Ya, the thing you have to realize about running a small farm is that you are either competing with the huge industrial scale guys or you are competing with all the small town family farms that were born into it. And most of those who were born into it have either bought and built their farm over their entire life or inherited it. It's hard to make a living selling farm products when you have a mortgage payment and you are competing with people who don't and also with people who are more than happy to make near nothing as they are mostly living on pensions and social security anyway.
We have lots of farmland in my family that is passed down. It's a beef cattle ranch. And it's really not even that profitable even though the land is fully paid for. My grandparents farmed it their whole lives, but they also worked as teachers and now get that pension as well as social security. The farm is more of a way of life than a way to make a good living.
Most large farmers start in livestock because you can afford 10 acres, put cows on it, and then go to the nearby town for a job that supports your life. All the profits from the cows is reinvested into more land until you have enough to get 100 acres of crop land. Then it is farm nights and weekends while working your day job. If all goes well (it doesn't always go well) about the time you are 45 you have enough land that you can retire from the town job to work the farm.
Note that even though the farm is worth millions, what you can income in the above plan is never more than $50,000/year.
Exactly. And it's not really worth "millions" either. You might have a thousand acres at $2,000 an acre. But you wouldn't usually be able to sell it all at once at that price. Because few people have a few million on hand that they want to invest for a $50k annual return. (and that assumes you want to do a lot of the labor yourself.)
There's another gap between small family farms and huge scale enterprises. There is a lot of demand for local but quality. Whether it's grass-fed beef, eggs from truly free-ranging chickens, or heritage breed pork that's well butchered (harder than you'd think to find quality animal processing) people are looking for things that the more traditional farms don't know about and the big farms can't afford to do. I think there is a market for focused quality. Of course in the meantime I'm still punching the clock at my IT job but hope the farm can eventually sustain itself.
Ya, there is definitely a niche for that. But it can be difficult. Usually involves certifications and finding the right markets that want what you have in the quantities you can produce it and not more. Also, a lot of the places where land is cheap enough are pretty far from places where demand for heritage pork or wagyu beef is high.
Also, I have found that the old timers are pretty slow to change, but there is actually good reason for that. They have seen the trends come and go, some have jumped on those trends and eventually gotten burned (in my area, it was ostrich and emu farming).
Also, the slow methodical farm build-up over the years tends to evolve out a pretty efficient and effective farming method. I remember a few years ago, my brother and I got on this kick thinking there was a lot of money to be made on the farm by further fattening or "finishing" the cows before selling them. As traditionally, a lot of farms will sell yearlings to feedlots for a lower price. The feedlot then fattens them up and sells for a profit. But after a lot of research and number crunching, we found that the math just didn't work because we would have to pay to ship in the grain, since it isn't grown very locally and then we would also have to eat the higher cost of shipping those heavier cows to the auctions which are also not that close.
The old timers knew this wasn't a profitable pathway even though they didn't all necessarily know the whole story of why it isn't a profitable pathway. We have found this to be true in a lot of cases with older farmers. They know some things won't work, even if they don't fully know the details why.
We have lots of farmland in my family that is passed down. It's a beef cattle ranch. And it's really not even that profitable even though the land is fully paid for. My grandparents farmed it their whole lives, but they also worked as teachers and now get that pension as well as social security. The farm is more of a way of life than a way to make a good living.