![]() ![]() I have hobby farmed with my best friend for the last 12 years. In 2017 I handled every single bale of about 2300 small squares- put them on the wagon, unloaded them onto the elevator, stacked them in the barn. All my kids are in college, so free help is mostly a memory. That and a full-time job with a really goofy schedule. ![]() To get my fix, I help out my buddy, who is farming about 2000 acres of corn, beans and specialty vegetables (melons, pumpkins, seed corn, etc). I work with my neighbors who part-time farm about 450 acres, they have the sprayer and combine, I bale the hay and straw. I own 50 acres and farm about 25 more from neighbors, ten acres of Welch's concord grapes, about 22 acres of open ground for corn or beans and the rest is hay and pasture for 16-24 heifers I feed out and sell as freezer beef. I like to refer to mine as fetish farming- it's more expensive and painful than a hobby. I have a section that is now zoned light commercial, so in essence, the canvas is there, just need to figure out what to paint on it. I have the tax liability already, so I need to do something to balance that and or better. I know better than to make a move unless it's on solid ground. I work a full time job about 7 miles away, one that pays well, but is becoming a real bucket of stress at times. I own enough equipment at this time to get started, but also know the risks. The land is connected with frontage on an extremely busy 2 lane state highway that is one of the few routes to the east. We also have a substantial aquifer, a 20 acre pond. Well, that marginal ground has been farmed for a very long time. I have some good topsoil in an area some now consider marginal. Having 98 some odd acres that most has been idle a very long time, 60 that was tillable, the rest in woodland or what was pasture, one wood lot of 10 acres is mature. I appreciate your post and the discussion because of an interest in this. People get caught up in terminology, so "small scale farming" may be a better fit. I've never believed that farming was something one has to do, it's something someone enjoys doing. I have no idea, and will never have since I'm 71, what the enjoyment is to be several hundred thousand in debt to the bank and paying several people who work for you, but if that is what you enjoy, then you my friend are also a Hobby farmer. I also have somewhere around 10 or 11 tractors at any given time and enjoy the working on them and working them so that is also a Hobby. I do it because I enjoy it so I guess that makes me a Hobby farmer. I make a little money doing it but not enough to pay me for doing it. I only own 2 acres and the only thing I raise on it is a raised bed garden, the rest is several fields that belong to other folks that I keep limed and fertilized. I put up hay and sell it along with feeding it to our 2 hay burners. I believe the term Hobby is intended to be doing something for the pleasure and satisfaction of doing it, or at least that's my idea of any hobby. Hoping to purchase an Oliver 1800C,1750, or 1850. Currently I borrow my grandpa’s 40 JD until I can afford my own tractors but I do have a 6 row 30” John Deere 694AN Planter and a John Deere 4400 has combine that’s mine. But sometimes I think something more like 80 would be alright too. My end goal is to end up somewhere between 100 and 150 acres. ![]() I have about 20 acres unless I pickup more. If you are a hobby farmer how much do you have? Do you want to get bigger? And what do you farm with? Also any pictures are an added bonus!Ģ019 will be my first year to plant my own crop. Plus I find that the things you enjoy the most are not as fun if that’s what you do all the time. How many of us on here are “hobby farmers”? I always wanted to be a “farmer” but after having a family and realizing it’s awfully hard to start farming from nothing I narrowed my dreams to something more realistic. ![]()
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