[4043D]

Farming as a service won't work for smaller landholders (less than 1000 hectares) people on smaller farms have money to spend 2 or 3 times a year that is when they make investments that they can write off on tax (buying a tractor) all these agtech startups pushing farming as a service fundimentaly don't understand farming as a business.

[GreeniFi]

Small scale farming often doesn’t work as a business. The economics of modern day commercial agriculture support only the big farmer. These technologies, unless they get super cheap, will drive more and more farm consolidation.

[criddell]

I think there's a possible future where small scale farming takes off because it makes small-scale farming profitable and leads to fragmentation of the agriculture market. It would be great to be able to choose from more types of bananas and tomatoes and potatoes and carrots and other fruits and vegetables.

I don't want cheaper food, I want better food.

[sturgill]

> I don’t want cheaper food, I want better food.

Say what you want about Big Ag, but the very fact that this is a reasonable position (and it is reasonable) is a tremendous testament to our progress as a species.

[4043D]

Small scale farming absolutely does work as a business and the vast majority of farms (world wide) are in the sub 1000 hectare range. If you are talking sub 100 acre hobby farms then yeah they aren't a profitable main source of income (excluding some market garden operations)

[mymythisisthis]

What about fish farming and aquaculture. People pay a premium for sustainable fish, a good pound of sustainable fish can set me back $20-$30. Maybe there is enough of a profit margin in such fields, and they don't have to be big.

[GreeniFi]

Most farms in the world are in the sub one hectare range. And their owners aren’t hobbyists.

[codingdave]

We don't think of farm spending in terms of tax write offs. That is how large farms work, not small farms. We buy small tools. Small machines. If we need a big machine to do something on our property, we barter for it or simply pay someone to handle it who does own the equipment. The assumption that all types and sizes of farms work under the same business model is simply untrue.

[protomyth]

For instance, combines are often a hired service http://www.hpj.com/archives/wheat-harvesting-becomes-way-of-...

[4043D]

I'm not sure where you are in the world but in my country we absolutely do spend the vast majority of profit from harvest or the sale of stock reinvesting in farm infrastructure because when you do that it's a tax deduction if we didn't 30 % of your profit would go in tax. small farms may not buy large items but everyone that runs a farm does something similar in my country. I don't know how much these guys intend to charge a month but I know that the smart tag people for cattle want $5 a month a head for what is good data but the price makes it completely non viable.

[hinkley]

Some of the alternative models being espoused now, especially those involving a higher fraction of perennials, would have the farmers producing upward of a dozen crops per year. There are probably more opportunities under a new model than you think.

And there are more repayment models than per use, monthly and yearly.