Lol I scanned through what you said and it all looks reasonable and what normal nice people would do, you'd be surprised the lengths people will go to do the right thing, not the easy thing.
I'm also not seeing huge financial costs and you might get back back some money from selling the cat. And people set up shelters in their homes also. Could become a community effort.
I think you're just a jaded angry weirdo that prides themselves on how hardcore and matter of fact they can be. Hope you don't have kids, you don't sound like you have any loving or nurturing in you.
You're talking to the guy that saves bugs from being washed down the drain or being trapped in my house.
Sounds like you don't have a lot going on with your life try adding hogs, wild coyotes, fence that needs mending because the bulls decided to scratch his behind, Bambi eating your hedge that you spent all day planting, the tractor needs hydrolics replaced, several trees that fell on the road that need clearing. Then you need do 8hrs of work, meet with a sales rep to figuire out how you will be able to purchase a new atv. Make food, take shower have 1 hour for yourself. Or thousands of other things that you have to juggle.
Don't forget farmers normally mow their lawns and fix their leaky pipes. Many of the things city slickers take for granted. It can be backbreaking work the last thing they need is to worry about is rescuing 20 feral cats.
If you have the time, and money knock yourself out go rescue every kitten but most of us don't have that luxury
4 cat traps at $50 each thats $200
Baiting them with meat maybe $1-2 per day
Checking them every day on an average 400 acre farm will take you 30mins out of your day or around 180 hours a year or 7.5 days
Driving a feral cat to town and back will eat up 1/2 your day. Lets say you catch 8 cats in a year thats 4 days of your time gone
Realistically minus the sleep time of 8hrs we only have 5840 hrs a year - 243 days - (4 + 7.5) = 231.5 days left which is about 4.8% of my waking life dedicated to playing a cat rescue.
I would be losing money and a lot of time if I tried your approach.
If I lived in a city, didn't have much going on in my life, no financial stress, and had a patience to babysitting strays then sure. But you and I lead vastly different lives.
Don't forget cats are super abundant they multiply like rabbits. We dont need to rescue all of them. They also have natural predators like snakes, eagles, cayotes/wild dogs etc.
As responsible land stewards we have to manage wildlife and our food sources. Other animals are just as important to our ecosystem, if we let vulnerable birds and critters get demolished by common feral cats we lose that species forever.
Remember if the farmer's problems increase the price of your food goes up.