Plumbers and electricians start at 2,500 a day. How much should farmers earn to be fair?
How much does a farmer actually need to earn for it to be reasonable? A very interesting question, one I have thought about for many years.
When a farmer using friendly farming methods earns a decent income, they are often criticized: selling too expensive! Profiteering! Only wanting to make money…… Once the word "friendly" is attached to actual farming, some people in society then hang the word "simple living" on this farmer, as if farmers should bear a moral responsibility. (What I am talking about here is the situation of genuinely farming; as for the few bad examples of false advertising, those are not within the scope of this article.)
If a carpenter, a plumber, or a mason starts at 2500 yuan a day, and in fact there are also farmers with a comparable level of "professionalism," can this kind of wage be used for calculation?
How do you calculate a farmer's income and costs?
A farmer's income: one's own wage + profit after deducting (costs and one's own wage).
A farmer's costs: wages for hired labor + material costs (cardboard boxes, weed trimmer fuel) + equipment depreciation (farm machinery, labor sheds, etc.) + land rent (if it is one's own land, the land rent is equivalent to the interest on this capital investment) + seedlings + hired services (tillers….).
I have seen some small farming households where the "whole family" (the Council of Agriculture generally counts 2.2 farming household labor units) can reach a monthly income of 100,000 yuan. This figure allows a comfortable life in the countryside, but compared with the urban average, it is only barely satisfactory; yet compared with NGO staff, grassroots laborers, or young people only two or three years out of school and into society, it is still quite good!
So is a farming household's "whole family" monthly income of 100,000 yuan a lot? Must a friendly small farmer earn 30,000 yuan a month and live the simple life that most people are unwilling to live in order to be considered conscientious? Whether a friendly small farmer lives simply is their own business, and this should not be used as a yoke placed on them. Perhaps, like a plumber, having a daily wage of 2500 yuan is reasonable.
*Pricing considerations in my household:
Top-Down –> Reference market prices to find a position
Bottom-Up –> Count my working hours on the main crops, calculate wages, add costs
Total income allocation –> Work out how much income the whole family needs for a year, and allocate it across several crops for calculation.
Weather is an unexpected cost risk: earning more in good years and losing in bad years must be balanced.
This farming profession has another cost risk: weather.
If luck is bad, it can mean total loss or halved production. Although major natural disasters come with government subsidies, basically that is equivalent to merely recovering costs for that season. This is a weather-related income risk that most occupations in society do not encounter.
So earning more in good years and less in bad years is very reasonable, and earning more in a good year cannot be used as a basis for criticism. If a farmer's own pricing is the same every year, they must also take reduced production in bad years into account.
What is more, what does it matter to us how much money others make?
Have we ever cared how Terry Gou made so much money?
Have we ever cared how some politicians came to have such shockingly large fortunes?
Have we ever cared how the fashion industry's profits are made?
Have we ever cared whether night market vendors' profits are too high?
Have we ever cared why McDonald's set meals are priced the way they are?
Have we ever cared how much conventional farmers who spray pesticides and apply chemical fertilizer on more than ten hectares of land earn?
Setting aside socialist thinking, the profits of all the industries above are entirely built on "supply and demand": one side is willing to offer, the other willing to accept!
Agriculture, in the final analysis, still involves the "commodity" of agricultural products. No matter how it is priced, supply and demand determine the price. That is why some farmers chase new varieties of fruit, because when new varieties first hit the market the price is very high (supply is low). That is also why some conventional farmers gamble on crops such as chili peppers and ginger. These crops are highly speculative, with large price fluctuations, and if luck is good, the profits are very large!
For the same crop grown by different friendly small farmers, the selling price is often different too. As long as they can sell it, there is nothing much to say.
Without stealing, cheating, or robbing, following the principle of supply and demand, let friendly farming friends live with peace of mind
Some criticism also comes from the idea that friendly small farmers should provide affordable prices so that many patients who must eat this kind of food because of poor health can afford it. If a farmer wants to tighten their belt, receive the national basic wage for their daily labor, and act as a good Samaritan by lowering prices, that is their choice, but it should not be that every friendly farmer must be so saintly.
Have you ever gone to hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to complain that prices are too high?
I have written down some thoughts in a scattered way, and not very completely either, but it is just writing down some ideas I have gradually become certain of over the past few years. My conclusion is that, without stealing, cheating, or robbing, and following the principle of supply and demand, crop prices should allow these friendly-method farmers to earn enough to live with peace of mind, so that they will not leave farming and abandon it after a few years. Only in this way can friendly farming methods expand!