage. And she could- because of the bounty of their farm!
My Dad had a miserable youth through the Depression. He suffered a profound change in quality of life as they experienced extreme poverty. My Mother on the other hand, did not experience much of a change because her parents were self-sufficient on their farm. I intend to emulate my self-sufficient grandparents. And with God’s grace, my family will have a good quality of life–no matter what the economy does.
Jim Rogers should know better. First of all, you can’t fit even a single bale of hay in the boot of a Lamborghini. Secondly, a farmer’s machinery often costs more than a Lamborghini.
Maybe he means Lamborghini is developing a really fast but impractical tractor with wing-style doors?
Lamborghini started as a tractor company. Still makes them.
lamborghini tractors
Ha! What a great discovery. This is cool. I believe I’ll have to eat my hat.
wont they be to busy farming to drive them?
another stupid piece from liars and frauds on the web
james,
Why are you so mad all of the time?
Also, do you ever wonder why nobody replies to your incessant inquiries? This is because nobody understands what you write, except for one thing: anybody with whom you disagree is a liar and a fraud.
Incoherence and a lack of respect for disagreement are not good qualities.
That was a great Life story.
It’s this kind of thinking that leads to people like Chris McCandless. Seemed like a nice guy, and I empathize with why he did what he did. But too many people romanticize relationships with nature. Whether thats leading bucolic lives homesteading or farming in the woods, or living the rough, isolated life of man on a mountainside. When they have no experience at all in dealing with fact that as they try to control and manipulate the natural world around them, the planet is always working against them. It’s not an innocent bystander. In the end the farmer got it right, farming is a capitalist venture that involves a lot of risk and most importantly, hard work and time. He found a niche in the market, just the kind of thinking necessary to create the kind of living he really wanted to do. In defense of Jim Rogers, I believe his thinking is that their are major food shortages occuring across the world, the farming community is getting old, and demand should only increase. Barring the apocalypse and complete seizure of farmland by the government in a Zimbabwe-esque fashion, we should come back around whether through revolution or another artificial bubble. For some smart young people with the right knowledge and the guts to take on a lot of risk, they can make some money and maybe help reinnovate the agriculture industry and help people.
John,
This is a good comment. I agree, it is amazing how many people over-romanticize the life of the farmer, the “simple life”. It has just as many challenges — if not more — as any other chosen profession. People love to go camping for a few days to a week, but they wouldn’t want to live like that.
A niche in the modern farming world means utilizing technology and doing less, not more, manual labor, so that you can be more productive.
In the mid- and late-80′s, I babysat the two small children of friends who were dairy farmers, so they could attend a weekly meeting with my parents. I was only a teenager, not yet acquainted with the realities of life. But I was in disbelief at what I witnessed.
The cows had to be milked at 6 AM and 6 PM, 365 days per year. “Not milking the cows” was simply not an option.
The work environment was beyond disgusting for a city slicker. Everything smelled of manure. Everything was dirty. The work was remarkably dangerous, as both the equipment and the animals could mangle you in a split second. The pump motor that ran the milking machine was absolutely deafening; how the farmer could hear the radio to which he listened, I don’t know.
He had massive debt. He ran a S100,000/year operation and lived on less than $8,000 of that. The rest went to service his debt and run the operation.
Most inconceivably to me as an adult, his work was solitary. When he plowed and sowed, he was by himself. When he milked his cows, nobody helped him. When he had to maintain and repair his equipment, he did it with own two hands.
3500 hours’ work per year. Big cash inflow, with little gain. Dangerous, solitary work environment. But he seemed to like it. His father did it. When he was grown, he chose to do it. His brother also chose to do it, and all three had farms close together.
I knew after visiting one time that I was very grateful that others chose such a life so that I may simply pay for my food. Perhaps this was my first lesson in “division of labor” and I have never forgotten it. I couldn’t romanticize what he did if you paid me to do so.
James,
Apparently your poor grammar is only exceeded by your poor manners. I would suggest that you read the article; you might find an answer to your question.
What happened to the subsequent comments?
They are back online.
Had a great chuckle over this article.
Nothing for nothing in this life! You have to use your head and hands. Think hard and work harder.
Sione
He made two mistakes, he should have never married and he should have killed the cow.
hahahaha
The distinction made here is simply physical vs. mental effort. Intelligent simplicity is only appreciated by wise men who can think beyond childish dichotomies.
You Don’t Know You’re Born
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP92NNe8Tkw
Great Fun!
http://cryptome.org/dodi/dodd-5205-07.pdf
main(){ int x=0,y[14],*z=&y;*(z++)=0×48;*(z++)=y[x++]+0x1D; *(z++)=y[x++]+0×07;*(z++)=y[x++]+0×00;*(z++)=y[x++]+0×03; *(z++)=y[x++]-0×43;*(z++)=y[x++]-0x0C;*(z++)=y[x++]+0×57; *(z++)=y[x++]-0×08;*(z++)=y[x++]+0×03;*(z++)=y[x++]-0×06; *(z++)=y[x++]-0×08;*(z++)=y[x++]-0×43;*(z++)=y[x]-0×21; x=*(–z);while(y[x]!=NULL)putchar(y[x++]); }
I loved this. It reminds me of “I, Pencil” because of the complexity invovlved in having even just one cow. There’s also value in realizing that even when we force ourselves to regress to earlier times/technologies, human nature drives us to progress. Given enough time, that farm would become just like his life in the city. Yearning for a simpler time, then, is useless because we would still move forward to where we are now. Progress has its price and the fact that there is progress is evidence that we are willing to pay it.
Christopher Lasch in his book “The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics” made the point that the utopian religion of progress doesn’t respect the idea of limits. It’s just as unrealistic as certain Romantic sentiments.
“Progress has its price and the fact that there is progress is evidence that we are willing to pay it.”
The left hemisphere is in overdrive here. Who’s we? What is progress? Is such a thing linear? Is it homogeneous? Is it inevitable? Do we immediately perceive all changes in our environment? Socialism became a reality and was considered progress.
The symbol game that is talk of progress makes no progress.
Like I, Pencil, division of labor fits in there somewhere.
Would be great if the podcast was also linked from the article.
ooops, it is. LOL. Well done!
I think a few people on here are focusing too much on the man’s attitude. Obviously he’s angry, and isn’t that how a lot of people in “dead-end jobs” in the city seem to be? So he takes a risk, finds it immensely difficult, but eventually learns how to make it worth while. We can all learn from that.
Great article.
Magnificent article. Its application to the illogical “buy local” fanaticism is an especially worthwhile lens. A farm is most certainly its own local economy. But just try doing everything yourself. As the Farmer found out: you’re not good at everything and you never will be. Being truly self-sufficient is technically possible, but entirely undesirable. The Farmer found his proper balance when he opened his farm up to exchange – then he began to enjoy his own life by helping others to do the same thing. For example, the Farmer, though his tools are simple, still cannot make them himself. He may plant the grain with his fingers, but he cannot harvest it efficiently without the scythe – like the pencil – he can’t hope to make one without re-inventing civilization on his acres. Self-sufficiency, perhaps ironically and perhaps not, requires other people and trade. There can be no true “buy local.” Without tools (made in towns and factories using other imported raw materials and finished goods), the Farmer would be merely clinging to survival, doing only what his teeth and nails would allow him to do. No “hard as nails” arms without the city’s axe. The Farmer found out that he would be better off outsourcing his butter making. That’s just good ol’ division of labor.
If you’ve ever tried this sort of thing (even to a small extent), you sort out pretty quickly what you can and can’t do, and what you want to and don’t want to do. All farming, no matter how small, is entrepreneurial. There’s nothing wrong or foolish about the Farmer’s trial and error – buying the cow and suffering the unintended consequences (ie suddenly needing expensive infrastructure, and spending all of his time and money creating it), having the feasts and famines with his milk supply, hiring on an employee (his wife, in this case) who has demands of her own, etc. He figured out what worked in the end. The “waste” would have been if he never found a market for it. I’m reminded of Standard Oil and, say, petroleum jelly.
Interestingly, the Farmer goes to the city looking for the “good life” and realizes that he had it. The office people in the city, however, believe that the grass is greener (literally and figuratively) on the farm. They can now exchange – one has something the other does not, and both appreciate it. This was not a story of the city’s superiority over the naive and backwards farmer. It is likewise not a story about how the foolish office workers, bored in their toil, don’t know how good they have it. The story is not anti-naturalist, either. I see it as a story about how each person seeks endlessly to better their own life, and in doing so via mutual exchange, are able to each be happy and better each other’s lives. The office workers are less bored and get some good butter, and the Farmer can spend less time struggling (no more 15 hour days) and enjoy his bit of the world. That’s about all anybody is looking for.
Couldn’t disagree more. The farmer BUYS his tools, therefore they belong to him. Its a little silly to put down the ‘buy local’ movement because their tools come from somewhere else. The crop is grown locally and when you buy them, yes you are helping your local economy. Small local farms often employ healthier methods of production than huge factory farms.
Locally produced does not mean that every stitch of clothing and every piece of metal needs to be smelted on site. When famrs and restaurants advertise ‘local’ they are referring to the PRODUCE which was grown locally, not every piece of equipment and every stitch of clothing.
I meant only to use the tools to comment on the interdependence that exchange and division of labor provides. The “simple life” isn’t really so simple after all because even a fully self-sufficient man is able to be so only by using the capital that his society had previously accumulated. When the farmer embraced this fact, he became prosperous. I realized this with my own personal experiments in self-sufficiency. I found the term to be a contradiction. It has been only fairly recently, maybe even within the last 100 or so years, that a person can be quite self-reliant and not have to work 15 hour days to scrape by. That is the result of exchange. I don’t mean that they’re unearned.
I took the farmer as an individual to be an analogy for a group (a city, state, region, or a nation), and the office workers to be just a different kind of farmer, if you will. The article is about farming, sure, but I don’t mean farmers markets. I believe we have a different idea of “buy local.” You seem to mean, generally, farmers markets, CSA, etc. I mean to oppose regional protectionism. Local farm produce is not the only “buy local” movement, and besides I take no issue with it. Most of the buy local movement involves only shopping at local stores and supporting local manufacturers, such as only those owned and operated in your city, or your end of the state, or “within 60 miles.” Taken to a bigger scale, it’s the same economic problem as the numerous Buy American protectionist scams (price protection, regulations, quotas, and all that).
I actually have a lot of respect for the booming recent success of farmers markets and CSA farms. Their success is not due to “buy local” protectionism. They simply offer a superior product at a better price, in a much nicer “store” and with a better “staff.” They rise to the challenge of having a larger, established competitor and they are flat out beating the big-ag industry. Nobody would go to the farmers market to feel good about buying local if the produce was expensive and moldy. I buy the produce (that I don’t happen to grow myself) mainly from farmers markets because it makes more sense – better product at a better price.
So the local farming movement doesn’t count as protectionist, as far as I’m concerned, because they are not protected – they compete and do it well. I mean, on the other hand, local stores that don’t compete with Walmart or Home Depot. Big Box comes to town, then the local stores cry for help when they have to grow and change. All tears and pity. But how a local business can’t compete with those awful stores is beyond me. They’re unpleasant to be in (more like warehouses), unknowlegable about their products, you can’t find anything, you feel like you’re being herded around, etc. I’m sure you’ve looked at the quality of tools at Home Depot. Try digging a ditch with a plastic-handled mattock. Or, when you are in an unfamiliar city and you ask “what’s a good restaurant around here?” you don’t hear “Applebees.” Someone immediately directs you to the vastly superior local competitor to those chains.
The point is, the small guys in our local economies win (increasingly) quite often against the big giants, in part thanks to the low-bar competition the Boxes provide. Local businesses don’t need protection or a feel-good movement. An entrepreneur who can’t find a better way to compete with crap is not much of an entrepreneur, and if his customers won’t protect him, neither should the law or a “local” movement. I realize you are advocating local produce, and not legislative advantages, so apologies for my “pro-consumer” digression ….
Anyway, that’s just my reading of the piece. Perhaps the analogy is mine alone and not “An Ex-Farmers.” It is entitled “To Hell With Farming” after all.
I hate to be the spoiled sport but I disagree with the article’s premise and those who ‘poo-poo’ self reliance. A few years ago I left the city, just like the author, and bought a farm. My experience has been completely different. I built wood sheds and chicken coops, mow great expanses of acreage, chop all my own wood for the winter ( I heat with wood ), tend animals, grow crops, etc,etc.
Of course I have the advantage of modern machinery, the chainsaw, the tractor and implements, but it is still a good bit of work at certain times. I do have plenty of free time, more than I ever had at my desk job, and during the winter I only work a part-time job in town (15-20 hrs per week_) to have something to do and bring in a bit extra. One thing I have learned is that farmers and country folks love to tell city people how tough that life is, they describe 16 hour days of toil with nothing to show for it (just like our author). I have also learned that those people are scared to death of city people coming to the country to live permanently and spoiling their racket.
I can honestly say, with pride, that I have never worked a 16 hr day in my life and don’t ever intend to. Even during planting and harvest I barely work 6 to 8 hrs…and that is broken up by and hour or two rest because the labor can be a bit intense. When my crops are in I weed them, fertilize them, collect my eggs, butcher my chickens, go fishing, go hiking, and let nature do its job. Late summer and fall I cut wood ( with chainsaw) and stack it a few hours each day. Within a month I usually have enough for the whole of winter. That is usually harvest time too and I harvest and go to market throughout the fall which is my busiest time, but enjoy it all! I love the market and interacting with the people, I love the work, I love seeing the result of planting my seeds and reaping the reward!
I am usually tired of those 8 hrs days just around the time winter rolls in and I basically take three 1/2 months off from farming and work a bit here and there. In the spring I’m usually excited about planting time again and I’m ordering seeds, tilling, amending soil, etc. Anyway, I’m not sure what all the negativity was about in the article….except maybe that it was written in 1937 and they had no machinery that a man could use to lighten his load. Some would say that because I use machines, that I rely on, that I am not ‘self-reliant’ but I PAY for those machines with the proceeds from my farm and labor, so to my mind I am completely self reliant. I do not define self-reliance as walking off naked into the woods to scratch the dirt. The bear is born with fur and claws and he is self reliant, I was born with a brain and access to machinery and steel ( my birth right) and I am self reliant.
You also have the advantage of the internet, and a wealth of knowledge in print, and didn’t have to rely on Dept of Ag pamphlets. (I can just imagine what they were like.) I’m sure you didn’t just pick up and leave. You probably thoroughly researched what you wanted to do before hand, and put together a “business plan” of sorts, like any good entrepreneur would do. What the guy in this article did was extremely reckless.
What a hoot! Perfect analogy to “be careful what you wish for”. I’m from Kansas and although I lived in the city, I had lots of farmer relatives that I spent time with. Getting up at the crack of dawn to help milk, gather eggs, feed livestock, etc., really does give you an appreciation for what these people do.
Funny and so true. The first time you do anything, auto mechanics comes to mind, it take three times longer and twice as much to do the job. Having been there with cars and home renovation i certainly sympathize with the farmer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12360013 Somewhat off topic, but then again, maybe not. For anyone who would be free perhaps very on-topic. These people just might have great knowledge to share.
Isn’t that the Crawford ranch?
We should all move back to the farm and make a cozy living whittling on the porch.
If you know how and what to whittle you just might be able to do it! But seriously, I think a great tragedy for the world is the potential knowledge we lost from the original Indian tribes of how to live without government, as well as many other things.
This story reminds me of the movie “Baby Boom”. This guy was extremely lucky. Sure, creating a successful business requires a bit of luck, but this guy had absolutely no plan, whatsoever. By all rights, he and his wife should have starved to death. This is really a poor example of successful entrepreneurship. A better example would be Bill and Duke Galletta who purchased 5 acres of land in Hammonton, NJ, in 1935, which they cleared by hand with the help of a draft horse. They worked the land in their spare time while waiting for the cranberry crops by planting blueberries and selling the plants. In 1946, they were able to quit their day jobs, and buy more land, which they cleared with a war surplus army tank. They grew the business into what is now, the largest blueberry producer in the world, and still family owned, “Atlantic Blueberry Co.”
Comments on this entry are closed.