by Boschi » Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:04 am
When you get down to it, most of the growers/farmers I know (small scale, sustainable/organic) have this really profound insecurity about the financial worth of what they're doing. No one is willing to engage this occupation as a hard business proposition. And few are equipped to even think about it in depth.
It's not a money maker. Period.
Over and over again I'm told, in this mopey, tragically-inadequate, self-deprecating, misunderstood way, that this is something one does because one likes it, not to support yourself.
And yes, some of these are business saavy growers with decades of experience and both successes and bankruptcies under their belts. They're young and old, rural and urban, liberal and conservative.
So I've got my second job (p/t, with benes) job, and I've been blabbing for a while about how this farming thing is supplemental income, but the truth is I seesaw between rage and despair over this "reality".
I can multitask well, but not multijob well. I'm splitting my time between job and farm, with this weird obligation to do well at the job, such that I'm compromising the farm. And given that starting a small business seems to me to involve a bit of obsessiveness and a willingness to not only look at hard facts and numbers but also to commit to it's success in bizarre and zealous ways, this pisses me off no end.
What the fuck is the point in thinking about how to make this work, and about how to make this a functional business (to the degree that the business itself has a value that would justify it's sale), when I'm treating it as a (grotesqely expensive) hobby?
So perhaps this should have gone in the Rants thread.
What I'm trying to get to is that at some point I feel I'm going to have to choose between what may be a fundamentally reckless decision to try to make a living farming full time, which will likely read as a reckless and stupid decision to a lot of people I respect (including the gf), and just giving up on the whole damn affair (the farm, not the gf [I hope]).
Maybe there is middle ground here, but I'm not currently finding it.
I think I'm on my own in this one, too. Me, myself and I making the call. Which is weird given that farming is the first thing I've found where I feel a sense of community.
Don't confuse me with your reasonableness.