[ExI] Farmville for real

[Richard Loosemore]

spike wrote:
>> ... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore
> ...
> 
>> ...Uh, Spike, I hate to come across as the world expert on farming here,
> but I am not sure you are really in touch with the way it actually works on
> the ground...
> 
> Oh very much to the contrary sir.  Read on.
> 
>> ...Small farms ARE profitable.  They set up a filthy, almost-collapsing
> house somewhere on the farm, then get a couple of dozen undocumented
> immigrants from Guatamala to come live in it.  These folks then work in
> shifts, all day, all night, seven days a week, for wages so low that some of
> them have to get second jobs to make enough to send home...
> 
> Richard, none of that is applicable if the owner of the farm holds security
> clearances or a professional license of any kind.  I am in both those
> categories.  In that case, one must hire legal domestic labor and pay them
> minimum wage.  One must file all the legal paperwork, pay all the proper
> taxes, do everything according to the letter of the law, otherwise risk
> losing those credentials for real employment.  If anyone with a measly 120
> acres has figured out how to merely achieve break-even under those
> circumstances, they are a miracle worker, worthy to teach the rest of us.

Oh, to be sure.  I think all the local farmers with security clearances 
left for the city quite a while ago.

I was talking about *real* farmers in America.

>> ...Then the farmer makes a fortune, builds the biggest McMansion that this
> part of the world has ever seen, gets cable installed, and sits back to
> enjoy life.  Don't believe it?  Hey, come visit!  I can put you up in the
> barn. :-)  Richard Loosemore
> 
> Ja, so people make money on illegal operations.

Whoa!!  Most of your food comes from these illegal operations.  If these 
illegal farmers stopped hiring slaves, you would starve. ;-)  So don't 
be so quick to knock it, this is the USA you live in, so be proud of the 
Blind Eye system that keeps slavery alive and kicking in the 21st century.


> I want to figure out how to
> make actual money legally.  I can assure you it involves something other
> than producing food crops.  Food is too cheap by huge margin to make money
> creating it.  But if I can get a bunch of amateur Farmvillers to assume all
> risk, pay the legal labor, pay someone to write and track hundreds of 1099
> forms and pay me for my land, that might be the way.

Well, to be sure, if you can get 10,000 suck.. er, sorry, I mean amateur 
farmvillers to pay $20 each, per year for the privilege of managing one 
ten-thousandth of your crops, then may you live long in all those 
ducats, sir!

However, a few small questions.  How are you going to manage the chaos 
of 10,000 micro-lots, each with a different crop?  Are you going to pay 
a sufficiently large number of mincome yokels to manage a hundredth of 
an acre of potatoes next to a hundredth of an acre of strawberries, and 
so on for all 100 acres of your land?  Methinks that could break your 
budget in no time at all, even with the $200,000 per annum spigot turned 
full on.

And how long do you think those amateur farmvillers will keep paying 
their $20 per year when all they get is (1) a decision point, when they 
choose the crop, and (2) a thumbs-up/thumbs-down at the end of the 
season, telling them whether or not the whole planting got eaten by 
eel-worms?

Or, do you plan to give each person a webcam looking at their plot, and 
access to computer controlled water spraying devices?  Or remotely 
piloted robots that they can use for an hour every night, doing the 
weeding?  I don't think they'll stick around long if it isn't fast and 
interesting.  Farming does not really have a reputation for being fast 
and interesting.

Don't get me wrong:  I have spent many happy hours trying to figure out 
ways to use AGI to manage one kind (High Farming, Organic, Permaculture) 
of farming, so I am not a million miles away from your intentions here. 
  I just am not sure how well this plan was thought through, ... master.


Richard Loosemore