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Life happens, but in theory debt just pushes the profitability into the future (i.e. when you retire). A farm struggling with cashflow and its operators living in poverty doesn't mean they don't have multi-millions in assets available to sell at some point. That is why one accepts the debt, after all. Farming isn't much different than the tech landscape. You can build a small business that reaches profitability immediately, but your upside will be severely limited, or you can go full unicorn and make nothing for years and then (hopefully) hit the jackpot when you sell. It is faulty to think that, generally, farming is a business for making a living. That's not why, generally, someone farms. Generally, they are there to build wealth, which some people find to be more important than having a decent yearly income and without anything to show for it at the end of the day. Different tradeoffs, is all. > Running a first-class restaurant is risky enough; running a farm is even riskier. As it happens, I also operate a restaurant. There is no way farming is more risky. In an individual year it may be, but you go into farming knowing that the business ebbs and flows in a reasonably predictable manner and design your operation around that. The restaurant industry, on the other hand, has no rhyme nor reason. Something as simple as hiring the wrong server can start to really tear your business apart and harm you even long after the employee is gone. If you make a similar mistake on the farm, nobody cares, and next year gives you a fresh start. |