Anything Ag related is a challenge in making money. It's not like other businesses where you are dependant only on a market. Restraunts, clothing, professional, all depend on the market to make money. Yes, you need good food, decent clothes, and good customer service, but that can be improved upon to make good money. They are inputs you can control.
In agriculture,the only input you can control, is the input of time you work on the farm. You are dependant on the market, and the weather. Both are out of your control. Bad weather can make or break a year. Bad weather can affect the health of your livestock, it can affect your crop, it an affect your cost on inputs. And there are times that no matter what you do, it is out of your control. You can do your best at putting in the best crop or you can do your best at providing up to date heath protocols for your livestock, in the end you are at the mercy of what someone else is will to pay, no negotiation.
In a restraunt you can set the price for a meal. In that price you include all you input costs, your labour, your overhead and your want to make $ and what the customer is willing to pay for your service. You know what it costs to make a plate, and your price to the customer is reflective on that.
In agriculture, say cows, your costs depend on inputs like fertilizer, fuel, vet bills, small tools, fence repairs, labour and overhead. Just like in a restraunt. The difference is, you take your cattle to an auction and the price you get depends on what the market dictates. We can not set our price to sell a cow or calf. We know our cost of production and we hope we can cover that but, get what we get and like it or not.
It is the same for any other ag commodity. We can not set the price for grains, oil seeds, any other livestock, or honey. We get the price that is dictated to us.
Now add in weather ie a hail storm that can wipe out a good crop in 5 minutes, add in deaths of livestock...not always controlled, cheaper imports into the country, and you begin to realize that any ag commodity is a job you have to love to continue.
Yes we can dictate the price we set for farmgate sales on honey, but a commercial producer produces way more honey that what farmgate sales account for. The rest goes bulk.
Livestock such as cows, you can set a price for breeding stock, but meat sales are highly regulated, and costly. Milk can not be sold farm gate, eggs, yes can be sold farmgate but again you are under some regulations like the # of birds for a none quota farm. Most farmgate sales of grain and oilseed is to other farmers for planting or feeding, not to consumers.
Then add into the mix a customer who comes for farm gate sales and says, how about we deal. If i buy 10# of honey will you give me a deal? Or if i buy 3 jars of honey instead of 1 will you give me a deal? They treat farmgate sales like a garage sale. New farmgate customers are so far removed from that ag world that they forget the effort and cost that goes into creating a farm fresh product.