Accurate. And energy mitigation looks a lot like shitting into sawdust compost, sleeping in a trailer-house hybrid, small gas engine pump irrigation, wood stove, all hand tools except a walk-behind tractor from '89 that has no easy-to-find replaceable parts. CSA shares supplemented by twice-weekly farmers markets might get you $3,600/month, but you've spent enough on gas and storage at this point that the real value you've incurred after a day at market is about $1.75/hr. The only decision point that makes any of that easier is growing for a market with a cashable crop like fruit/berries or wholesale grains (non-optional at the scale discussed here) instead of growing for self-sufficiency and a portfolio of produce. To speak of something I know about, you can pack a shit ton of blueberries into 5 acres.
Whatcom County grows 80% of the raspberries in the United States. Wholesale they make between $1.50 and $1.80 a pound. An acre of raspberries in Whatcom County costs $3500 to produce, and produces between 5,000 and 8,000 lbs of marketable raspberries. I was looking at a 20 acre raspberry farm for about a million dollars. That's somewhere between $100k and $300k gross every year. Clearly - it's a living. Clearly, it's something you can turn a profit on. But you better like raspberries. I was also looking at hazelnuts. Whatcom County used to produce 80% of the hazelnuts in the united states and I like trees. Unfortunately, the U of Oregon agriculture department determined that the break-even period on a hazelnut tree is 14 years, and they only produce for 20-25. And that is why there are no new hazelnut orchards.