For most farmers, it’s “damn near impossible” to make a living on the land, according to Matt Graham. His family has owned a 700-acre farm in Eagleville, Missouri, since 1886, but today he describes their small cattle and crop operation as a “full-time hobby.”

Graham says making a living from farming is prohibitively expensive, so he has a separate career in the energy sector. To raise cattle full time, he says you’d need a few hundred cows, about four acres of grazing land per cow, and a few tractors — all of which lands at around $15 million in startup costs. “There’s just no way it pencils,” he says. “And there’s a lot of risk in it. It’s weather- and market-dependent, and you can’t control either.”

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