Best income options in 2024 to save "the family farm" through tech and remote work?

We're in a situation where we've established a family-based intentional community. We will probably grow it out over time, but the present economy for rural America is very hostile to everyone it seems - most especially those of us in rural areas or trying to figure out agricultural paths for income.

Due to this ever pervasive hostility and perceived lack of options, it's clear that sources of income that are not agriculture-based are necessary for survival and to thrive.

I wanted to pose a thought exercise to see if anyone might have a different perspective on a particular situation than myself:

First, I'm a tech worker (specifically been doing software engineering and IT work for decades). I'm essentially considered "geriatric" in those industries at this point and there is very little external job opportunity. Conversely all of my family in our little community are tech savvy and range in skills from a few years in software engineering and IT skills to entry level in these areas. Age ranges go from late teens to mid thirties.

Recently my mainstay clients have gone away due to economic downturns and that leaves us about 2 or 3 months of life left until we have to "abandon the farm". It's a pretty serious and grim situation that has me thinking of selling off one of our larger, and really nice, farm areas to try to batten down the hatches and make ourselves as close to self sufficient as possible so as to reduce monthly expenditures.

I have become physically ill with worry about liquidating that farm since it is the only option we have for expanding our agricultural efforts and having space for growth, etc.

Ideally we could get some outside work for one or two of our family members that might bolster the income situation, but remote work seems to be difficult to obtain at present in any industry and if one thing is clear, it is that there are no local jobs that can even come close to meeting our needs.

Any thoughts (or questions to get more details) about how you might handle a situation like this?

What would it be like if you searched for more folks to move onto the part of the farm you're considering selling, they could pay per month and y'all could make the community larger that way and then figure out more ideas?  Some people (raising my hand here, though we're not in your area so aren't applicable for your farm) would rather be in closeness with others and build community, rather than paying rent for seperate things, they'd rather pay into something that means something to them, like keeping the community afloat for all.

My kids have heard me say "if I win the lotto, I'll just farm till the money runs out..."  That said it is difficult to operate a farm without creative methods of raising revenue, all while cutting cost.  One farmer a few miles down the way from me gets free internet and a monthly check for letting an internet provider mount an antenna on his silo. Would the county reduce your taxes in exchange for letting search and rescue folks practice on one of your fields after harvest?  A good tax accountant might have heard of other farmers ideas to improve their cash flow.  Ask around at the local farmers exchange, & barber shops for creative ideas...

Hi Greg, here is my perspective as someone who recently managed to get a remote, skilled position. I too am in a rural area with minimal skilled jobs that are available and pay a decent wage.

This is definitely a great pathway for bringing cashflow to your family farm. It is a great feeling of security having a paycheck come in every month. And I love being at home around the wife, kids, animals, and garden.

I know that the remote workplace is extremely competitive right now and I feel your struggle. You mention family members having tech backgrounds. What kind of jobs are they looking for? Something I had to come to grips with was that lots of folks "talk" about making $100k working remotely in the tech industry. Very few actually start out working remotely and making that much. Sure there are folks who were already climbing the ladder working in-person and were able to eventually switch to remote job paying well. And there are a lot of folks who are starting out remote but aren't making anywhere near six figures (such as myself). Are your family members willing to settle for some less glorious, entry level positions that might only pay $40-50k a year? From what I saw, that is definitely a reasonable wage for an entry level remote tech job. Might still take a lot of applications, but much more reasonable in my opinion.

Another possible avenue y'all could explore would be some of these gig type roles that pay $15-20 an hour for pretty basic data entry and other tasks. Depending on how many family members you have, folks could each work maybe four hours a day. Y'all could even take shifts and share one computer if that is all you have. Four people, each working four hours a day, five days a week would make a little over $62k a year I believe if they're making $15 an hour.

Indeed ! Sorry  to hear, do anything but worry! An Ancient problem, a now w first world expense.  Many land owners have hunters , or clubs pay to hunt. Hipcamp, etc. offer  insurance for having paying guests. All depends how far from the maddening crowd you are.  School groups? Educational workshops? Polyface has a lot of infrastructure and hosts others conference, the renter should have insurance. I know a craftsman who vends at Homesteaders of America gigs. A goat farmer has concerts. Amish near here have a puppy mill, labradorite ! Daycare?  Need licensing. Need $ to make $. Friends are worth more than money.   Hear a church  has community suppers I can cook on the weekly dinners w my farm products and they pass the hat. Farmers markets are more about coffee n donuts. Gofundme? Utoob?   nursery? Here weedwacking or estate clean out, caring for elders pays. Asking local farmers to hire you for peek times or caretaking their farm so they can leave. Dog kennels and pet sitting supports another friend.  Some gov grants available, NRCS for high tunnel. Winter greens sell good plus early Tomatoes Yet need $ down before getting reimbursed. I’m on farm lists where seems everyone has a grant gig ! Check  ATTRA weekly lists obscure grants. Just met a fellow who does control burns and “regenerative” work for some foundation. Uncle joe has new rural grants coming “ climate resilience “ NRCS would know. Yes, Farming is Generational! 100 yrs ago my frds father sharecropped a good crop of onions and bought land and built a house.  I tried that, 100 yrs too late. Keep thinking about it. Here, no one does manual labor. Invasive are encroaching everywhere, other farmers, avg age 68, May pay for chainsaw work, pulling thistles Many Nat forest alow wood harvest.  Got friends? Grunge Band? Best to Y’all keep us updated.  

Hey Chard,  thank you so much for taking the time to provide your perspective and insights. It's really helpful to hear from someone who has successfully navigated the transition to remote work in a rural area. Your experience is invaluable - truly appreciate you sharing it.

Yep - definitely willing to start lower on the pay scale. The goal is to get to a roughly cumulative 10k a month, which is what is currently needed as a bare minimum viable baseline cumulative take home. Since we have 3 to 5 people that have the background and ability to do this, we could divide that in a number of ways.

You've made some excellent points about the realities of the remote tech job market. It's true that those six-figure salaries aren't always the norm (rarely are, especially today), especially for entry-level positions. Our family members are definitely open to considering a range of opportunities, including those in the $40-50k range that you mentioned. Even those less glamorous roles could make a world of difference for us right now.

I really like your suggestion about exploring gig-type roles as well insomuch that we've poked this little bear a bit, but we've had a lack of consistent results through online finding so far. We do already do a tiny bit of work in this space, but it's just highly variable/inconsistent. It probably amounts to about $1500 every 2-5 months. It would be nice to have a way to find work opportunities that are not so heavily in competition with super cheap and likely badly skilled folk constantly snapping up the work.

With several family members of varying ages and skill levels, we could potentially piece together a combination of part-time and full-time opportunities. Like you noted, even a few of those $15-20/hour roles could add up to a meaningful income stream.

I've compiled a list of skills that we have/share amongst our 3-5 family members who can work in this space:

- Software Development:
   - Ruby on Rails (5+ years experience)
   - JavaScript
   - Ruby
   - C
   - Racket/Functional langs
   - Other programming languages

- Web Development:
   - HTML
   - CSS
   - WordPress (Oxygen, Elementor, etc.)
   - Squarespace (full site implementation, inc. e-commerce)
   - BigCommerce (theme dev, maintenance)

- IT Skills:
   - System Administration
   - Network Management
   - Technical Support
   - Troubleshooting
   - Most of this is already done via remote tools like TeamViewer, Jump, etc.

- Digital Marketing:
   - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
   - Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
   - Content Creation
   - Social Media Management/Optimization (SMO)

- Graphic Design:
   - Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)
   - Canva
   - Visual Design Principles
   - Logo Design
   - Page Layout, Manuscript/Publication Design

- Soft Skills:
   - Communication
   - Collaboration
   - Problem-Solving
   - Time Management
   - Adaptability
   - Project Management

- Domain Knowledge:
   - Agriculture
   - Rural Living
   - Sustainability
   - Research Skills (well developed in various fields)
   - Writing (connected to Research)
   - Computer Science
   - And some specialized sciences

- Language Skills:
   - English
   - Spanish
   - Slight German familiarity

- Other Relevant Skills:
   - Remote Work Experience
   - Freelance/Gig Work Experience
   - Entrepreneurial Mindset
   - Continuous Learning
   - Flexible Schedule

Honestly I'm not sure which permutations of combinations might be best. We clearly have a lot of both low to high-end skills that could be tapped. The trick is going to be getting the lower skilled people hired first in this situation since we need to keep the higher end skilled folks working on some projects we are working on that might get us to much higher levels of income pretty soon since we're in the shifting into marketing phase for one of our projects that has high national and international appeal with residual income.

We may very well also incorporate some other ideas into this such as trying to bring some non-family into the farm that we're thinking about selling. I really am loath to consider selling one of the farms that is kinda on the chopping block of consideration. It would be a nightmare to sell it since we really need it long term and it's an amazing location with a lot of natural resources - even coal and probably oil and natural gas.

But yes, thanks again for chiming in. If any other thoughts or ideas come to mind, please don't hesitate to share them. We're grateful for any and all input as we work to find a sustainable path forward for our family and our farm.

Try reaching out to Epic in Madison WI. They hire tech people. I'm not sure what their policies are but they pay well if they will let you work from home. They have allowed it in the past.

Greg Payton wrote:I've compiled a list of skills that we have/share amongst our 3-5 family members who can work in this space

That looks like a pretty extensive list of skills. For a lot of the tech skills you have listed, I think what is helping folks get hired in the remote world is having a portfolio to demonstrate those skills. Lots of folks claim to know stuff just because they took one DataCamp course or whatever. Showing that you can actually apply those skills in creative ways (not just cookie-cutter projects) and communicate your talents/results to an audience go a long way. For any coding language, this should probably take the form of a public GitHub repository that your family members hyperlink on their resume. I don't come from a web design background, but I also created a basic website using a template to showcase some of my personal projects. It had a short bio as well. Nothing fancy, but every interview I had the interviewer(s) mentioned that they saw it and were impressed by it.

If they don't already have a "professional" online presence (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), they should probably make something. I personally have zero interest in social media platforms, but I did create a very professional LinkedIn profile with a headshot and the works. I think that goes a long way in getting hired remotely. If someone can't find anything out about you online, they are probably not going to hire you over someone they can do basic research on. Again, you are simply showing that you can communicate in an online presence (side note: I took down all my public as soon as I was hired and onboarded - I value my privacy lol). I know a lot of folks on this forum are humble by nature; while job searching though you have to be able to hype yourself up though unfortunately.

From talking to interviewers after being hired, an important part of getting hired remotely is to demonstrate technical proficiency/remote professionalism during the interview process. Make sure your family members have a decent camera/audio setup, a quiet place to interview, and are used to talking on camera (making eye contact was hard for me - I want to look at the person on the screen, but you often have to look directly at the camera instead; it's weird). And be ready to use whatever software the interviewers want to use (e.g., Zoom, Teams, etc.). I can't remember what the software was, but I definitely didn't get the job when I showed up late for the interview because I was waiting on an app to download... Apparently my interviewers found that a lot of folks applying for remote work just don't appear cut out for working remotely due to some of those issues.

Completely unrelated to "real jobs," something my wife and I were really interested in doing was pet sitting on Rover or a similar platform. We decided that we don't have the arrangements in place to do that right now, but we definitely will be looking to do so in the future. When we have used the platform, we'd pay $20-40 per dog per night to have someone pet sit. It seemed like most folks on the platform stayed pretty busy. Prices especially go up during the holiday periods. Not sure how remote you are, but even in more rural areas there are often limited commercial kennels or other options, so you may be able to have a decent side hustle there. Plus animals are great.

Or on the flip side, if you have the manpower, perhaps y'all can offer to house sit. People will pay even more to have you come to their house and take care of their animals for a few days in their home.

sounds like you need to do some out of the box thinking. look for new unexplored areas that could ideally bring in some small trickles, and if enough of those trickles get put together it starts to flow.
i agree with the above poster and some of your thoughts, some gig work, lots of little gig works and new potential income streams, especially as it sounds like you have a group of people. so everyone should try to start their gig work exploration with whatever they are into and try a bunch of things, and hopefully at least a few of them stick.

maybe some out of the box ideas --
airbnb/ short term rentals, or events or u-pick or other ways of trying to make money with the land/farm you have.
you have a farm do you sell seed? i think seed sales have a good potential, although this a long term plan. ditto on most of permacultures ways - long term perennials, long term slow growth.
odd jobs/ landscaping / short term jobs, one offs and gig work proper. mowing lawns, land clearance and other things - maybe some of your members could seek that to raise some quick funds.

some more thoughts, although forgive me if youve already explored this or whatever - subsidies, USDA rural loans/ grants/ improvement grants/ financing. so basically farm subsidies.
i know very little in this space but comes to mind there may be something there to help in the short term or long term.

Hi Greg,
I just stumbled upon your post, I hope you're making ends meet.  I'm not great at sprouting business ideas, but Jack Spirko frequently talks about this stuff on his podcast at https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/.  Searches for terms like `side-hustle` and `income` match posts that might be helpful, maybe also https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/home-v-homestead-24 about moving a home from liability to asset.