Anarchist-Frogposting

Co-ops are excellent and great, but the transition of ill-defined "agricultural land" into a profitable/sustainable worker-run enterprise will require no smalll amount of personal effort on OPs behalf, to the extent that I think they should be prepared to dedicate several years of their life, if not more, to the pursuit. Agricultural land can mean a lot of things; it may be as little as a zoning designation for their city/county, stating that the land is not for residential buildings, and thus is taxed differently. This could also necessitate its use as grazing or farmed land, in which case OP is in good shape- even if grandmother wasnt farming on her own, she may well have rented it out to others so they might use it for their own agricultural pursuits. At the same time, depending on the definition of agricultural land, it may be unmaintained; overgrown with weeds, brush, burrowing rodents (gophers &etc) that could all take thousands of dollars (assuming US for all of this because acres were the given unit), chemicals, heavy equipment (tractor, ditch witch, etc), and/or exterminators to address. In many of these cases using the land to graze animals would likely be far simpler, but present a whole set of other problems. Depending on the severity of the overgrowth the type of livestock you could graze may be very limited (goats, sheep vs cows).

All of this is a concern, even before the quality and productivity of the land can be assessed, let alone overhead. if OP is in a wet region with good soil, 20 acres may well be plenty for a small hobby farm. If theyre anywhere in the southwestern US, turning a profit without massive startup capital may border on impossible. Is the land already irrigated? Does grandmother have a tractor, rototiller, a plow? How cold or warm is it, and what crops will be productive? This is a massive undertaking, and unless OP is inheriting an already-successful, productive farm, they will likely be fighting an uphill battle. 20 acres sounds like a lot, but the average farm in the US is over 400 acres; and with average profits of around $790/acre, they'd be looking at an average profit per harvest of $15,800; barely enough pay to keep themselves fed, clothed, even after this becomes a whole new job for them. A co-op would not be able to pay its workers a living wage.

That said, there are other options- depending on where OP lives, a community garden could be a very welcome addition to their community, requiring far less effort, and still keeping consistent with anarchist praxis. They could go so far as to ask those that use the garden to donate a portion of their harvest to a given group- local soup kitchens, food not bombs, whatever they've got. They could also look into existing farm co-ops in the area, to work out some sort of land-sharing agreement, but i personally think a community garden would be better praxis. This is all just my opinion, and mostly US-specific, but I think OP (the asker? I dont use tumblr much) would benefit significantly from learning more about the land in question (maybe visiting it?), researching the local area, and considering how much of their life they're willing to commit here because it will be a lot if they try to make it a business..

)/@diogocp27

Thank you both for the suggestions. A lot of this doesn't really apply but I guess that's because I didn't provide much info. It's not in the US, it's in a very rural place (too far away for people to casually go to to pick some vegetables) and it's an already established farm that produces mainly apples. One of my main issues with the idea of making a co-op would be that we don't really have a stable workforce. During the year it's mostly maintained by her and a couple other farmers who own smaller plots of land and we hire seasonal workers, usually college students trying to make a quick buck or Romani people from a nearby town (which also feels kinda problematic? I really don't know if they're adequately paid).

There's also the issue that I'm not particularly invested in the farming business. My plan until now would be to sell my part to other family members and possibly use the spare money in other areas I enjoyed more where I could also do some good. @anarchistfrogposting @goat-desert

If it's already an established apple farm, your best bet would be to just change the management practices of the farm to be more ecologically conscious. You can also diversify and increase revenue by bringing livestock in, you can plant grazing/soil building plant mixtures in the alleys of the orchards and have various animals graze that land and if you do that properly you can vastly reduce the amount of fertilizer input and just in general have healthier plants. Like just start looking into agroecology, agroforestry, silvopasture, etc. Or even just Google "sustainable farming apple orchards livestock". If you're really interested in this stuff, there's tons of writing there about it, but it's going to be alot of work, basically a full time job unless you have someone else doing most of the work. Also if the current orchard is reliant on chemicals it'll take a bit for the switch to organic to make a difference. Since its not a bug farm theres not too much you can do to diversify the crops, but if you grow a good diverse mixture in the orchard alleyways and graze it down periodically, then youll habe healthy soil and pollinators amd stuff and depending on the animal you can produce meat, milk, and/or leather/wool/etc (although cows arent ginna happen on that small a piece of lamd idk why i said leather). There's alot of worker abuse on small farms, so one thing you can do is make sure the people who do work with you are treated and compensated fairly. Particularly when there is a racial component, it can get quite bad, so fighting against that kind of stuff could be a good cause to get involved in. Although idk what kinda of rural area this is but generally if you plan on organizing for farm workers rights you should probably arm yourself lol.

I mean, with this type of thing, the real answer will reveal itself to you eventually, but in general there are various things every farm owner can do to a)make farms sustainable and b) ensure workers are treated fairly. It's up to you to do the research and work of course

me: if I become the evil overlord I will never harm my minions

[5 years later]

highly throwable imp: hoohoohee

me: hmm

consider the sperm whale and the squid. an ancient rivalry that dates back millions of years. we know the whales eat the squids. we know the squids do not make it easy for them. we know this because of the scars the whales carry, scars on the outside of their body, and on the inside as well. how badly must you want something to endure wounds inside your mouth? inside your gut?

consider the whale, who is harmed by what sustains her. consider the squid, whose flesh is soft and delicious but refuses to go down easy.

This post is about lactose intolerance I can smell it.

places i should be allowed to poke around in because i am curious by nature

loading oats into a horse like a musket

Don’t do my son d: like this he changed the world

Restaurant idea: a restaurant/cafe where everything is subtly but indescribably just a bit weird

Like the chairs and tables are placed in weird placements and orientations, but not enough that you are sure it was an active decision

Or the decorations are just subtly incongruous in a way you can’t put your finger on

Or the food has slightly odd titles and sauces and seasonings, and it’s not bad, it’s just confusing why they would do that

You step out of the restaurant with an odd mix of confusion, but not enough that you know for sure that the people who made the restaurant made it that way on purpose

Y’know like the kind of feeling where you can’t be entirely sure it’s not haunted

Restaurant idea: a restaurant/cafe where everything is subtly but indescribably just a bit weird

Like the chairs and tables are placed in weird placements and orientations, but not enough that you are sure it was an active decision

Or the decorations are just subtly incongruous in a way you can’t put your finger on

Or the food has slightly odd titles and sauces and seasonings, and it’s not bad, it’s just confusing why they would do that

You step out of the restaurant feeling odd confusion, but not enough that you know for sure that it was that way on purpose

Restaurant idea: a restaurant/cafe where everything is subtly but indescribably just a bit weird

Like the chairs and tables are placed in weird placements and orientations, but not enough that you are sure it was an active decision

Or the decorations are just subtly incongruous in a way you can’t put your finger on

Restaurant idea: a restaurant/cafe where everything is subtly but indescribably just a bit weird

Like the chairs and tables are placed in weird placements and orientations, but not enough that you are sure it was an active decision

Y’all really liked the last poll ab seasonings so here’s one about veggies d:

the gimmick blogs are like tumblr’s rogue gallery. yes we’ve got some heroes, yes we’ve got some villains, but more importantly if you look over here you will see some freak who devotes all their time to counting the number of “t’s” in a post