There's another gap between small family farms and huge scale enterprises. There is a lot of demand for local but quality. Whether it's grass-fed beef, eggs from truly free-ranging chickens, or heritage breed pork that's well butchered (harder than you'd think to find quality animal processing) people are looking for things that the more traditional farms don't know about and the big farms can't afford to do. I think there is a market for focused quality. Of course in the meantime I'm still punching the clock at my IT job but hope the farm can eventually sustain itself.
Ya, there is definitely a niche for that. But it can be difficult. Usually involves certifications and finding the right markets that want what you have in the quantities you can produce it and not more. Also, a lot of the places where land is cheap enough are pretty far from places where demand for heritage pork or wagyu beef is high.
Also, I have found that the old timers are pretty slow to change, but there is actually good reason for that. They have seen the trends come and go, some have jumped on those trends and eventually gotten burned (in my area, it was ostrich and emu farming).
Also, the slow methodical farm build-up over the years tends to evolve out a pretty efficient and effective farming method. I remember a few years ago, my brother and I got on this kick thinking there was a lot of money to be made on the farm by further fattening or "finishing" the cows before selling them. As traditionally, a lot of farms will sell yearlings to feedlots for a lower price. The feedlot then fattens them up and sells for a profit. But after a lot of research and number crunching, we found that the math just didn't work because we would have to pay to ship in the grain, since it isn't grown very locally and then we would also have to eat the higher cost of shipping those heavier cows to the auctions which are also not that close.
The old timers knew this wasn't a profitable pathway even though they didn't all necessarily know the whole story of why it isn't a profitable pathway. We have found this to be true in a lot of cases with older farmers. They know some things won't work, even if they don't fully know the details why.
