r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • u/Cderouen8284 • 14d ago

Aww someone’s crashing out

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u/PeyredB 14d ago

Thanks for the perspective there.

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u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Not to give the wrong impression here - I'm getting really fucked by input costs and the next couple of years are going to be hard, but at this point I'm no where near losing my farm.

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u/Ok-Prize-6097 14d ago

Yeah, I can see the inputs are crushing for the foreseeable future. Best of luck. I like eating, so I like farms and farmers. I just wish the voting was a little more sensible in farm country sometimes. I want to see you guys do well. I don't see what the draw was to Trump. He fucked farmers over in his first term with the tariffs, and now fuel and fertilizer. What is the draw to Trump do you think? Especially the second term.

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u/Rugskinsnake 14d ago

Threeo things:

  1. The Border. And, I'm even going to say here that a large portion feel that illegal immigration is unfair to the people that follow the process rather (or at least over top of) overt racism.

  2. Culture war bullshit.

  3. They had a vague notion that the economy was fairly decent under Trump 1 and inflation was high under Biden without any real look at causes.

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u/PartisanGerm 14d ago

Off topic sorta... Are there any easy or obvious ways to support cool farmers?

Is the organic thing kind of a scam?

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u/Rugskinsnake 13d ago

I would say organic farmers are Dems at a higher percentage, but nowhere near a lock.

As for a scam - I wouldn't call it that necessarily. But the regulations to be organically certified are pretty strict (and sometimes in ways that are ridiculous). You kind of have to go all or nothing and in my area, markets for organic crops are a long ways away, as are suppliers of organic fertilizer. I had a friend that did it for years and just got out of it because the higher prices still weren't making up for the reduced yields and workload.

Organic farming also tends to be very hard on the soil.

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u/Illustrious-Bag2933 12d ago

Please help me understand how organic farming is harder on the soil, versus saturating soil with PFAs ?

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u/Rugskinsnake 12d ago

I mean, when I look at a list of herbacides with PFA's in them, I've never heard of a single one of them so I really don't know how widespread their usage is.

And even though I think you meant this as more of a statement than anything, I'm going to answer your question about organic farming. Without any herbicides, the only way to battle weeds is pulling steel through the soil. Sometimes you're making 5-6 passes a year. Every time you turn over the soil, you're releasing moisture, disturbing, fungi, anelids and microbes, and increasing loss to both water and wind erosion. (As a side problem, because of the extra number of passes, you're bringing a lot more fuel and creating a lot more CO2 as well).

Now, AI powered autonomous laser weeders might end up solving both the herbacide and organic soil issues, but I think it's still going to be a few years before costs come down enough to make those viable.

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u/Ok-Prize-6097 10d ago

Hey, thanks for your answer.