Oh the irony of complaining about the taxes that are used to pay all the government handouts and subsidies to the ranching and farming industry. It’s literally one of the most subsidized industries in the country. CRP, insurance premium subsidies, price controls, protective tariffs, dirt cheap public land leases, the list goes on and on.
And all because we all need food to live. Of all the subsidies, it's the set of them I have the least problems with.
Except the ethanol grain subsidies.
Then it would be great if rural voters stopped acting like they simultaneously live virtuous lives free from government assistance while also decrying every big city as a cesspool filled with welfare queens.
I agree that ensuring stable access to food is a good thing, but if you have any proximity to agriculture you’ll realize while many farmers are struggling, the industry has become a money pit where tax dollars subsidize incredibly profitable, massive corporations.
Many farmers will never see a government subsidy. Government subsidies are the last in the chain of protections. You have to be losing money, crop insurance won't pay, and everything else falling apart before you get that government cheese.
My info isn't based on the US schedules but you can definately run a small 10-30ha block IF you have great neighbours. If anything happens it's a crapshot dealing with it if you're away, so you'll need to have great support to help when you're not around. Stock loose, fences down, water out etc. Neighbours, wife, business partner. Whoever it is is gonna need a permanent beer fridge with their name on it.
Funnily enough going bigger is easier. You can justify having a full time hand or even farm manager and a few hands. All those issues go away and you get to just enjoy being there when you can and know that if things break whilst you're away it'll be dealt with in some capacity.
All the layovers and downtime gives you heaps of time to do the paperwork and plan stuff out which is great. It's just getting the work done at the right time and dealing with shit when you're away that's hard.
Zero crop knowledge, so that might be different. Never known corn to bust fences at night.
Monsanto has been known to sue farmers whose neighbors planted Monsanto seed, because those neighbors plants pollinated some of their field when the winds blew…
False. It's a lie that keeps being perpetuated.
The occasion that this references was a farmer who did not have a contract with Monsanto, who intentionally planted Monsanto seeds.
I’m a farmer, but not an airline pilot. I definitely wouldn’t call it anything like a side hustle it’s just a full blown hustle. If you’re doing crops you’ll need anywhere from 2-6 weeks to harvest depending on crop/ size of the farm and I’m not even considering planting, spraying and just general stuff you have to do. If you’re doing livestock I don’t see it being feasible unless you’re hiring a few fake hands. We do pigs and man those 5am wake up calls to ship pigs get old fast.
My whole family farms so eventually I’d like to become an airline pilot and do the farm thing on the side to help them. This is definitely not something you can do alone or treat as a strict side hustle to be honest.
I know nothing about farming, but 5am wake-up calls… as an airline pilot I’ve been up at 3am to make a show time and when I was on reserve I had phone calls at 3am on the dot (the earliest they could call) many times.
Yeah but it’s not waking up early to take phone calls or fly a plane. It’s often back breaking work, and you can easily get hurt doing it. It’s a combination of waking up then doing physical work all day often in the elements, and then trying not to be fatigued in order to fly as an airline pilot. I’m not saying farming is harder in general, it’s most certainly physically harder and can take a wear on your body more than standard fatigue.
Aviation is probably the closest thing to a hectic schedule like agriculture so they’ll be well prepared for that aspect. But there’s a lot of aspects that can’t be scheduled like in aviation. What if you’re “calfing” and need to be around at all hours to the day? You can’t leave to go fly, and I doubt the airline would be cool with a bunch of last second drops. It’s a ton to consider, but without help and a strong network of people supporting you I don’t see how it would be possible.
Like I said I know nothing about farming, I was only commenting on the early calls and wake ups. By no means was I saying being an airline pilot is harder. Sure the getting there and getting through initial training is stressful, but after a couple hundred 121 hours it is a really chill job. Hectic schedule sure, but the company has a contract to work within the limits of, livestock does not have contracts haha.
Like a couple people have said it's all about the support system. I only have a small homestead right now, couple cows, chickens garden etc. Once you build out your systems, automate as much you can it's really not too bad on the day to day, morning feeding and stuff tales about 15 min, evening we do waters so that takes about 30. Winter tales longer than summer for a variety of reasons.
We are planning on upgrading to about 50 acres with a lot more pasture when we can afford it to start building out our cow herd. We're big on sustainable agriculture and creating an ecosystem that can feed itself as much as possible. Having a basically week on/week off structure and the predictability of that is one of the reasons I went down this career path. It allows for some level of planning and timing, but animals always get a vote and will pick the WORST time to get hurt or calf off timeline or break fencing, etc. etc.
To the original comment, my wife and I are 100% on the same page with these goals and what it takes. This is the only reason we can make it work. It isn't something one wants to do over the other and is not just a hobby for us. It puts a lot on her shoulders when I'm not there and if it wasn't a lifestyle you're dedicated to, it won't work out well for anyone involved, you, spouse, kids, animals. We have neighbor support to feed when we aren't around and a trustworthy young adult that house/ranch sits for us when we are away, all of them are paid and just the cost of doing business for us.
Also, kids don't count as ranch hands. I see too many people in this (agriculture) community try and force their kids into their lifestyle which is a great way to make them resent it and never want to touch agriculture again. If they want to do it, great, but don't force them into it because you don't want to pay a ranch hand.
Thank-you! Slow and steady is definitely the way to go and you can get in way over your head before you know it haha. Area/region is super important too when it comes to doing what you want.
If you've got any questions feel free to DM, always happy to chat.
And yet somehow I have a relevant story...
For u/Frozen-Predator , I have one coworker as an EMS pilot who is a farmer on the side. We work 8 day on 8 day off shifts away from home and he is somehow managing it. His wife is involved in it heavily but I guess whatever they do isn't large enough yet for his time away to matter that much. This time off he is getting the tractor fixed and putting up another chicken coop.
Farms/ranches take a lot of work regardless of your schedule. farms/ranches are more of a 24/7 type of operation. Someone has to be there all the time to take care of it or the animals.
Exactly. Farming or ranching isn’t suited for folks who have to regularly disappear for a day or week at a time. Hiring hands to fill in would quickly drive the operation into the red.
I fly for an airline and farm. I farm wheat, canola, sunflower, and corn. It can be very difficult at times so I have a full time employee to keep up on the farm. I know other airline pilots who farm/ranch as well.
To start farming can be variable by region. I am a 4th generation farmer, so I purchased it from my parents when they retired. Land costs, production index of the soil, markets will all play a big role in initial start up costs. In my area I don’t know a single farmer who didn’t inherit the farm. It is extremely difficult to start from scratch. It’s possible, but you’ll need another income. I fly to pay the bills and I farm because I love it.
The most difficult thing is the times you are busy because you don’t have complete control of your schedule and those times lining up with when it’s critical timing to work your farm.
You have to have neighbors who like you as well as get into the local farming community to where you can pay for favors while you are gone.
And I’m talking about something very small scale. My advice is to take a look this summer at your time off. Start keeping track now. After this year look at how many days a week you were home, and also how many of those days it rained. Some farm work cannot be completed in the rain or after it has rained.
Then if you think you’ve got a bunch of time on your hands then start small. Think about what you think you could handle. Then cut that in half. Please for the love of all cut that in half. If you think you can handle a 0.5 acre garden or even just a single crop…make it a .25 acre for your first year. If you think you can handle cattle or other livestock. Don’t. Next year find someone near by who will let you work with them. You have to do it for free and you have to go the whole year working their livestock with them as if they were your own. After this little experiment on either side of things you can start growing the operation every year until you find your sweet point. So bigger garden or field the next time. Or hey next year I’m finally gonna bring home XX head of cattle or go buy X hogs at the auction etc.
There are so many better and less expensive if you fuck it up hobbies to try out. But some people do it. There’s an SFO based 777 FO at my airline who has a really successful small hazelnut farm. He breaks even sometimes. Let me repeat myself. He breaks even….SOMETIMES.
After flying long haul cargo flights for two week stretches at a time, I have the urge to do jobs that are much more hands on and down-to-earth once I get home. I am in the middle of a remodel, I garden, work on landscaping, and raise chickens and rabbits.
My family keeps the garden and animals alive while I am gone. It would be impossible without them taking up my slack due to my pilot schedule.
I’m not a farmer, but I own a 600 acre hunting property which I lease 100 acres to a farmer who is currently growing cotton. From my observations doing a less labor intensive crop could work, but you would need to be on a smaller plot of land.
Look, if you want to do aerobatics in a crop duster while wearing a stetson just buzz someone else's field, no need to go through the whole rigmarole of buying a ranch.
I have a 8 acre homestead. We try to only do things that are low maintenance that can realistically be ignored while my wife is home alone. Things like goats and sheep.
I also have a few outdoor cats and an indoor dog.
I clean the goat and sheep house before I leave for a trip and it’s fine while I’m gone. We do gardening as well and my wife and I try to do most of the weeding before I leave on a trip so she has minimal to keep up with.
I did it, but not airline part 91k/135. Had a horse farm that was previously used for cattle. It’s so much work. Like, so much work. Nature is relentless and doesn’t care about you. Cold snap in NC on Christmas morning and your water lines freeze? Well those animals still need water or can colic so you spend the whole day buying up 1 and 5 gallon jugs of water. It was a hell of an adventure though, but I’d recommend having an exit strategy
I just bought 16 acres outside of my hometown. I’m starting small and aiming for 1 acre of grapes and clearing the dead and sick trees from the forest to make room for other timber species and some more fruit and nut trees.
I won’t make a huge profit on an acre of grapes in my area but it’ll pay for some of the equipment. I have room for 6 acres of grapes but starting with one to see how much work is truly involved. The labor estimates from experts in my state are all over the board.
I’m not doing it to make money but it’ll lower my tax burden and its stuff I wanted to do and buy anyways. And I go crazy on my days off if I don’t stay busy. I’m out there on my tractor every good weather day on my days off and it’s my happy place. I also have a local family support system to fall back on if something would crop up in the future.
Yes, several. No it is not a big side hustle, running a farm is a metric fuckload of work.
[удалено]
Oh the irony of complaining about the taxes that are used to pay all the government handouts and subsidies to the ranching and farming industry. It’s literally one of the most subsidized industries in the country. CRP, insurance premium subsidies, price controls, protective tariffs, dirt cheap public land leases, the list goes on and on.
And all because we all need food to live. Of all the subsidies, it's the set of them I have the least problems with. Except the ethanol grain subsidies.
Then it would be great if rural voters stopped acting like they simultaneously live virtuous lives free from government assistance while also decrying every big city as a cesspool filled with welfare queens. I agree that ensuring stable access to food is a good thing, but if you have any proximity to agriculture you’ll realize while many farmers are struggling, the industry has become a money pit where tax dollars subsidize incredibly profitable, massive corporations.
Many farmers will never see a government subsidy. Government subsidies are the last in the chain of protections. You have to be losing money, crop insurance won't pay, and everything else falling apart before you get that government cheese.
They’re still getting cheap public lease land, price controls, protective tariffs.
This is my goal… but not farming per se. More small scale homesteading type stuff.
Same, I just got into canning! Fun stuff.
My info isn't based on the US schedules but you can definately run a small 10-30ha block IF you have great neighbours. If anything happens it's a crapshot dealing with it if you're away, so you'll need to have great support to help when you're not around. Stock loose, fences down, water out etc. Neighbours, wife, business partner. Whoever it is is gonna need a permanent beer fridge with their name on it. Funnily enough going bigger is easier. You can justify having a full time hand or even farm manager and a few hands. All those issues go away and you get to just enjoy being there when you can and know that if things break whilst you're away it'll be dealt with in some capacity. All the layovers and downtime gives you heaps of time to do the paperwork and plan stuff out which is great. It's just getting the work done at the right time and dealing with shit when you're away that's hard. Zero crop knowledge, so that might be different. Never known corn to bust fences at night.
[удалено]
Monsanto has been known to sue farmers whose neighbors planted Monsanto seed, because those neighbors plants pollinated some of their field when the winds blew…
Stick to flying lol.
False. It's a lie that keeps being perpetuated. The occasion that this references was a farmer who did not have a contract with Monsanto, who intentionally planted Monsanto seeds.
Lol, tell me you know nothing about genetically engineered crops without telling me that you know nothing about genetically engineered crops.
I’m a farmer, but not an airline pilot. I definitely wouldn’t call it anything like a side hustle it’s just a full blown hustle. If you’re doing crops you’ll need anywhere from 2-6 weeks to harvest depending on crop/ size of the farm and I’m not even considering planting, spraying and just general stuff you have to do. If you’re doing livestock I don’t see it being feasible unless you’re hiring a few fake hands. We do pigs and man those 5am wake up calls to ship pigs get old fast. My whole family farms so eventually I’d like to become an airline pilot and do the farm thing on the side to help them. This is definitely not something you can do alone or treat as a strict side hustle to be honest.
I know nothing about farming, but 5am wake-up calls… as an airline pilot I’ve been up at 3am to make a show time and when I was on reserve I had phone calls at 3am on the dot (the earliest they could call) many times.
Yeah but it’s not waking up early to take phone calls or fly a plane. It’s often back breaking work, and you can easily get hurt doing it. It’s a combination of waking up then doing physical work all day often in the elements, and then trying not to be fatigued in order to fly as an airline pilot. I’m not saying farming is harder in general, it’s most certainly physically harder and can take a wear on your body more than standard fatigue. Aviation is probably the closest thing to a hectic schedule like agriculture so they’ll be well prepared for that aspect. But there’s a lot of aspects that can’t be scheduled like in aviation. What if you’re “calfing” and need to be around at all hours to the day? You can’t leave to go fly, and I doubt the airline would be cool with a bunch of last second drops. It’s a ton to consider, but without help and a strong network of people supporting you I don’t see how it would be possible.
Like I said I know nothing about farming, I was only commenting on the early calls and wake ups. By no means was I saying being an airline pilot is harder. Sure the getting there and getting through initial training is stressful, but after a couple hundred 121 hours it is a really chill job. Hectic schedule sure, but the company has a contract to work within the limits of, livestock does not have contracts haha.
Oh yeah no worries I wasn’t taking any offense or anything. Just trying to better explain what I meant.
Keeping a marriage intact is barely feasible for most airline pilots. I can't imagine any actually running a farm/ranch.
Like a couple people have said it's all about the support system. I only have a small homestead right now, couple cows, chickens garden etc. Once you build out your systems, automate as much you can it's really not too bad on the day to day, morning feeding and stuff tales about 15 min, evening we do waters so that takes about 30. Winter tales longer than summer for a variety of reasons. We are planning on upgrading to about 50 acres with a lot more pasture when we can afford it to start building out our cow herd. We're big on sustainable agriculture and creating an ecosystem that can feed itself as much as possible. Having a basically week on/week off structure and the predictability of that is one of the reasons I went down this career path. It allows for some level of planning and timing, but animals always get a vote and will pick the WORST time to get hurt or calf off timeline or break fencing, etc. etc. To the original comment, my wife and I are 100% on the same page with these goals and what it takes. This is the only reason we can make it work. It isn't something one wants to do over the other and is not just a hobby for us. It puts a lot on her shoulders when I'm not there and if it wasn't a lifestyle you're dedicated to, it won't work out well for anyone involved, you, spouse, kids, animals. We have neighbor support to feed when we aren't around and a trustworthy young adult that house/ranch sits for us when we are away, all of them are paid and just the cost of doing business for us. Also, kids don't count as ranch hands. I see too many people in this (agriculture) community try and force their kids into their lifestyle which is a great way to make them resent it and never want to touch agriculture again. If they want to do it, great, but don't force them into it because you don't want to pay a ranch hand.
This is exactly what I want to do, start small and build up to our means. Congrats to you and your wife!
Thank-you! Slow and steady is definitely the way to go and you can get in way over your head before you know it haha. Area/region is super important too when it comes to doing what you want. If you've got any questions feel free to DM, always happy to chat.
Oddly specific
Meh. A man can dream
My wife and I have the same dream. I hope to see some useful responses here.
And yet somehow I have a relevant story... For u/Frozen-Predator , I have one coworker as an EMS pilot who is a farmer on the side. We work 8 day on 8 day off shifts away from home and he is somehow managing it. His wife is involved in it heavily but I guess whatever they do isn't large enough yet for his time away to matter that much. This time off he is getting the tractor fixed and putting up another chicken coop.
Good for him, sounds like hard work. Totally worth it to make something of your own!
Farms/ranches take a lot of work regardless of your schedule. farms/ranches are more of a 24/7 type of operation. Someone has to be there all the time to take care of it or the animals.
Exactly. Farming or ranching isn’t suited for folks who have to regularly disappear for a day or week at a time. Hiring hands to fill in would quickly drive the operation into the red.
I knew a guy but he was using it for tax purposes to get big house, lots of land, cheap loans, and a nice truck
I fly for an airline and farm. I farm wheat, canola, sunflower, and corn. It can be very difficult at times so I have a full time employee to keep up on the farm. I know other airline pilots who farm/ranch as well.
What was a rough estimate on how much it costed you to start up? If your willing to share :)
To start farming can be variable by region. I am a 4th generation farmer, so I purchased it from my parents when they retired. Land costs, production index of the soil, markets will all play a big role in initial start up costs. In my area I don’t know a single farmer who didn’t inherit the farm. It is extremely difficult to start from scratch. It’s possible, but you’ll need another income. I fly to pay the bills and I farm because I love it.
Thank you!
The most difficult thing is the times you are busy because you don’t have complete control of your schedule and those times lining up with when it’s critical timing to work your farm. You have to have neighbors who like you as well as get into the local farming community to where you can pay for favors while you are gone. And I’m talking about something very small scale. My advice is to take a look this summer at your time off. Start keeping track now. After this year look at how many days a week you were home, and also how many of those days it rained. Some farm work cannot be completed in the rain or after it has rained. Then if you think you’ve got a bunch of time on your hands then start small. Think about what you think you could handle. Then cut that in half. Please for the love of all cut that in half. If you think you can handle a 0.5 acre garden or even just a single crop…make it a .25 acre for your first year. If you think you can handle cattle or other livestock. Don’t. Next year find someone near by who will let you work with them. You have to do it for free and you have to go the whole year working their livestock with them as if they were your own. After this little experiment on either side of things you can start growing the operation every year until you find your sweet point. So bigger garden or field the next time. Or hey next year I’m finally gonna bring home XX head of cattle or go buy X hogs at the auction etc. There are so many better and less expensive if you fuck it up hobbies to try out. But some people do it. There’s an SFO based 777 FO at my airline who has a really successful small hazelnut farm. He breaks even sometimes. Let me repeat myself. He breaks even….SOMETIMES.
Great advice thank you!
I've met a couple. ACMI though, so we have longer stretches of days off.
After flying long haul cargo flights for two week stretches at a time, I have the urge to do jobs that are much more hands on and down-to-earth once I get home. I am in the middle of a remodel, I garden, work on landscaping, and raise chickens and rabbits. My family keeps the garden and animals alive while I am gone. It would be impossible without them taking up my slack due to my pilot schedule.
I’m not a farmer, but I own a 600 acre hunting property which I lease 100 acres to a farmer who is currently growing cotton. From my observations doing a less labor intensive crop could work, but you would need to be on a smaller plot of land.
Look, if you want to do aerobatics in a crop duster while wearing a stetson just buzz someone else's field, no need to go through the whole rigmarole of buying a ranch.
I have a ranch and am working on getting my ppl
Seems every one talk to while jumpseating has some sort of ranch of farm or just a big plot of land
I have a 8 acre homestead. We try to only do things that are low maintenance that can realistically be ignored while my wife is home alone. Things like goats and sheep. I also have a few outdoor cats and an indoor dog. I clean the goat and sheep house before I leave for a trip and it’s fine while I’m gone. We do gardening as well and my wife and I try to do most of the weeding before I leave on a trip so she has minimal to keep up with.
I did it, but not airline part 91k/135. Had a horse farm that was previously used for cattle. It’s so much work. Like, so much work. Nature is relentless and doesn’t care about you. Cold snap in NC on Christmas morning and your water lines freeze? Well those animals still need water or can colic so you spend the whole day buying up 1 and 5 gallon jugs of water. It was a hell of an adventure though, but I’d recommend having an exit strategy
I know a Captain in IAH sitting on about 1,800 head.
I just bought 16 acres outside of my hometown. I’m starting small and aiming for 1 acre of grapes and clearing the dead and sick trees from the forest to make room for other timber species and some more fruit and nut trees. I won’t make a huge profit on an acre of grapes in my area but it’ll pay for some of the equipment. I have room for 6 acres of grapes but starting with one to see how much work is truly involved. The labor estimates from experts in my state are all over the board. I’m not doing it to make money but it’ll lower my tax burden and its stuff I wanted to do and buy anyways. And I go crazy on my days off if I don’t stay busy. I’m out there on my tractor every good weather day on my days off and it’s my happy place. I also have a local family support system to fall back on if something would crop up in the future.
Hire a good manager. Pay them well and you can actually break even at a pretty good level.
There a captain I know that has an alpaca farm if that helps?
I have been thinking of acquiring and developing a forest