You don't need a degree, but if you want to make a good living while farming you need to compete with people who have both a degree and millions in capital invested.
Farmers can make a lot of money, or at least somebody does. A single family Saskatchewan dryland wheat farm is typically worth $10M in land and equipment so either the farmer makes enough money to pay the interest on a multi-million dollar bank loan or enough money so that continuing to farm is preferable to retiring and living on the interest.
The problem is of course the variability due to weather and wild swings in commodity prices. A farm can produce a high six figure income one year and lose six figures the next.
But as you noted, if you're not looking to pull six figures per year from your farm, then it does become quite a bit simpler.
In the UK with arable you can potentially make money (although probably not), and it isn't a crazy amount of work. You plant crops in the autumn, spray them a couple of times, then it's too wet to get into the field and do anything during the winter even if something goes wrong. Only really busy time is a couple of weeks in the summer for harvest.
On the other hand, livestock farming is incredibly hard work (cows need to be milked 365 days a year) and you more or less always lose money.
There are no slugs nor stink bugs in the UK? These are main topic of discussion in any gardening community in Europe throughout growing season. You can't just spray them away.
I'm not actually a farmer I just grew up in the countryside, so I'm not sure, but I think with row crops slugs are less of an issue than vegetables, and they do use slug pellets if necessary.
Pests, bad weather etc. are definitely issues even with modern farming techniques, so in a good year you make a bit of money but in a bad year you can lose most of the crop
Farmers can make a lot of money, or at least somebody does. A single family Saskatchewan dryland wheat farm is typically worth $10M in land and equipment so either the farmer makes enough money to pay the interest on a multi-million dollar bank loan or enough money so that continuing to farm is preferable to retiring and living on the interest.
The problem is of course the variability due to weather and wild swings in commodity prices. A farm can produce a high six figure income one year and lose six figures the next.
But as you noted, if you're not looking to pull six figures per year from your farm, then it does become quite a bit simpler.