There is no hard-and-fast land requirement. Choosing self-employment gives you more freedom in choosing what crops or niche to specialize in to have better prospects for your location and target customers. Most Recent Poll Facebook. However, we still need operating capital to plant the first crop and survive for the first growing season. Original PayScale Research. Large farmers also have the capital to put down on new technologies that smaller farmers can’t afford, like GPS-guided tractors that drive themselves and save fuel and computer programs that monitor the health and productivity of livestock.