So you want to be a farmer? 🐷🐄🚜

I follow a lot of farm and homestead pages on my various social media accounts. Probably flip through thousands of pictures and posts about cows and hogs each week. I am really into agriculture, I read not just Mother Earth News and Hobby Farms magazines but also Successful Farmer when they come out each month on the Libby Library app. I’ve read many books about homesteading and farming, and I own a few other books in my collection.

Even though I don’t own a farm and didn’t really grow up on a farm beyond my parents five acres, I am quite passionate about agriculture as it’s man’s closest connection to the natural world outside of hunting, trapping and foraging. It’s the use of technology to sustainably produce food off land using science both for today and generations to come. While many outside of agricultural industry are skeptical about industry practices, when it comes down to it, farmers do what is best for their land and livelihoods, which can sustain themselves both today and tomorrow. It’s not to say some agricultural practices aren’t problematic or cause impacts on the environment or nearby neighbors, but it’s hard to criticize people when you’re not the one shoveling shit.

So do I want to be a farmer? Not really, because I’m not much of an entrepreneur. I read a lot about ag marketing, and selling products, but it’s not really thing. I don’t see myself having that kind of mindset. It’s not to say though when I have my own land, I won’t have farm animals and raise crops for my own consumption – as a source of food without being wrapped plastic – or to be better utilize my acreage. Turn waste and things growing on my land into more food. Butcher my own animals, produce fertilizer for my garden. Things that don’t burn well, can usually be fed or composted. Be self reliant, both so I don’t have to worry so much about income and other systems.

Does commercial agriculture have all the answers? No, but it’s good at growing food reliably at a cost effective fashion that limits environmental harm while producing copious amount of food on relatively little land. And much of what applies to big farms can be applied to little homesteads. And people who farm have a deeper connection to the land the most of us. A simpler kind of existence.