Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.
Yeah, but the Amish know how to do it, have the trained oxen for it and aren’t afraid of hard work.
These two in “Madison” on a 80 acre farm are likely MayDay marchin libs. Their 80 acres will be up for sale soon.
“Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.”
And I suppose you save thousands per year by riding your horse to work?
When my drafthorse hobbyist dad asks the local day-labor, carpenter crew, and cabinet shop Amish for horse advice, they say, “Back when we used to farm, we would...”
And “(t)he Amish would seem
especially vulnerable, as their farming methods cannot
generate the return per acre that mechanized farming
can, especially because of the acreage that must be
devoted to forage for horses.”
http://geography.ssc.uwo.ca/research/great_lakes_geographer/GLG_volume7/LoweryNoble.pdf
The Changing Occupational Structure of the
Amish of the Holmes County, Ohio, Settlement
True but, they also have lots of kids to help out. How many people now days have more than 2 or 3 kids?
Depends on your definition of profitable. Several points - the Amish live a 17th century lifestyle, BUT with some 21st century benefits, like modern medicine, good roads, etc. Not saying that’s a bad thing; just pointing out that they are willing to live what for many if not most of us would be an unforgivingly hard lifestyle, and they do have modernity to fall back on if there are problems.
“Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.”
Your “more-time-consuming” phrase is very telling. If you assign no “expense” to your own labor, lots of stuff is “VERY profitable.” Heck, get rid of the oxen and resort to hoe tilling, and profit will really soar.
“Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.”
Your “more-time-consuming” phrase is very telling. If you assign no “expense” to your own labor, lots of stuff is “VERY profitable.” Heck, get rid of the oxen and resort to hoe tilling, and profit will really soar.
“Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.”
How can lower productivity result in a “VERY profitable” enterprise?
The only positive out of using animals is cost avoidance for tractors, fuel.
Cost avoidance offsetting lower productivity cannot result in “VERY profitable” farms.
I don’t believe it. Perhaps you could provide some numbers.
The majority of civilization in the US is however in the cities, small and large. They don't have enough land available to sustain the entire needs of their families. Instead, they go to the grocer to buy stuff. The stuff at the grocer is what the farmer has left over after he feeds his family, the extra that he has, to make a profit selling.
80 acres will not be sufficient to provide extra for a few more families, in any meaningful ratio of farmer to non farmer. The farmer thus needs more land, how much more?
Once you get in the several hundred and more, the ox simply cannot move fast enough to process the acreage.
An advantage of the tractor (there are many, as noted in other posts) is that it allows one person to physically generate sufficient product to feed multitudes.
I suppose one can mandate every family to live on 80 acres with an ox, but that is altogether another line of debate.
I would but they won't answer the phone.