[thephyber]

Is there anything about farming that makes financial sense?

Most farmers (even in developed countries) are cash poor and most farmers are deep in debt.

The ones that aren’t can quickly become so given a little bad luck. Farms have to hedge against bad yields to protect against undesirable weather.

Family farms only make financial sense if there is a lot of free labor (slavery, indentured servants, or unpaid labor of children).

[Hilift]

That isn't an issue with farming. It's the competitive pressures of the electricity market in the US. Most of the US is currently powered by natural gas, which is about five times less expensive in the US than in Europe. Colorado is a bit different, they still have 33% from coal (US wide coal is 16%). The quick and easy solution would be for electricity to be more like the rest of the world and more expensive. Europe will actually be much worse soon due to a price cap is expiring at the end of this month.

[shermantanktop]

Or if they can act as a quasi-shell corporation for an agribusiness concern to cash in on tax breaks. And at that point, if the family makes any money at all, the parent corp will surely find a way to harvest that too.