• PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Eah. A lot of “farmers” are land owners who hire other people to work on their farms. The average net worth of an American farming household is like, north of $1.5 million iirc.

    • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      1.5 million is not that much. Also theres a massive difference between how much you own (without debt) and how much money you make. Even while 1.5 million may sound like a lot it is in fact a quite small farm. They are probably not making that much money (also remember, that a lot of their income gets tunneled directly into paying back debt for investments.

        • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          And there’s a lot of right to repair fights. If you think a Honda trying to lock you out for not taking it to the dealership for an oil change is bad, just imagine how bad it is for somebody with a combine that costs most of that million.

        • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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          2 days ago

          Not just the equipment, but also the costs for land and buildings. In my region a single hectare of land costs around 10-20k€ so for a small farm (which would be at around 50ha) you would pay 500k to 1m € just for the land alone. You havent bought a single piece of equipment, you didnt build a building and depending on what your structure is, you also havent bought a single animal.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            Everything is of course expensive. One of my exes was a farm girl. They had a smallish farm 250 Acres (101 Hectares).

            He had a couple dozen cows, planted every other inch he could find, and rented a few neighboring fields. He had everything for planting/maintaining/harvesting. Anytime something got paid off, he picked up something else. Everything was a juggling act. Every free dollar was reinvested. They lived relatively decently, but modestly. Everyone got whatever they needed; nothing was extravagant. He had some outrageous amount in loans, many millions.