While I don't know what the definition of a small-time farmer is to you, but I live in a farm heavy area and their income level is huge for the amount of time they put in. My friend has a business that sells "power equipment," and he's entirely sustained by farmers buying the latest and greatest every year.
Think about it this way - 5 years ago farming land in the area was worth $10,000 an acre. It's probably more now. So if you just have 100 acres, that's easily worth a million. To make sense farming it instead of selling it and investing (or renting the land to another farmer) you'd need to make more than $50k-$100k after expenses for it to be worth it.
And it is. Most have significantly more than 100 acres. There's maybe 8 weeks out of the year where they need to work hard. The downside? You more or less need to be born in to it because even if you could afford to buy the land you'd have a hard time finding any to buy.
Note: I'm talking about crop farmers here. Animals are another matter, and I don't understand the type of people that would decide to get in to that line of work.
The book describes a pretty nice small farm arrangement. Basically the guy has a field of grass and has some cows and chickens. The cows graze on the grass and poop, the chickens pick apart the poop and eat insects and he's basically just moving around fencing once every day or two. Since it's not mass farming of animals he doesn't have to deal with as much waste at scale, and he sells high end meat in addition to some produce he works on separately.
Doesn't sound that bad once you get it going but I'm sure there's a lot of day to day work.
Think about it this way - 5 years ago farming land in the area was worth $10,000 an acre. It's probably more now. So if you just have 100 acres, that's easily worth a million. To make sense farming it instead of selling it and investing (or renting the land to another farmer) you'd need to make more than $50k-$100k after expenses for it to be worth it."
But many times the land is worth more than they make. A 100 ac farm growing wheat would gross about $40k, right?
As for power equipment. Some of that can be bought with grants or subsidies, right? Or on debt.
Sure, and I maybe worded that poorly. They get to make that money and keep the land to either eventually sell, pass down, or rent. The point is it's rare for farmers to sell what's usually millions of dollars of land - usually that happens when inheritance comes in to play.
The power equipment is mostly stuff for fun more than for work, such as side by sides. They still get to deduct it, of course. It was just an example of how much money they make.
For what it's worth I believe the soil in southwest Minnesota is supposed to be among the best in the country, and they do corn & soybeans.
Think about it this way - 5 years ago farming land in the area was worth $10,000 an acre. It's probably more now. So if you just have 100 acres, that's easily worth a million. To make sense farming it instead of selling it and investing (or renting the land to another farmer) you'd need to make more than $50k-$100k after expenses for it to be worth it.
And it is. Most have significantly more than 100 acres. There's maybe 8 weeks out of the year where they need to work hard. The downside? You more or less need to be born in to it because even if you could afford to buy the land you'd have a hard time finding any to buy.
Note: I'm talking about crop farmers here. Animals are another matter, and I don't understand the type of people that would decide to get in to that line of work.