Unsolicited Career Advice No. 5. How do you become a rancher?

Well, if you aren't rich, or born into it, I"m not too sure you can, at least in the ranch example.

I hate to say that, but this is a question that I've also been asked, which stands quite a part from the "should I go to law school question".  I suppose on the occasional instances in which I get asked this, its because we have cattle and ought to know.

Just here recently I ran a series of posts due to it being National Agriculture Week. And I've run quite a few posts on farming and ranching, and even agrarianism, in the past.  Anyone who has looked at these and seen any career type comments I've made there knows that I'm pretty pessimistic about people who aren't born into agriculture getting into it, although some do manage to do it. One thing about the law that's sure, you don't have to be born into it in order to get into it (and a lot of people born into it, but not all, don't go into it).

All agriculture, it should be noted, is local.  People very often fail to realize that.  Practices that are common 200 miles away might not be where you are, and for that matter, they might even work in your locality.  So it's perfectly possible that a person might be able to walk right on to a farm in some other locality, while they'd never be able to do that in another.  So, Caveat Lector.

Anyhow, at one time, the dream of owning a farm or ranch, and by that I mean a real operation, not 20 acres near a big city which you call a farm or ranch, was a common one.  It's so much a part of the American mentality that, in spite of the fact that agriculturalist are often dismissed as "hicks", it still makes up a common theme in stories, particularly B grade romantic ones.  In the old film Splendor In The Grass the main male protagonist, whose father has big hopes for his career, ends up disappointing the family and becoming a farmer, which we take to be the better (and more American) choice.  In zillions of "Lifetime" type movies, people inherit a ranch in trouble, which they then rescue, or move to a relatives rustic ranch, where they become involved in its operation after an initial desire to avoid it.  A stock background in film is that a person's parents or grandparents have a farm or ranch somewhere.  And a fairly significant number of people obviously aspire to farm or ranch.

But how realistic is it?

Not very, at least by my observation.

I've written on it before, but land prices are perhaps the major reason why.  They've simply gone out of sight, due in no small part to the land's value for subdivision or for the rich to buy essentially as a playground.  And there's no region of the United States that I'm aware of that is immune from it.

Some regions, of course, are particularly influenced by this. The West, which ironically retains the romantic image of being "wide open", is pretty much closed for new agricultural entrants.  This trend has been going on for some time, and at some point in the 1950s or early 1960s this became basically true, although there was still a little room to get in as late as the early 1980s.  No longer.  Ranches here now sell for such values that only the very wealthy or the those who are already possessed of large amounts of land they can leverage can get in.

Well, so what?  That's just the way it is, right?  After all, that's what happens to agricultural and in every free society, absent government intervention (which is another topic entirely, and which isn't going to happen). And, if you subscribe to the views advanced in the article written by George F. Will and reported here yesterday, it's all for everyone's good.

And I've read that thesis with this sort of thing before.  The classic one is that the automobile manufacture puts the wagon maker out of business, but the auto maker makes more jobs, and the displaced wagon maker goes on to get a cubicle job for higher wages where he can buy Starbucks every day. Great, eh?

Or, more precisely, sure this means that fewer people are in agriculture, but with economies of scale, this keeps food cheap and that's good for everyone. People who would have been farmers can compete for jobs with those who own the land, or they can go into town and become podiatrists where they'll generate even more money, and their kids will become neurosurgeons and make even more.  More and more money will result.

Well, maybe, but that's if that matters, and the evidence is that at some point, it doesn't.

Poverty matters, that's for sure. But there's no good evidence that after some point affluence does.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to. And at that point, having closed off certain opportunities and occupations matters a lot.  

This is particularly true when occupations that are close to the land are closed off.  As a species, we have next to no experience with that condition, as up until recently the majority of human beings lived close to the land.  Even those who didn't live on the land, often lived and worked close to those who did.  Now this is rapidly becoming no longer true, but people still crave it at an elemental level.

And there are open questions about what sort of society this will be, for people.

Which digresses.

So, "how can I become a farmer or rancher"?  I don't know.  You might be able to become a farm manager a ranch manager for a landowner.  I know several young men who have done that.  It's a career path that doesn't offer a lot of wealth, but perhaps that doesn't matter, and it probably shouldn't.  Over time, the men I've known who have done that (and they've all been men, fwiw) have married and had families, so certainly a normal life is possible. As for owning a place of your own, well, maybe or maybe not.  Probably not, at least if what you hope for is a working ranch.  But if that's your heart's desire, it might not matter what anyone tells you anyway, as it'll probably remain close to your heart.