r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • u/XennialPlotTwist • 2d ago

The oh-woe-is-me farmers are completely out of pocket

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The video attached, by #BlackbirdCoop aka FarmingWhileBiege breaks down the side of the farming industry that they don't want you to know. While there may be some mom and pop farmers, who are struggling, those farmers are few and far between.

Again, all credit to @BlackbirdCoop

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u/siazdghw 1d ago

What most Americans don't realize is that commercial farms on the low end pull in 6 figures of profit a year, and the larger ones can do millions.

Most farmers are wealthy.

It's only the tiny hobbyists farms that struggle, and we are talking like a few cows, or chickens or whatever, basically only producing enough food for a dozen families at most, but the thing with hobbyist farms is that they are almost always a secondary source of income, and they get tax benefits, so it's hard to tell whether those hobbyist farmers are actually trying to grow a business or if they are just doing it for personal reasons or for tax benefits.

TLDR; Most farmers are actually millionaires, even if most of it is in assets that isn't cash.

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u/NeutrinoPanda 1d ago

Most (not all) of those tiny-ish hobby farms are millionaires that use hobby farming struggles for tax benefits.

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u/1001110100100110101 1d ago

Yea anyone rich will have a “farm” for writing off expenses

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u/Phil_Fart_MD 17h ago

Not sure what you’re defining as “hobbyist farms” but small farms are very often not rich farmers. Yes there are small farms that are started by people with a lot of money from previous job or inherited. But there are many many farmers that do it for the love of the game. You have to. Because no one, and I mean no one, chooses 10 hours manual labor, 6 days a week, no vacation for $4,000 annual profit. Often times the small farms are the only sustainable, regenerative farms. The ones looking out for soil health and biodiversity. The small farms are often the only farms you can find produce free of caustic pesticide, true “free range” meat not the simple marketing term free range. Small farms often have the most “organic” produce even though they aren’t “certified organic” because they cant afford nor have the spare time to jump thru the hoops for a label that means less every year in terms of health, nutrient richness, and sustainability. Small farms are often the only farms that sell strawberries or melons that aren’t picked unripe and flavorless to survive the extreme shipping distances/time. No farm is like the other. People are people. But our food system is broken, we are disconnected from our food. Small local farms are one of the few avenues we have opportunity to get back in touch with that.

Source: worked and lived on small farms ran by not rich farmers.