[Bjorkbat]

Yeah, as a former farmer I'm a little bit skeptical. Last I checked the vast majority of farms out there aren't large operations, but incredibly small family-owned "hobby farms" or market gardens (what most of us would identify as a small vegetable farm).

Having known many farmers over the years, I can only think of one who would really have a use for this. The rest would probably just dismiss it without much thought.

[fanquake]

In Australia we've seen nothing but farm getting larger over the last 15-20 years. It's also interesting to compare the size of farm he's talking about to what we have here. On our property we have single fields 2x the size of what they consider a small farm (600acres).

[csirac2]

The economics of farming certainly do seem different in the US. Is land really that much cheaper/higher-yielding? Is that why hobby farms in the US can break-even on such small areas? Or is the difference just in the subsidies they get? Or is high/consistent-yielding farmland simply locked away from smaller operators in Australia nowadays? A combination of everything?

[fanquake]

Land may be cheaper, but probably not higher yielding. When your buying land your essentially buying rainfall. We could easily find and buy xx'000 acres of really cheap land, but it if only gets 200-300mm of rain every year, your not going to be seeing serious yields. The other thing to remember is that irrigation is impossible for a lot of West Australian farmland.

[wooster]

What crops do you grow? Growing up near the Salinas Valley, I always associated row crops with produce and not grains, so a <600 acre "row crop" farm can generate pretty massive revenue.

[fanquake]

Predominately wheat. The rest is lupins and a small amount of canola (~750ha this year).