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by giantg2 1615 days ago
It's hard to turn a good profit with small scale agriculture today. One has to do it for the love of it, or self sufficiency like homesteading.

The biggest issue is land and location. Good land is expensive and it's extraordinarily expensive in the areas where many if the highly compensated devs live. Remember that the median US dev salary is around $110k. That doesn't provide much land. The ones who do have the money would have to enjoy it more than alternative lifestyles that may be more attractive (bigger house, fancier stuff, vacations), as the compensation would be a relative pittance.

I'm a beekeeper, garden, and grow mushrooms. I would love land but can't afford it.

1 comments

yes, I found this out selling everything and getting back to doing the work. folks simply don't want to pay for " low grow" various other practices. Location is essential. I think a lot of land is available but many realtor and other deter folks from purchasing/mortgaging land within the metro areas; assuming they even know what their looking for. I purchase two pieces of property from seniors... first first the owner would not sale to any " city person" so she loved what i wanted to do and that i agreed to give her what she was asking. the other land piece is a beautiful property to which the owner stated his family didn't want anything more to with it. both places... i researched and travel and went myself to see and acquire. currently, i've given up on bring the property to scale as there so much set work im doing and the often overlooked piece is people... you need people. some seasons I've had more than i could do with few purchasers. good thing my children are now growing and eating quite a bit but i still have the same problem... finding people. if your ever in the Metro ATL area or near the Cabot Trail in NS, let me know maybe we can work together.
You can't mortgage raw land. You need a special land loan which tend to require significant down payment and have very short terms. It's much easier to find land in ATL area and it's cheaper. Land around here goes for $50k-$100k per acre.

Lack of labor, or margins too small to pay labor, are a major problem.