I had a horrible thought today. Are all of the young people today going to find out that they can't get a cushy job that pays well and isn't labor intensive? That the old farmers are retiring and no one will have food until the young folks sacrifice their dreams for brutal work and poverty? Where are the young farmers?
The same problem exists in Japan. What would happen if we didn't have foreigners to pick crops? A look at Japan
https://www.youngfarmers.org/ https://newfarmers.usda.gov/young-farmers Thanks for posting your question. I never really thought about this issue as I just assumed farming is handed down in families and communities.
The majority of all farming is done with mechanized equipment, very rare is the heavy labor of yesteryear..
What I think is being billed as the world's largest aquaponic farm is supposed to be built down the road from me and another company is building a pretty large stacked-row indoor greenhouse in the area. Farming is evolving rapidly.
Is it going to bring any jobs to your area? I used to love watching that show "How It's Made" especially the ones about food from the farm to the grocery stores.
Arable land is too expensive to buy, thanks to financialization and the Everything Bubble, and most people don't want to be sharecroppers all their lives. Not rocket science.
IDK. I mean migrant worker labor is a thing of the past but that Aquaponics farm I spoke of is being billed as expecting to need 40 full-time employees as well as seasonal workers in addition to the 100 or so construction jobs to build it. I am not sure what "seasonal" means in relation to an indoor facility though since I would have assumed that meant they would be growing 24/7/365. Maybe tour guides for school trips or people to manage college interns and said interns in the summer maybe. IJDK.
Less and less, farming as a family business has continued to become harder and harder. Yes, there is automation, but it's also gigantic Agro corporations taking over, doing so on the back of low wage foreign (often undocumented) migrant workers. Family farms can barely compete with that. The same thing is happening in New Zealand right now, an increase of foreign immigration has led to the rise of big corporations in the farming sector and been decimating traditional family farms. http://www.politicalforum.com/index...tes-family-owned-farms-in-new-zealand.571844/ In addition, free trade has also meant that the type of farming in the US is changing. The US is now focusing on farming that involves automated harvesting (especially wheat), while the more labor intensive types of farming get outsourced to other countries. More fruits and vegetables sold in the US are being grown and harvested in other countries where costs are cheaper.
In what possible way for a young person does farming make any sense whatsoever? Most young people can't afford to buy a home so how can they buy a farm? Or where can a person find arable land, buy that land, plant that land, acquire all the equipment, etc.? And even if a farm is in their possession then there are all the labor issues, market issues, climate issues, disease issues, etc. And even if one has the farm, and all conditions are always perfect, how many kids want to do that type of work? In my area, a survey showed that 70-80% of farmers have no legacy plan...meaning no relatives/friends to take over when the old folks retire. I do believe it is critical that a nation like the USA produces it's own food. I understand seasonal buying of imports but this should be minimized. So how can young people be attracted to farming? One way might be some new form of homesteading, in which the government provides 20-40-60 acre parcels, in various parts of the country, and provides zero-interest loans. Another way might be for local governments to lease land at very low rates and again provide assistance to acquire/use equipment. And farming should have a place in public education! Short of these things...we're screwed....
As an employee of an agribusiness corporation, which is how an increasing majority of farming is done. The exorbitant, increasing, and unsustainable subsidy to idle landowning ensures aspiring young farmers can't afford to buy farmland any more than young suburban families can afford to buy a house. The farms are being bought up and consolidated by agribusiness firms. Same way they are attracted to mining, oil, forestry, fishing, etc.: wages.
Googled agribusiness jobs and this is what comes up; https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Agribusiness Yes there are jobs but not sure how many of these jobs are available to someone without college or even a degree? Where do young people obtain experience in farming? Ignoring your diatribe, farm land is expensive due to supply and demand. There are no laws about agribusiness firms acquiring farms? Wages are never an answer...they're only a starting point. If people don't like their careers, how much they get paid becomes a moot point...
Well, sort of. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Most of the most desirable farmland with good soil, a long growing season, and more plentiful rainfall is in more populated areas where land costs are higher. This is probably not a coincidence. These areas were more likely to be settled in the past because of their farmland and better climate, and this farming wealth led to cities and people living there, which over time transitioned into a different type of economy. Much of the most valuable agricultural area has already been built on and developed and is not available for farming. There still is plenty of land area in the US that is suitable for farming and has (relatively speaking) low land costs, but this area is marginal farmland, requiring irrigation, or having some other challenging problems for farming. When you make statements like "farmland is expensive", you have to quantify and qualify that a little bit more. "Expensive" can be a relative term, and it depends what the quality of that farmland is. There is plenty of cheap farmland which is all but useless except for growing wheat, and even then with low yields. You could say that farmland is expensive relative to commodity food prices.
In my area farm land is fairly cheap in comparison to land for anything else if you shop around for it. There are some areas where the old owners of the old tobacco fields still think their land is worth $10K-$15K an acre, but it is not unusual to see at least a few decent tracts a year listed for closer to $1500-$2K/acre. The now retired tobacco farmers are about the only farmers here that could live off just farming but Clinton did that whole industry in a generation ago. I have met a couple farming only people when used to hunt but they are older and really dirt poor other than their land they inherited. They are mostly self-sufficient and make extra money raising and slaughtering hogs, timbering, etc to cover the basics like electricity and taxes . The real thing is that "traditional" farms are in for a world of hurt, but one can still make a living if one tries to do something less traditional in the field. For instance, urban homesteading is starting to make a dent toward being a successful alternative in which people do a lot of non-traditional highly dense growing and sell directly to local restaurants. I know one person who doesn't survive off their hobby farm, but they make a lot of pocket money growing ornamentals that they sell live plants/seeds/bulbs on the internet or at flea markets..
Most of those are on the "business" side rather than the farming side. The ones for "production hand" and "production line worker" at $13.50/hr. For readers new to OldManOnFire's idiosyncratic use of English, "diatribe" is the term he uses to refer to facts that he knows he cannot refute, and prove his beliefs are false. The supply of land is fixed, and demand for land is equal to the expected future net after-tax subsidy to owning it. Probably varies by jurisdiction. Tell that to someone who needs them. Most people don't have anything that could be called a career, don't like their jobs, and how much they get paid is their main reason for working.
2k an acre is cheap but you have other considerations. Like water, pots for container plants, seed or cuttings, and pest control. And veggies need good soil built up over years of compost and mulch. But what I think would be neat is to take hay rolls, turn them down so they don't roll and plant in them. Put them on the ground in early fall and plant in March or April. Then let the hay decompose into soil. Potatoes then tomatoes first spring and summer. Then broccoili in the fail or carrots. And finally sweet corn and watermelon after that. Use mulch throughout. And Miracle Grow to assist.
Most people I have known to try the growing in hay which I believe they call "The Ruth Stout Method" or something like that, only do it once and then go back to more traditional techniques.
This is different than the Ruth Stout method or the BTE method. The hay makes rich topsoil quickly. 3 foot deep hay should bring you about 3 inches of topsoil in about 3 years and grow good plants while it does. You want to get hay minus persistent herbicides.
Seems like it would be easier just to bag your yard when mowing and use grass clippings than getting giant rolls of hay.
Countries like USA and Australia hire gap year students on working holidays. https://www.gap360.com/fruit-picking-jobs-abroad These are jobs were students pay the farmers to work. Can't we just do that to replace seasonal EU labour in the UK?
I'm not sure if this is a 'kids these days' post or a sincere issue. In the way you've written it, it sounds as though you are criticizing a generation for not sacrificing their dreams to pursue brutal work and poverty. Why would anyone do that? If, however, your post represents a sincere concern, I think you'll find that independent farming is no longer the way the country gets fed. And it has been that way for some time now.
