I agree with all that but it also brings up another important problem, the average American farm is over 400 acres and we have a serious shortage of farmers now, in fact the government will pay and support anyone willing to get into farming because of the shortage.
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So true! I noticed you grow a bit of your own food - Do you consider yourself a 'farmer'?
No, just an avid gardener although in the past I have sold some excess to restaurants. Being a real farmer is hard work. I did look into the beginning farmer program at one time and it is interesting. There was a piece of property I was looking at for a tree farm at one point.
I have done tree farming since I was 11 years old, but even that was my grandfather's 'side hustle'. I made more on steem last year than I did from farming. I see a future where lots of people grow some food, and only some people are full time.
Agroforestry requires lots of labor, but its not anything like the farming that is counted in those statistics that you mentioned. We are also facing a future with ever rising unemployment and underempmoyment, people will grow their own food when they get hungry, me and you at least started before that.
Which trees did you farm? Farming is a tough row to hoe ;) Around here you can make a fortune with a farm but not really by farming, it's a tourist trap.
I predicted long ago that machines would take over everyone's jobs and we would be paid for online commenting, then one day I found Steemit.com. But now I am not so sure that will happen, automation has been proceeding faster and faster and yet unemployment in the US is at record lows, even among the uneducated. There is still a buggy whip factory near me going strong. As many jobs as machines eliminate there will be something else for people to do.
LOL! I also don't believe in the end of work, because there is always work to do in an abundant world that we are building. Everywhere I look there is so much to do!
We grew christmas trees, norweigen pine, blue spruce and douglas fir, rjen laster got into colored maples and other such trees for landscaping.a
I will fully admit that the future is not under my jurisdiction, but I see so many options and so much opportunity, even if the malthusian math looks sad today.
You're an interesting fellow to chat with!
thanks ;) here is some of my produce I just posted if you are interested
As impossible as it would be to feed people without nitrogen from natural gas we only use like 6-8% of the annual natural gas production to make that fertilizer, we could feed many billions more people, just consider how long ago Malthus was making his dire predictions and how many have made such predictions for the last few hundred years and been wrong. There is less famine today than ever before.
Good points, we are doing better than ever, and we can't even imagine the new stuff that tomorrow might bring. Keep up the good work with those tomatoes c;