I’m lucky to own/operate a small farm I live on. It doesn’t produce almost any real money for me but it serves as a good collection of hobbies/food. My primary income is industrial and doesn’t scratch that itch. But, it pays the bills and affords me a schedule that let’s me maintain the farm. So, what would your ideal small farm setup look like?
Maybe you need to rethink what a farm can be. Many apparently wild landscapes that you are familiar with have likely been managed as a kind of agriculture for a very long time, and most people have no idea.
There are many ways to cultivate food.
The point is that cultivation is not conducive to a natural habitat.
The Amazon rainforest arguably benefited from cultivation, but not until the vast majority of the human population emigrated away or died off.
Modern humans have never figured out a good balance to work with nature. Native Americans came closest with the Three Sisters and forage style harvests. The vast majority of people are too focused on production to ever truly care about the impact of their garden on the wider environment.