Hello Forum,
some thoughts have recently struck me which are probably really old hat to anyone familiar with agriculture, so the following may be boring.
I learned about chicken tractors and rabbit tractors, and thought those techniques would make buying some land (1 or 2 hectares let's say), maybe somewhere around Basque Country or Asturias, a viable self sufficiency old age pension strategy that would be labour saving and low on investment.
I am quite lazy, so the various other forms of agriculture which would amount to a lot more work, hadn't seemed very attractive before.
To the rabbit tractors, I mentally added some swales on contour, ponds, ducks, maybe geese, solar pumps, cyclone filter for duck guano extraction, microponic hoop house, silvopasture.
I googled agriculural land prices, apparently you should be able to get 'agricultural land' in France (and Spain, maybe?) for around 7000 euro per hectare.
Researching into actually avaiable properties, mainly returned properties with at least a ruined building, which amounts to a building permit, and 20000 euros at the very lowest, with only hundreds of sqm of land.
It hit me that in order to have 'a farm', you need to have a 'farmhouse' which means human occupation, which means building permit.
On the other hand, if I bought some 'agricultural land', and if I weren't in the vicinity at nighttime, would anyone consider leaving chicken- or rabbit tractors on that land acceptable practice from a security point of view?
The same question applies to the other bits of investment stationed on the land such as photovoltaics, batteries, pumps, etc. I had fancied that a walk-behind, mini skid steer loader would make a good universal tool for swale and pond creation, and further land modification to do with hoop houses and so on. Such a vehicle isn't road worthy of course.
Can you keep it safe on 'agricultural land' without a building? Or are you allowed to erect structures to keep stuff safe as long as you don't stay there? And even if you were allowed to erect such strucures, how much safety would that really add if you're not in the vicinity?
I realized that the conventional way of raising animals in enclosed spaces and growing hay to feed them is probably to some degree driven by these safety considerations.
Is there any good way of dealing with this problem of lack of security on farmland vs expensiveness of farm with building permit?
