I mean, a lot of people do jump in with little or no research and try to spend their way out of problems. That is definitely not good, particularly when animals and animal welfare is involved.

It's really an acreage with a garden and some animals, but they call it a farm, and aren't really interested in the actual farms.

I mean... are we gatekeeping farms now? I'm trying to feed my family and hopefully have enough to sell (starting next year, anyway; we moved here too late this year and I'm still learning my land). In my case, no animals for now (though chickens are in the cards for next year and maybe we'll do something else the following year).

I do plan to commercially farm, though I also plan to keep my day job for the foreseeable future. Market gardeners with a good market can make quite a lot off of the ~5000sqm of farmland like I have, but there's no market that's going to be good for that in rural Japan. The best case scenario for being commercially successful in that way would be to network with chefs in the bigger cities, but I have neither the talent nor reputation for that (nor would I want to commit to that until at least another year or two when I can confirm stability). I do have friends who run a restaurant who are willing to pay for some of what I am growing if it works out, and another lead in the nearest big city (~1 hour away), but that's it.

I'm outside nearly every single day preparing, cultivating, sowing, harvesting, etc. and treat it like a job. I just harvested ~15kg of potatoes this morning (literally one of the first things I did when moving here was get those in the ground) and a few kilos of green onions. Am I not at least a part-time farmer? The local government says I am, in any case (buying registered farmland in Japan is a process, lemme tell ya).