I had always heard that farmers were the happiest in their occupation.
The financial strains of it ARE real, and there is a local guy whose dairy and beef operation is going belly-up (we just bought two beef steer from him to butcher) but it’s just like success in any other occupation; unless you’re suited to it and LIKE it, or you’ve inherited the family business/farm and it’s not the least bit interesting to you, or you’re a bad manager when it comes to capital, then, yes - you ARE going to fail at it.
I’m still trying to wrap my brain about what she’s (Selina) trying to relay to us, here. She ends on a happy/thankful note. I dunno. Not enough information for me.
The 80 saw huge farm foreclosures. There was Farm Aid and many concerts and musical items centered around the silent plight of farming. Yhe small farm is gone. Farmers have to have thousands of acres in crops in order to just pay the machinery costs. There is SW that uses satellite imagery to optimize planting, that programs thetractors now. It’s very high tech. Insurance, seed stock, EPA, dept of agriculture, self reightous suburbanites move in next to farm land and bitch ......
It’s a hard life. Dawn to dusk plus some. In order to survive they have to grow. Have you priced a harvester and the other equipment? Grain storage fees .....
I don’t farm btw but it’s turned into corporate farming mostly.