just curious. and we're talking somebody who farmed for a living, not somebody with a backyard hobby farm

reports show 85% of Americans are at least 3 generations removed from the farm

the last farmer in my direct line was my paternal great-greatgrandfather

1/16/2016 9:21:16 PM

My grandfather on my father's side was a farmer. So I guess I'm in the 15%.

1/16/2016 9:27:50 PM

My great grandfather farmed.
My grandfather was one of 7. He was the first to go to college.
My dad's cousin (whatever that makes him for me, I don't know) still farms a couple hundred thousand acres in the Midwest.

1/16/2016 9:34:50 PM

couple hundred thousand acres? you don't say

1/16/2016 9:35:38 PM

Both of my grandfathers farmed medium to small farms and still own/rent significant acreage)




(Is that considered one generation removed or two?)

1/16/2016 9:52:54 PM

a generation is each level on your family tree

so that would be two

1/16/2016 10:03:40 PM

One grandfather ran a small family farm for quite a while and my mother was raised doing it. My other grandparents were raised on farms but went into other careers instead (teaching and electronics/appliance repair). My uncle still has a large farm, but has become a full time landowner and now rents out his land, while making the majority of his income on chickens and hogs.

[Edited on January 16, 2016 at 10:38 PM. Reason : ]

1/16/2016 10:36:39 PM

My grandfather was a farmer when he was younger, and until his death he got a government check for not growing tobacco anymore (and his kids got the checks for a while after he died). Both of my parents grew up around it but were not enthralled.

Most of my farming connection now is through peers. Several of my friends from NCSU are now farmers, as are some Peace Corps colleagues.

1/17/2016 12:04:08 AM

both my dad and his dad did some farming (dad only through his teenage years). Most of it was tobacco. My dad bought a new Plymouth Roadrunner when he turned 16 with the money he'd made from his plot of tobacco.

I have picked a million fucking beans, peas, ears of corn, tomatoes, pieces of okra, heads of lettuce, and dug truck beds full of potatoes from the time I was a kid up until I went to college, but never as a job--by the time I came along, my granddad had a "garden" (it was a couple of fields worth and amounted to a small farm, haha. Family pitched in to help tend it, and in turn had all the fresh produce and beef we could eat. He gave a bunch of it away and sold a little of it, too).


Neither my dad nor granddad primarily farmed as a career, though. It was something they did for a few years, and/or on the side thereafter (granddad fought in the Army in WWII, played semi-pro baseball, but primarily drove a Greyhound bus for decades; dad was a barber, then an insurance agent, then an insurance executive).


[Edited on January 17, 2016 at 1:19 AM. Reason : i wouldn't say either PRIMARILY farmed for a living, but they did each do it as a job ]

1/17/2016 1:11:31 AM

my great-grandfather was a farmer, so three

1/17/2016 3:43:25 AM

Grandfather on paternal side was a farmer. Great grandfather/great grandmother and great uncles on maternal side, so 2 or 3 there.

I suspect in the south and Midwest it's a couple of generations at most and on the rest of the East coast and portions if west coast it's more.

1/17/2016 5:14:12 AM

My moms side of the family had a functioning beef farm (50 or so cows) until the late 90's. They all worked at Honeywell starting in the 60's tho.

Great aunt/uncle had a functioning dairy farm.

1/17/2016 8:52:13 AM

dad farms still.

i do too.

so...zero generations i guess

his side of the family has a very long farming history...a lot of it on the same land we currently farm.

1/17/2016 10:24:57 AM

thanks for all the responses.

^ how many acres do you and your dad farm?

1/17/2016 11:32:45 AM

As far as I can trace back, not a single farmer in the family going back to at least the mid 18th century in Scotland.

1/17/2016 11:53:27 AM

Quote :

"ncstatetke couple hundred thousand acres? you don't say "

Something wrong with that? I could be wrong. It has been a while since I talked to the guy (10 years or so), but we were talking about his tractor attachment something or other that was 350 feet wide.

1/17/2016 12:23:39 PM

nothing wrong with that at all, just incredibly impressive. that would definitely put him in the 1% of American farmers and he's probably a mega-millionaire

1/17/2016 12:29:42 PM

1 (or 2 depending on how you count it, grandparents have a farm that one of my parents worked growing up)

or 0 if you count owning farm land but not working it, my siblings and i own land that someone else farms

1/17/2016 1:22:04 PM

My grandfather was a farmer and my mom and aunt and uncles grew up working on the farm and I worked on my grandfather's tobacco farm for a couple summers.

But I guess my grandfather was the only farmer. So two generations.

1/17/2016 2:10:44 PM

grandma, in another country.

1/17/2016 4:05:13 PM

Quote :

"ncstatetke nothing wrong with that at all, just incredibly impressive. that would definitely put him in the 1% of American farmers and he's probably a mega-millionaire "

I knew the multi-millionaire part wasn't right, so I checked with my dad. He does well, but not that well.
I had an extra 0 in his land.
He has a little over 20,000 acres.

[Edited on January 17, 2016 at 5:52 PM. Reason : .]

1/17/2016 5:50:55 PM

still very good money. even if he sells his grain at a break even and strictly lives off the subsidies, he's making $1MM per season (depending on where/what he farms)

1/17/2016 6:03:10 PM

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's more than three.

1/17/2016 6:04:56 PM

2. My grandpa.

1/17/2016 7:15:35 PM

grandpa farmed until it wasn't making money anymore, then had to switch to workin at the factory.

so 2 gens.

That being said, I'd like to have a working ranch.

1/17/2016 7:16:16 PM

I only know the occupation of one of my great-great-grandfathers (a gunsmith, as it happens). So 4 generations is highly possible as that leaves seven other great-great-grandfathers unaccounted for.

No farmers in the last three generations though.

1/17/2016 7:34:27 PM

My maternal grandfather was a farmer. He did some public jobs in addition to farming. He ran a service station for a while, drove a gas tanker truck for a while, worked at a bakery. Eventually ended up with chicken (layer) houses and some row crops on the side. My mom worked the chicken houses with him and my grandmother for a good portion of her adult life. She owned 1/3 of the operation, so I don't know if that counts.

To go back to folks who farmed their whole life and never really did anything else, you'd have to go to my great-grandparents. They were all farmers. That's about all there was to do in ENC back then.

1/17/2016 9:28:24 PM

2 generations out. My grandmothers were both raised on family farms in Pennsylvania. I've got the equivalent of a backyard hobby farm, so that grand plan of "raise the kids in the suburbs" lasted all of 1 generation.

1/18/2016 2:03:03 AM

2. my grandad. fairly large farm in eastern nc. it was bought by a family friend of my mom's generation.

1/18/2016 2:18:24 AM

Quote :

"^ how many acres do you and your dad farm?"

the farm is 30 acres total. but we are fairly diversified...about 25 acres of nursery stock and maybe 7 acres of produce (strawberries, cantaloupes, tomatoes, pumpkins, etc).

farm was originally my grandaddy's tobacco farm...converted into nursery, fruit production over the last 20-30 years

[Edited on January 18, 2016 at 7:41 AM. Reason : f]

1/18/2016 7:37:01 AM

0

1/18/2016 9:54:21 AM

i'm one generation removed from subsistence farming.

My dad grew up as one of 16 kids on a plot of land where they grew what they ate. My grandfather built that house by hand. It's still in the family today, only it's been completely rebuilt.

1/18/2016 10:28:57 AM

1 from my mom's side
6 if you count slavery as farming

1/18/2016 11:11:58 AM

-1

My children will be farmers

1/18/2016 11:40:15 AM

I'll say one generation since my dad grew up on a farm and farmed on it all through college.

I'd like to see a heat map of the 15%. Dark red is one generation, with it getting lighter for 2 and 3, and anything > 4 is gray. My guess is that the south and midwest would be mostly red, while every other spot would probably be gray.

30 years from now, we'll probably see the same stat about people who worked in manufacturing.

1/18/2016 11:46:39 AM

2, paternal grandfather.

1/18/2016 12:10:52 PM

At least 2 or 3. My grandparents came to the US from Europe (or were first gen born here), and I don't know what my great grandparents did for work in the old country.

1/18/2016 3:41:45 PM

My great-grandfather was a farmer. My granddad grew up working the farm, but was able to finish school and got a job selling insurance when he was an adult.

He had an acre of "farm" on their property that I wouldn't necessarily call a hobby farm. He and my grandmother were children of the depression and he was a war vet. They grew enough vegetables plus chickens in their yard to feed a family of 4 year round out of what they perceived as necessity. They only went to the grocery for baked goods and red meat.

1/18/2016 4:48:02 PM

does slave labor count?

[Edited on January 18, 2016 at 4:49 PM. Reason : asking for a friend]

1/18/2016 4:49:19 PM

Two.

1/18/2016 4:50:33 PM

3 - my grandparents were raised on a farm, but were not farmers as adults.

1/18/2016 5:14:56 PM

Zero.

I am, in a small/specialty crop type way. That and livestock/horses.

1/18/2016 8:39:14 PM

paternal great grandparents were farmers. my mom's is very far removed from farming even going back to Europe I don't know of anyone that were farmers.

1/18/2016 10:47:11 PM

I'm from Northern Iowa. Both sets of grandparents were farmers and a lot of my relatives still farm up there.

1/18/2016 11:55:18 PM

I'm a farmer's daughter. I grew up on a dairy farm that also raised beef cattle and crops.



[Edited on January 19, 2016 at 10:38 AM. Reason : Pictures]

1/19/2016 10:32:05 AM

Quote :

"I'll say one generation since my dad grew up on a farm and farmed on it all through college. "

I don't know if this is a 1 or 2, but it is also where I stand. Both parents grew up tobacco farming.

1/19/2016 11:21:16 AM

^^OMG MAYBE I KNOW YOUR FAMILY

1/20/2016 3:03:55 PM

All my grandparents were full-time tobacco farmers.

1/20/2016 3:04:18 PM

Had to ask family, but I'm 3. My grandfather's father.

[Edited on January 24, 2016 at 10:13 AM. Reason : maths is hard]

1/24/2016 10:12:35 AM

2. My grandfather and his 7 siblings all worked in Farming one way or another. My grandfather eventually went to college to be a civil engineer, but the rest of his brother's and sisters stayed in Tarboro and farmed family land and now their children do currently,

1/24/2016 11:36:04 AM