I had to quit corporate life because of health reasons, fortunately my husband works but I’ve managed to make money petsitting/dog walking/boarding dogs at my home.

There is also bulk trash day every other week in my town. People put out furniture they don’t want. Lots of Mid-Century pieces. I fix, stain or paint them. Either refinish in their original glory or upcycle them. Wish I had a way of attaching pictures here but anyway. It’s fun - and gives me something to do when my daughter is in school. Pays for groceries. Not a livable wage but definitely helps out.

My husband does consulting on the side too.

Amy, ever think of becoming a certified keto coach? Maria
Emmerich provides training on it (mariamindbodyheath.com) Not that you need the training. She Provides classes online to become a keto coach and actually can coach her clients all over the country via FaceTime or Skype.

https://keto-adapted.com/keto-coach/

The funny thing is that this i the kind of niche entertainment you'd find in the wee hours of the night in cable/public/BBC TV during the 80s before infomercial programming ate that time slot.

The same can be said about YouTube's Fishing and the Urban Forager shows, the former you'll see plenty on ESPN before the Mouse gobbled it up, and the latter on the BBC and the Discovery's travel channel before it was fine-tuned to the soccer mom audience.

farmers are now earning more from their YouTube videos than their crops

The linked article gives three examples of this, and I should think it wouldn't take much more than those to saturate the market for farming videos. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the vast majority of farmers are stuck with selling their crops for their livelihood, just like always.

Here in the Garden State (AKA New Jersey) many farms are surviving by becoming tourist farms.

That is they allow for some pick your own produce, have hay rides and corn mazes in the fall; basically anything to attract folks to come out from the city to spend a day "in the country."

It is one way that they have been able to remain farms.

From what I understand Rex the vast majority of 'farmers' don't make a profit selling their crops. A lot of them are in it for fun. A number are using the designation to reduce their taxes. I have the vague recollection (i.e. don't fully trust me) 10% of farmers by population produce 70% of the food. Those guys are making money selling their crops and have very well managed businesses. If you flip the analysis and sort things by acres you find those 10% own most of the land.

Ben - it's like the clothing market. Several large vertically integrated suppliers provide most of the mass market product, with a long tail of smaller providers and unique boutique offerings.

So grain and the poultry at big-box stores are large-scale factory farmed. But there is still a market for free range meats and smaller community farming. The smarter little guys are cutting out the middleman and providing finished products and branded experiences - and playing on peoples' desire to know where their food is coming from.

"From what I understand Rex the vast majority of 'farmers' don't make a profit selling their crops."

I knew an older man back in the '80s (he's since passed on) who was an executive at an aerospace company, who had started a hobby farm. He called himself an "agriculturist". I asked him once what he meant by that. He told me: "There are farmers and then there are agriculturists. A farmer makes his money on the farm and spends it in town. An agriculturist makes his money in town and spends it on the farm."

Windmills. I don't know how much money landowners make off of them, though. We drove from Blanco to Rockport and back last week, and there are fields and fields of sorghum and cotton, with towering windmills dotted thoughout, starting South of Three Rivers.

You forget taxes and fun Ben David. I know a guy who raises mini cattle. Why? If you have three cows on your property it counts as a ranch getting you substantial tax benefits. Mini cattle require much less upkeep than full sized ones. These cows will never be slaughtered. They will live out their lives providing tax benefits instead of meat. What do the companies that buy these cows actually do for a living? Some are oil companies and others are warehouses. Those are only the ones I personally know of. Pretty much any place with a lot of land can benefit from this tax classification. Cousin Dave already covered the 'agriculturalist' side of things.

There are lots of numbers and statistics out there. It is important to know how those numbers were collected and what they really represent.

We're getting into nit-picky semantics, but I took "earning more" to mean taking in more, regardless of whether the end result is a net profit. I'd be very surprised if more than a handful of farmers take in more from videos than from selling crops, however paltry their crop sales are.

If you want to be really pedantic, the phrase "farmers are now earning more. . ." refers to all farmers taken together, since there's no qualifier (like "some" or "a few") in front of "farmers".

Something to add, the ones with a decent YouTube viewership also sell farming accessories. Be it simple gardening tools or raised bed containers.

"mini cattle."

Ah. So that's where sliders come from.

My mini cattle friend was an english major (or so I recall). He spent most of his life cleaning up technical manuals in the oil and gas industry. When he retired he opened up this ranch. I don't know how truly profitable it is. I've found many people are happy losing their money slower than expected. The idea of turning a profit just isn't something they consider plausible.

https://rurallivingtoday.com/livestock/miniature-cattle-breeds-small-farm/

Goat are also becoming popular tax dodge ranch animals. Which is why midtown Houston had around 100 goats wandering on the highway a few years back. They escaped from a 'ranch' that mostly distributed frozen food. Stouffer's and such as I recall.

In some parts of Texas you can get the ag exemption for beekeeping if you have 5-plus acres. It has to be AT LEAST 5 acres, though- 4.98 won't cut it. (I know because I tried.) We keep a few goats for fun; they are much hardier and lower maintenance than cattle. Everyone I know who has a significant amount of unrestricted land keeps cattle on your land. If you don't own your own herd, you let someone else lease lease your land to run their own cattle so you can claim the ag exemption.

In the Hill Country you'll see a lot of very nice gated acreage communities that have wildlife exemptions because they have game fencing and have herds of interesting game like oxryx, axis, elk, blackbuck, etc.