This Side Hustle Is Helping Landowners Earn Up to $60,000 a Year While Connecting Outdoor Lovers With Untouched Wilderness If you’ve got some land, why not make some extra cash while letting others get out into nature?

For most farmers, it’s “damn near impossible” to make a living on the land, according to Matt Graham. His family has owned a 700-acre farm in Eagleville, Missouri, since 1886, but today he describes their small cattle and crop operation as a “full-time hobby.”

Graham says making a living from farming is prohibitively expensive, so he has a separate career in the energy sector. To raise cattle full time, he says you’d need a few hundred cows, about four acres of grazing land per cow, and a few tractors — all of which lands at around $15 million in startup costs. “There’s just no way it pencils,” he says. “And there’s a lot of risk in it. It’s weather- and market-dependent, and you can’t control either.”

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