i don't think any of us mean a real farmer, like you (if I'm not mistaken, is it you?), and by that I mean an actual "blood on the scarecrow" farmer that gets up before dawn and works till after dark just to pull in slightly less income than your average beggar, all while getting shit on and or ignored by pretty much the rest of society.

I had some uncles that did that in Iowa. Their whole lives man. NO WAY AM I DOING THAT. It's a ruthless thankless existence.

I think my "farm" here we mean rural/country.

I for one am very thankful I don't have to farm anymore. I'd encourage anyone who wants to do it to at least work on a farm as a hand for a while to see if it suits you. If I was able to farm as a hobby, that might be one thing (even though I wouldn't be too much into that) - but I'd only be able to do that because I got a better paying job in the city and had saved up and could afford to farm as a hobby. To me the reality of living on an operating farm for a living, especially now that I'm older, is not particularly appealing, especially considering how expensive farms are to purchase in the first place.

I'm having flashbacks of muddy shoes/boots, gummed up hands, heat, and the constant time demands (forget a weekend trip to anywhere). There are probably innovative time-saving approaches now that just weren't around when I was growing up on a farm, and those are interesting to me (something like hydroponics, or greenhouses), but that's not what I think of when I think of farming. I think of cows getting out, fixing fences, a foot of snow on ground and hauling hay back to the cattle, cutting and splitting so much wood (it's amazing how much wood it takes to stay warm), hours in the heat cutting hay/working in tobacco, planting/harvesting crops, broken machinery that needs repairs, lots of mud and cow poop ;-), and just the constancy of all of it - you never really look forward to anything different. If someone loves it, it might be great, but it probably takes a special type of person that really wants to do it.

With animals you never have a day off.

About firewood, efficient fire places and well insulated houses make a lot of difference. I know from experience the consumption can be halved by fixing those.

It's really complicate. What if you get sick or hurt? Besides of the risk of robbery, there is the possibility of conflicts with Landless Workers' Movements (at least in my country).
Why this exodus happened?

***

Juuuust, sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
aboard this tiny ship....

It is good there are people in the world who want to become farmers, because I couldn't care rat's ass myself.

If everyone was like me, we'd all die of hunger! No I am not into hunting either really, the sight of blood makes me see red.

Or, we could just let robots do it for us. https://farmbot.io/

In 2004 the wife and I went from 4+ million people in metro Atlanta to about 4,800 in a bedroom village in Wisconsin. Then last year almost 5,000 people felt too stuffy ; ) so we moved a few miles out of town.

Got some farms down our road, guessing in size from 40-200 acres, and our neighbor on the west side deals in horses and donkeys. We're doing our best to not bring the city into the country, and we're certainly not going to complain about the occasional whiff of fertilizer or the donkeys serenading us at 2am.

I went to school with farm kids and they had full days. to be sure. Up at 4am for milking and feeding, school, maybe some after-school activities, homework, rinse repeat. And that's the kids. The parents were working more, and further carried all the pressures that come with running the farm business. And sometimes had 2nd jobs.

For all the stuff farmers need to know and the hours they put in, they really make little money. Jack-of-all-trades hardly scratches the surface. It's no wonder that family farms are less and less being passed on to the next generation, instead being snatched up by big corporate operations, or the land being bought by developers for those farms close to towns - home of the newest cookie-cutter subdivision. Doesn't help that governments are making special environmental allowances for the larger outfits, giving them a leg up on the family farm. Search CAFO and "high-capacity wells" for examples.

If these disillusioned college grads can make a successful go of it, more power to 'em. It might help keep small farms out of the hands of the corporate giants, and should also allow for better agricultural diversity.

I couldn't live a dairy life in a farm. I mean like any human I could adapt, but I am positive I would preffer not to. Not that I like the city. My stuff is more like a beach city setup. That's the stuff that does for me. The decks, the fishing boats, the smell of salt and water, etc.

I used to live on a DAIRY FARM in a place called BUREEN!

Nope, not for me. As tinyE said it: real farming is loads of hard work for hardly any gain. Never a day off and hardly any free time. No thanks. I grew up on a farm and have no desire do go back there. As for the 'moving back to the countryside' without actual farming, I can see the appeal. But again, not for me. I like town life in smallish towns. So my retirement plan is to move back to Heidelberg and study all the interesting topics that I didn't have time to study yet. :-)

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