Open Thread - 12-26-2025 - Agriculture
Submitted by studentofearth on Fri, 12/26/2025 - 5:20am
Morning - been enjoying the videos Lookout has been including the past few Sundays on regenerative agriculture and the direct farm to consumer business model. While viewing them I suddenly realized the stories were showing a lifestyle I grew up within and has been a part of my adult life, both as producer and customer.
My folks a rented run down farm when I was a toddler. City kids wanted to grow food. They came up with a plan of two primary revenue streams: cream from a small dairy herd to be sold to the local Co-op and extra milk fed to market hogs. Their town jobs kept up with the expenses of the growing enterprise. Life was good until a forced sale of livestock during a down cycle. It took several years to recover.
Ranchers and Farmers keep trying. After the rented farm changed ownership they bought the run down hobby farm with only a 900 sq ft house, because the place had a nice barn and root cellar. After trying a little of this and a little of that, they settled into a cow/calf operation and did direct sales of grass-fed beef.
