Actually RUNNING a farm has never been considered "prestigious." Buy OWNING one often has been.

"Farming" is connected with manual labor, sweat, etc. As such, it is not what social economists like Thorstein Veblen would consider "honorific." On the other hand, to be an owner is to be member of the landed gentry, and a member of the establishment.

Farming has been considered "unprestigious" when the owners were also the actual farmers. In the Middle Ages owners and farmers were not the same people.