The Economics of Farming (or, Marxism lives!)

So I'll preface this post by stating a couple of basic assumptions:
1. Farming is no way to make money; it is a "living," not a career, and
2. I have had a very limited experience farming with animals, and none with other kinds of farming, so the musings below may or may not be at all accurate.

It's been a really long time since I studied Marx, but the agrarian, peasant lifestyle seems really, really close to the Marxist ideal of "labor," to which there is a certain appeal. While Marx's idealized world of equal labor for equal benefit, and everyone finding their own, preferred mode of work, never really made sense in the city (where it is hard to imagine someone choosing to work as a street sweeper rather than a banker, or whatever), in the country there is a solidarity of labor which is quite refreshing. Everyone works towards the same end, which is the quite basic one of putting food on the table. And while no one wants to be up to the ankles in cow shit, it isn't too bad if there are a couple of other people doing the same thing with you, and if it's something that needs to be done.

Further, there is a direct and immediate involvement in the work at hand, which is very satisfying. The definitive unit of measure is still the "man-hour," and on the farm it is still a scale-able unit. Unlike most modern work, two people can do twice as much work in an hour, or make the same amount of work go twice as fast; and if you've got three or four people, a "days" work can be finished in an afternoon. There is an increase in efficiency as well, so with four people, there is probably 4.5 man-hours/hour, since, for example, once person can till the field while the next can discard rocks while the next can dig the holes for the last to plant potatoes. One person doing everything takes much longer than four working together. This rarely seems to be the case in "modern" work, and further, there's rarely the sense of accomplishment and ownership and camaraderie that comes with finishing planting a field, or turning a tree into firewood or whatever.

As a slight aside, this implies an "economy of scale" that's a bit different from the normal definition. Getting too big, or trying to do too much, means that the work quickly becomes more than one person can reasonably handle, and either requires more people or lots of time. Running a farm of 75 sheep is a very different proposition than running one of 40; milking takes longer, cleaning takes longer, cheesemaking takes longer, shearing takes longer, there's more food to buy, etc, etc, etc. This makes expansion a potentially risky move, since the increased income can so easily be off-set by the increased expenses, and demands on your time.

At any rate, while two people can work 14 hour days and run a farm, it feels like the more or less full time labor of four adults would make things run more smoothly; one with the "primary" responsibility of taking care of the house and kids and cooking, and two or three to do whatever needs to be done on the farm. Since there's no cash income in farming (other than selling farm produce, which may not bring in much money) and quite a few cash expenses (though minimizing these is the first priority, but there are a few unavoidable utilities and payments, from toilet paper to internet access to diesel for the chainsaw, etc), it would be helpful for there to be someone working an off-site job, and contributing their income to the cause (which now makes the whole proposition closer to a commune, if it wasn't already). Cheese is one of the few items which can bring in income year round, though preserves and such also work; selling meat or veg. or such (particularly on a relatively small scale, such as would be manageable by a few people) means that sales are quite seasonal, with a big cash influx at one point in the calendar, and very little during the winter.

While all this may allow for a comfortable life, with plenty of fulfilling (albeit dirty and hard) work, and a reasonable amount of free time, there comes a point when one isn't able to work as much or as hard and starts to think about retirement. In France, as well as in the US, Social Security payments are based on the total contribution one has made over their working life; for farmers (and artists, etc) who've not made much cash money, the payout is quite small, and isn't enough upon which to live without working. Ergo, farming more or less means a lifetime of working until you are physically unable to do any more, at which point you can either a) try to leave the farm to a child, who doesn't mind supporting you until you die or b) try to sell the farm to some other sucker, and go live in town.

These aren't particularly attractive options, but it is hard to see how else things end. There's no way to be entirely self-sufficient, there's not much potential for rental income out in the country, and having an IRA or other personal retirement fund requires excess capital, which is rarely available, and never in a significant amount. It isn't hard to see why small farms are disappearing in France, and are virtually extinct in the US.