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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] What nobody told me about small farming: I can’t make a living

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  • From: herb farmer <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] What nobody told me about small farming: I can’t make a living
  • Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 19:15:48 -0700


I'm seriously surprised anyone would express the exact philosophy I keep - that the only meaning in life is just what we give it. And something in growing feeds the inner being in ways nothing else can duplicate.

Did u start feeling sympathy for the woman in that? She fell into the Big Ag trap, using their equipment, competing head to head with same Big Ag grocery customers, trying to keep up an entire produce section by themselves, and so on. I'm no expert or youngster, but I've made bigger profits than her on less than1% of the land she works. Nice that she did go organic, but that doesn't guarantee any revenue over costs. Now where u can't survive selling produce etc. you could write the book on growing to live.

On 2/10/2015 6:07 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
Exactly my own experience except that we always worked 7 days a week and often much longer than 12 hours a day.
However, we owned our land and made a rock into a fertile landscape. And we really would have been doing the same thing if we had known we had only a few more months to live.
The big question in life is why we are here at all. I think that life has no meaning unless we give it meaning by having a goal that is more important than our little selves. Making even one single acre fertile so that instead of that acre feeding just a few wild birds you can see numbers and species diversity exploding might not be such a pointless ideal.
I farmed organically for 30 years and never made a living from it. But did we eat well! And did we enjoy the things we did! And because of that we disease was extremely rare and we never really needed medical attention. We always grew our own medicine.
Rich people spend big money riding a horse. We could train a horse and be with it almost all the time so that that horse became a best friend that would do anything for you. Priceless!

The deck is so stacked against small farmers that it is idiotic to expect to make a living from it but it sure is the way of life.
John

On 10/02/15 22:19, herb farmer wrote:
What nobody told me about small farming: I can’t make a living
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/what_nobody_told_me_about_small_farming_i_cant_make_a_living/?source=newsletter
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