here's my contribution to the abomination of a thread.
every person who has downtalked farmers in this thread is making gross generalizations and is obviously an elitist ignorant fuck.
i'm the manager of a full function small fruit and vegetable farm, we also have a horse retirement farm, and we boil a few hundred gallons of syrup a year. running a farm is just like running any other business. it's not simple math, there's budgets, there's taxes, payroll, wholesale, distribution, trade sanctions et cetera. and i'd be willing to bet it's a lot harder than running a lot of other businesses. intelligence is absolutely necessary to work on a farm. if you don't work your ass off and if you don't know how to fucking grow some shit and work with the land, than you're screwed. it's one of the few PROFESSIONS where your physical labor determines if you get your paycheck or not. and that's what i enjoy most about my job. i like seeing the direct reward of my extremely hard work. i am crucially important to the succes of my farm, and so are all my co-workers. if i work hard, i see the pay off. i have a lot more respect for farmers than people who go to work, clock in, do their job description, and clock out. we don't have a time clock on the farm. you work until the works is done. and believe there is ALWAYS work to be done. i'd love to see you who hate farmers balance a hundredsomething thousand dollar budget, fix a bailer, fertilize 5 acres of raspberries, prune an acre of blueberries, feed, run, and groom 23 horses, then package up 50 gallons of maple syrup then pack them up for wholesale. all in a days work bitch.
