This post is to make you think really hard. About how to make your small farm profitable, in your small farming adventure.
Now that you have purchased or rented some land. You are going to want to decide what you are going to produce. This is hard if you don’t already have a plan in place for your small farming activities.
Having a plan is going to be essential for you. A plan will help you produce the right products for your farm. You need to start with local research. What do people want? Will people purchase and what people are willing to pay?
Choose The Right Produce For Your Customers.
Marketing your product is going to be a big factor in this decision. The reason I’m saying this is if you are trying to sell to locals, your product may be different. Than if selling to high-end restaurants and budding chefs. Now it will also be totally different if you are growing just for you and your family.
Different people have different tastes, this goes for different cultures and so on. A high-end restaurant, for instance, may be looking for something different and willing to pay a premium price to get it.
Local people might be accustomed to eating staples like carrots, cabbage, and potatoes. If you are going to be growing the latter three types of crops. Then it’s going to be hard to make as much profit.
Educate your local area and customers about different produce, and trendy produce and provide recipes. These are all things you can do to help sell new types of products only you grow.
This not only helps you choose the best crops to grow and animals to raise but also makes you the only local supplier. If you educate your customer base on the benefits of certain products, they are more likely to purchase from you and at a premium.
Be bold, be different and offer something that is fashionable and free from pesticides, antibiotics, steroids and so on. In the age of GMO foods and god know’s what goes into meat production. All this meat is being sold at your local supermarkets to you and your family.
More people than ever are becoming aware of where their food is coming from and what goes into it. This has had a dramatic effect on what they are willing to pay for foods grown and raised the right way.
The way animals are treated, are a big factor in today’s world. This is why people are willing to pay those premiums. Why should animals not have a good life while they are alive? It is not hard to provide this, you get paid 4 – 5 times the supermarket prices if you do the right thing.
Educate Customers
If you are selling to locals and even further afield educate them. Tell them what actually happens at these large meat processing factories. Show them even by recommending what documentaries to watch.
They will be shocked at what eating healthy can actually accomplish. They will also be shocked at what they see in some of these documentaries.
Below are a few documentaries to watch. These documentaries would never be allowed to be shown on Tv. Just for the simple fact, people would not want to eat from supermarkets. Not to mention the Tv corporations are in bed with mass food production corporations.
How can you educate and recommend these documentaries? Simply build a basic Facebook page for your recipes and share news stories of how animals are treated at big farms. It is not hard to find these stories with a quick search of the web and hit the share button.
Show your own way of farming and how your animals are reared through videos and images. You can show images of your excellent growing vegetables and greens. Place links to documentaries on the Facebook page.
You should still have a website after a year or so, but a Facebook page will do to start.
Excellent Documentaries On Food We Eat
I will guarantee if you haven’t watched these documentaries already. Then they will change the way you and your customers look at food forever…!
- Food Inc
- What The Health
- Vegucated
- Cowspiracy
- Food Chains
- In Organic We Trust
- There are many more documentaries that are excellent to educate yourself on. They give you the best view of how the food on our plates is grown and raised.
How To Choose?
If you are just growing for yourself or your family. You can choose many crops to grow and animals to raise. The opposite is true if you are wanting a profit from your land. Remember your land is small, this is a big decision to make.
Your decision will depend on the research you have done local and the way you intend to market your goods. Lots of farms and smallholdings start growing lots and lots of vegetables, too many. Only to find that they make most of their sales from 10 – 15 crops.
Depending on where you are in the world, it will depend on which type of crops you will grow. All this will be decided by local markets and what they need or are open to purchasing. You can also look at other ways to sell your products other than local, some are listed below.
You can check out the YouTube channel for Curtis Stone who runs the Urban Farmer channel. He farms on a small scale but on a very high rotation basis. Also, he is a published writer explaining all about how he is profitable farming in urban settings.
Yes, he farms in people’s home gardens and has been through all the ups and downs small farmers make. Now he is very well known in the small farm community in the US and also the UK.
Ways To Market Your Produce
Farmer’s Markets are becoming ever more popular and they are an excellent way to get to know new customers. You can share your details with them and they may become long-term customers. It can also put a face on the people who they are purchasing from.
You can also ask around Friends, Family, Locals, and Call High-End Restaurants. Start Your Facebook Page. Smaller Restaurants and Local Deli Shops. Grocers will try different crops and would love Free-Ranging Poultry or True Free-Range Eggs.
There is a big difference in what supermarkets say is free-range and truly free-range eggs.
You would be shocked at what they call free range and how they over charge for it.
I will do a longer post on the best ways to market and how to contact consumers and businesses.
Most of all, the crops you want to be producing, need to be fast-growing. High yielding in monetary terms and in demand. If not you can try to ask customers what they want and then make the demand.
Most of all make sure you build yourself a website. If you want your farm to succeed, you need to be able to show and tell people about your farm. You can read how to start a Small Farm Website. Here
Be Known For Being The Best Source Of Fresh Produce
People will always pay a premium for fresh hand-picked organic produce. Some produce is hard to get from local stores and supermarkets because the shelf life is short. Speciality vegetables and greens, also Oyster Mushrooms, Shiitake, and other gourmet mushrooms are great crops.
Salad Greens are excellent fast-growing crops and Micro Greens all of these crops are easy to grow. Speciality garlic, fresh herbs and more. The point is yes you can grow seasonal crops, but do not grow too many. You might get stuck with large amounts you cannot sell.
Being known for producing high-quality hard-to-find produce that is in fashion can give you the edge. You can change as and when new things come into vogue, you could not do this on a large farm. This way if you are selling to restaurants and consumers who love to cook, they will come to you.
I am certain that you will fail if you try to grow to many types of vegetables. If not fail you will waist a lot of time and money.
It’s just to hard to grow to many different vegtables and greens.
You can only learn so much about certain crops, at any given time. If you are asked by plenty of customers for one particular crop. Then for sure grow it, but do your math first. If the math is not right and you cannot profit don’t grow it.
Put A Small Patch Aside For The Family Plot
You can put a small patch aside for your family staple crops like potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnips, etc. But you don’t need to grow these in large amounts.
If you try to grow everyday vegetables for sale, you will need to grow to much and it will never be profitable on a small scale. You will also be needing expensive equipment to harvest lots of one crop like potatoes. If you have a small farm then this is also impossible. Then you can also not compete with the super cheap supermarkets.
Seasonal Salad Greens & Vegetables
We all know that plants grow at different times of the year and your crops will change with the seasons. This is where all your research will come in handy as the crops you choose. If you haven’t done any, you need to get on it right now.
There is so much information on the web and in books. That you will always find the answers you need and the lessons to learn online. You always go to supermarkets and see expensive organic vegetables. This is why you want yours to be organic also.
You will be surprised at the number of local people who will pay higher prices. They also feel better helping local community growers of organic salad greens and vegetables. Especially well-treated animals, let’s say it makes them sleep better at night.
When growing crops of any kind for sale all year round. A good nine months of the year is more like what you will get here in Uk. You are going to want to make sure that you are planting for rotation. Also having polytunnels and if possible heating available for the cooler months.
Rotation Is Key To Success
Rotation means that your harvest does not come in all at once. Make sure you think about this when deciding which greens you are going to be producing. When you will be planting and when you will be harvesting.
One of the people who I have learned a lot from before I even started to think about what to grow. He is a small farmer from the US his name is Curtis Stone.
He is very knowledgeable about this subject and there is a link to his YouTube channel below.
If you end up with only one large harvest and cannot sell them all, then you are stuffed. Also with no more greens and vegetables coming on, ready-to-go is a big problem.
If you don’t have younger plants ready to go outdoors, into the planting beds. Customers will be in for a long wait for the next crop to come in. They will probably go elsewhere if possible and it doesn’t show your professionalism.
You don’t need really big Polly Tunnels. You can find 6 meters by 3 meters for £150 – £170 off eBay. This size tunnel will do just fine for your start-up farm.
If you always have young plants ready to go. These should be at different stages in their life span like Lettuce Planted Every 2 Weeks. Then you will never run out and not be left with large amounts of waste. If you are left with some greens. Then give them to customers who are not expecting them, this could turn into an order in the future.
This will also keep customers happy and they will pass the word on. Helping you gain more customers from their friends and family etc. It also saves your greens from the compost heap.
Which Animals If Any
If you are going to raise animals. Then there is no point in choosing Cows or Sheep if your farm is small.
I choose small poultry Quails, Chickens, Ducks & Turkeys. Now I do not have hundreds of Chickens that I sell for meat. I mostly sell their fertilized eggs and full-grown POL ” Point Of Lay” Chickens. These go-to people want to have their own fresh eggs at home.
You can get £15 for Hybrid chickens and a lot more for purebred chickens. You can buy Hybrid hens for around £4.50 and sell at £12.50 -£15 soon as you get them home and put them on your selling sites. This is how I make feed money for my hens for the whole year and add extra for my own pocket.
I get around £35 – £50 for my pure-breed hens. Now I have 15 different types of pure breeds but will be adding to them this year to have around 20 different breeds.
I am hoping to become the biggest supplier of pure-breed chickens in the UK and will be launching my shop online in 2020. Here you will be able to purchase Fertile eggs, Day Old Chicks & Point Of Lay Hens. The shop will also sell all the equipment needed and advice for all customers who what to keep just a few hens to hundreds of hens.
Check out how I raise my hens in chicken tractors and pasture and raise them on fresh grass every day. Check this post out here “How I Raise My Chickens”.
Watch this YouTube video and check out the numbers HERE…!
It just goes to show people will pay for animals that they know for a certain have been raised the right way. Also how raising just a few smaller animals can pay off big time.
You can do the same with the Ducks & Turkeys it’s a great way to make an income from your small farm. Start selling some truly free-range eggs that are not fertile like I do.
I know mine are not fertile because they have no cockerel with the hens. These eggs go to my local customers. Local free-range eggs make a good income and people love the different sizes and colours. I also get £5 per dozen, which is good for truly free-range.
You need to tell your customers if there is a cockerel with the hens. Some will be bothered, and some won’t but you still need to tell them.
Quails And Their Eggs
These are excellent small birds to rear for meat and for their stunning eggs. They are easy to raise, very hardy little birds and are becoming more popular in the Uk. The eggs from these birds are perfect for salads etc and they lay as many eggs as chickens. Not to mention they are a little healthier than a chicken egg.
I also sell the Quails for their meat, which is a healthy meat to eat. The UK has become more aware of this, over the past several years and is an excellent replacement for beef. They are becoming really popular, especially around Christmas time.
They eat very little and mature very fast in just 8 weeks. Making them excellent poultry or should I say small game birds to rear on small farms.
You need to raise Quails on pasture in metal frames that have soft netting around them. If you don’t they will just fly away, this will also give you better birds than caged reared.
The pens are 4 x 4 meters and 6 feet high which is a big pen for such small birds. They are high because they are flighty birds and jump high if scared. This is why soft netting is needed, so they do not hurt themselves. You can have pens that are moved to fresh pasture every day.
This way they are living healthy lives, finding new bugs and fresh tips of the grass daily. I also place logs, the foliage so they can hide under them, they are shy birds. I place low nest boxes all of which are fixed to the back of the pen. The pen all moves together and it is easier to collect eggs without going into pens.
This is the best way to raise quails for their meat and you will get the best prices also. They will live as they do in the wild eating bugs and grass and restaurants love these small birds.
I will show you my pens in another post on how to raise quails the humane way.
Large Animals
This is my opinion, large animals on small farms are a waste of time, space and energy. Cows are one of the biggest problems when it comes to greenhouse gases.
They are not profitable for small farms, neither are sheep. The cost of vets and land needed to graze them is just too much. Costs totally out way the profit you make. This is one of the worst ways to make your small farm profitable, needing large parcels of land to graze large animals is not cost-effective.
This is why, for the most part, they are raised on beef farms that you will never see. They do not want to show you the conditions they live in, it’s disgusting. They are cramped together like sardines and nothing like you see in the commercials. Grass-fed cattle are very rare for the very reason I have just mentioned they need lots of land to graze.
You may want to keep two small Boar Goats for milking. Maybe making cheese to sell will also help clear brushy and weedy areas. But if they get out and at your green beds they will also make a nice meal of them. So be careful where you keep her or you will be wiped out of those salad beds pretty fast.
Other Ways On How To Make Your Small Farm Profitable
There are many other ways to make your small farm pay and bring in steady income streams. But first of all, you need to get started, showing that you can run your farm. Make sure you are doing it the right way for you and make sure you can at least break even.
This will take time like any other business. But this is a good choice of living. Also, being a business with a healthy life choice for you and your family.
Children love to muck in and help out and it keeps them away from iPads and keeps them fit and healthy. Also, teaching them where their food is coming from is not a bad thing. Most children think eggs come from shops.
After you have mastered planting and rotation methods, this will take a few years and not come overnight. Also, having learned how to rear animals, whichever you choose.
Then you could start classes showing other budding farmers how you do things. You can show different growing methods by charging a fee for a day’s course.
I use the no-dig method which is awesome. I will be showing this type of growing method in another post. There are plenty of people who want to use this method. These people are quite willing to pay and watch how it is done.
Other Skills To Make Profit
You might have other skills like joinery and you can make chicken coops and runs. Vegetable & Herbs Planters for backyard gardens and many, many more items. These are easy ways to utilise your skills to make your small farm profitable.
Farming is quite diverse, which can bring in extra income to your small farm. This is perfect for the winter months and makes farming work in the slower months. You might even find skills you never thought you had, I know I did.
You see lots of larger farmers going around cutting hedgerows and grass fields in summer. This is so they make extra income and so can you if you have the skills to use them. Do not just sit back and rely on what your farm is growing and raising, especially in the beginning.
If you have extra time after you have finished your daily routine. Then learn another skill that can put extra cash in your pocket. This will help your farm grow quicker and also your bank account. The more you learn about farming on a small scale. The more you will learn how to make your small farm profitable.
One last thing, if you have a full-time or part-time job, don’t quit it just yet. You can learn while you earn and then when you are ready, take the leap.
