I grew up on a family farm. My first year teaching ('78) I earned $10,500. I was shocked to learn that that year was the first year my father (with a degree in agriculture - so yeah, he knows what he is doing) earned that much. His was the sole income for the family (7 of us), and had been farming at that point for 19 years (although he grew up as a farm kid). We always filled out the free lunch paperwork because we were always close enough to being eligible that it was worth it.
He is now 93, and has been out of farm debt once since he started farming in '58. You borrow to plant the spring crop - gambling which crop will pay for itself - and hope the rains are good enough for you to grow a healthy crop - but not too good because if everyone else's crops grow well the price goes down.
He is land-rich and cash poor, and always has been. As have been his cousin (and farming partner), his siblings (who all worked off the farm to make ends meet - and one of whom went bankrupt), as have my cousins (at least one of whom went bankrupt).
The up side for my siblings and I, since none of us are farmers, is that my parents being land-rich will make a nice in heritance.
Amish are not a comparison for family farms. The culture/economics/etc. are very different for the Amish than they are for a typical family farm.
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