Farming for profit

[kcflhrc]

So .... then, whose is the 10th? :confused3:

#10 as well as #11 croaked for unknown reasons. The last 9 seem to be very healthy but 10 and 11 seemed that way too. You just never know what happens to them. One gave signs of being egg bound but we ruled that out after my wife inspected her. They are fun to have around and the Grand kids love them.

 

[EddieWalker]

My long term goal is to raise exotic deer. I have some friends that do it and they are making more then they are spending, but they all have jobs to pay the bills. For me, it will be just a hobby that I'm looking forward to.

A friend of my wife, who was killing herself working long hours at the hospital finally had enough. She was a VP with a PhD that had dedicated her life to achieving her position there. But her health was being affected by it, so she decided to develop her land into a farm. The Waldo Way Dairy Farm

I don't believe they are in a great location, but with lots of positive marketing, and offering a variety of products and services, they are expanding every year. It's been really amazing to see what she is creating there. In my opinion, the secret is drive, dedication and diversity. She has all that going for her.

My other plan for the future use of my land is to create a wedding venue. I believe this will have a better potential for making a profit then anything raised on the land.

Friends of ours raise hundreds of chickens that they sell for meat and eggs. It seems like he is always building new coops, and plucking chickens. They are both retired and this is a seven day a week operation that they make enough money on to keep doing it, but my wife and I both think is going to end up killing them just because it's non stop, no rest, and tons of stress dealing with customers. They tried having bread and breakfast too, but couldn't keep up with it and eventually people just stopped booking with them because the place became run down.

My wife is selling eggs at $3 a dozen to friends at work. It pays for the feed and all the eggs we eat. We feed the dogs eggs in their dog food every night, plus my wife scambles eggs for them in the morning. They love eggs!!! So this offsets our dog food bill. We also love seeing the birds walking around our place. I have two coops done, started on a third for specialized birds that my wife hope to raise and be able to sell. Some types of chickens sell for $20 each on up. Once I finish that coop, I'm going to build another just for meat chickens. Cost for a chicken at the store keeps rising and she feels we can buy and feed them for about $2-$3 each. This would be for us to eat and for dog food.

 

[JamesHW]

My wife and I have been researching returning some of our acreage to growing food. We started by getting 6 acres cleared by a big commercial logging outfit who accomplished the job over the winter and selectively harvested saw timber and pulp wood off another 60 acres in order to open up old pony trails, create or enlarge some clearings and generally improve the overall health of our woods.

As our place in the lower Adirondacks is in a high property tax area that also encourages agriculture and will give substantial property tax reductions to farms. The rules are fairly straight forward, strict compared with some states as $10,000 a month income over 3 years selling unprocessed produce. Timber products, Christmas trees, honey and various animal related products can count towards the totals and dispensation for small farmers starting out can be had. If the property is eventually taken out of ag and lets say developed for housing there is a formula that allows the state to recover some of the property taxes that were deferred. So being in a high tax area is a disadvantage, but as there is plenty of market and nearby upscale areas, we should be able to to have some success selling a variety of organic produce.

Becoming a modest agricultural working farm also will give us the ability to build outbuildings and even additional living space (for ag workers) under less onerous set of rules. Our plan it's to launch the business on the cheap and not invest in a lot of expensive equipment at first and will likely make do with shipping containers (the old barn was taken down years ago and sits stacked waiting to be put back up) and rented equipment when needed. The soil is fairly clean with no rocks whatsoever and underlain by sand and a shallow aquifer with water available at around 25 foot.

We researched nearby organic farms by simply haunting the farmers markets and talking to farmers. We got excited to find a young couple who had a few rented acres (same soil type as me; silty/sandy) and were running a successful organic CSA. By the time I caught up with them they had purchased a farm and moved their operation while still maintaining the CSA membership.

Initially we are thinking a Saturday farm stand by the road with honor system the rest of the time and Sunday farmers market during the season. We will probably just start by calling our produce natural, following the organic rules and documenting everything and eventually get the organic rating if it makes sense for the business. We could get it quickly as the land is fallow and hasn't been farmed since the mid-1960's. The state has greatly reduced the requirements and fees for starting a small farm distillery or winery, so that may be part of our plan eventually.

 

[David P]

David, my wife has a first cousin who had taken a product line and done a very good job developing the brand and has my guessing about 6 people working for him with milling corn products and selling both in wholesale and direct. Said he is running at full capacity. Has been at it a few years. Like your business diversacation. Have you found any nature or organic treatment for the grass? Years ago geese were used in certain crops in the South as they eat grass. You can even hear them called "grassers" by some still.

The only two things that I've found to work are Stihl and Echo. This grass will be the death of me. When we planted the new bushes a couple years ago we used a post hole digger for the hole the bush went into, placed heavy cardboard all around the plant (tried newspaper in the past) and put wood chips on top of the cardboard. It did slow the grass down a bit and was more effective than doing nothing but not by a large margin. We've discussed having chicken runs between the rows of bushes as they will eat the grass but there's not a real easy way to go about this. Additionally, there are some health code guidelines that we need to adhere to which require no (fresh fertilization) in the orchard within so many days of harvest.

 

[Dadnatron]

It will be a sad day if we loss farming in this country to even just the large corporations. There is not better life to grow up in than on a family farm.

Small farms are making a comeback, but as you state, not with the commodities crops.

With your acreage, you could do well with low intensity livestock. Check out On Pasture for some information on High Intensity Grazing utilizing LOW STRESS methods. I grew up running 400-500 head on over 2500 mountain acres. Knowing what we know now, I could have had 2000 head on that acreage with less work.

I know people think livestock must be high intensity, but take a look and read about it. When you get your paddocks and water setup, you can automate your cattle movement and make some pretty good money. Its work... but not likely what you think.

Another HIGH YIELD alternative would be HOPS... You can grow a lot of HOPS on a little acreage, and given the massive number of breweries who want 'locally grown everything'... it is something to look in to.

Three Hammers Farms - YouTube

 

[NorTracNY]

I think I've only seen it touched upon once here. One thing that I've found key in the niche farms is to be friendly and really want to interface with your customers. If you're not the social people person type, you may find a bad reputation will occur. I've actually seen where only one of the people, if it's a couple running the business, need to have that personality. When you are interacting with customers constantly, you need to stay friendly. You'll also need to educate your customer without bad mouthing others who you're competing with.

 

[Weedy Fields]

Another potential income from chickens is selling the capes for flytying.
Rather more rare breeds but the capes sell for good money.

Here is a link or google chicken capes for fly tying.

Genetic Hackle; AKA "Fly Tying Chickens" Info for the interested.

Other livestock has potential for fly tying, guinea fowl, peacocks, rabbits. Long list of stuff.

 

[kthompson]

David, hope I understand correctly and if so how about mulch cloth like used around shrubs? If not mistaken used with strawberry farms in my part of the world.

Lady who works for me in my insurance business talked with me about her experience with raising goats and selling to individuals and also old layers. Forgot the term she called them but said the laying houses sold them for very little and she bought them and kept them a few days and could sell them to individuals for eating at like 10 times what she paid for them. Any one have any experience with raising goats for meat?

Eddie and Dadnatron: combing parts of what each of you said any thoughts on speciality bred beef cattle, maybe smaller breeds, possibly being able to sell direct.

I think a person who raises a good varity of produces and is able to deliever it could do a good business with the right area with a regular route of deliever maybe with web site offers and orders being placed there.

 

[MacLawn]

RE: Farming for profit

:laughing:

Actually, I know nothing. I'm from farming roots, but born and raised in the city. I have a good friend who bought his fatherinlaw's 237 acres, sold off all but about 130 now, he also knows nothing, so leases it out to a real local farmer. But, he uses chemicals, and last time we visited he was spraying. Whew, no way would I want to eat anything from that land! Plus the fish from the ponds. Beautiful fish, but I'm sure they have herbicides and pesticides in them. To me, organic crops farm would be good. As an eater, not a grower, that's all we buy. Trying to eat the way our great grandparents ate. Not all this chemical mess.

 

[David P]

David, hope I understand correctly and if so how about mulch cloth like used around shrubs? If not mistaken used with strawberry farms in my part of the world. .

We've discussed using the black landscaping cloth but have not yet tried it. My concern has been using that cloth will block both grass and new blueberry shoot growth. Need to check with our MSU Extension expert (Michigan State University) and the nursery where we buy the plants. It's on the list for next time for sure though as even that heavy cardboard didn't do much.

 

[Dadnatron]

David, hope I understand correctly and if so how about mulch cloth like used around shrubs? If not mistaken used with strawberry farms in my part of the world.

Lady who works for me in my insurance business talked with me about her experience with raising goats and selling to individuals and also old layers. Forgot the term she called them but said the laying houses sold them for very little and she bought them and kept them a few days and could sell them to individuals for eating at like 10 times what she paid for them. Any one have any experience with raising goats for meat?

Eddie and Dadnatron: combing parts of what each of you said any thoughts on speciality bred beef cattle, maybe smaller breeds, possibly being able to sell direct.

I think a person who raises a good varity of produces and is able to deliever it could do a good business with the right area with a regular route of deliever maybe with web site offers and orders being placed there.

Definitely small breeds, but not because they are small and therefore easy, but because smaller framed cattle have a better grass/meat ratio. If I were to do it, I would do Lowline angus, Devon, or Southpole. If cattle interest you, I would HIGHLY recommend watching videos on Youtube by Greg Judy and Joel Salatin. They both use similar low stress techniques. Both have a ton of videos relating how they work. Greg is more of a 'standard' cattle/sheep farmer whereas Joel Salatin has an incredible multilayered farm from Cattle to rabbits.

If nothing else, they are very interesting videos and anyone who is interested in actually making money farming animals would do themselves well by watching their videos. Look up "High Intensity grazing" "Rotational Grazing" Those will give you an idea about what I am speaking. It is just a different way to ranch, and actually, when setup, it is MUCH LESS work than is typical. And if you do it well, you won't have to feed much, if any, hay in winter, depending upon where you live.

I certainly would NOT just put 5 cows out in the pasture. That is the worst way to hurt your land and cause you heartache. But rotational grazing can really improve your ground (Greg Judy has several videos and books) and make your life much easier and profitable.

 

[KYErik]

Most farmers around these parts who farm less than 1000 acres of corn/wheat/soybeans/cattle have a full time job that "pays the bills". The farm supplements their income -and allows them to write off the expenses of a nice pickup truck . Small farmers do it mainly because they love it and/or it is a family tradition.

Weather and market prices make or break every year's crop. $100-200 is an average profit margin per acre when you average out the good and bad years- but then there are the taxes... It takes a lot of acres to be a full time farmer without any supplemental income- and you pretty much have to own your equipment. Crop insurance has removed a lot of the risk of losing big, but it is no fun to spend a lot of hours in the field and then end up breaking even.

As others have said, a specialty market is the way to go- but there is always the risk that you won't be able to sell your product.

 

[300UGUY]

I had a coworker that had 100+ ewes. He had a good market for lambs, we have a lot of middle eastern folks here, and they all want lambs for their holidays.

 

[kthompson]

Shaneard, may I ask what general area of NC are you in? I live about 20 miles from Myrtle Beach and wonder if we have similar weather or you in the mountains. How many acres did you use for 27? Can I private message you with more questions?

 

[HillStreet]

I have 8.5 acres of apple trees, 5 varieties in all. The trees are in good shape but overgrown. I am pruning now and hope to have 2 acres producing this year. I am thinking pick your own, and I know I won't get rich but it is fun. I also will plant pumpkins this year, and plant 100 blueberry bushes to start. I will also chip the apple wood for sale. And probably sell bird houses too out of a small sales building I will build in the spring.

I know there is potential for $10,000 in sales a year but I need to get it refined before I open. We are in the country here, so I am pretty sure a web site and signs will bring us business but I don't want it too big, nor do I want to hire clowns or give hay rides if you know what I mean.

The property is looking real nice now, well maintained, so it is a benefit.

 

[Turbys_1700]

We have a few local smaller farmers around here that incorporate honey production along with their vegetable crops...
Most sell to the local farmers market...
Some others are raising beef, chicken, and pork free range and have developed markets for their products locally and in some restaurants...
Many are part time and have full time jobs to supplement income...
We currently have a couple of locals cutting hay from our small farms to keep them from growing up...

 

[Shaneard]

Shaneard, may I ask what general area of NC are you in? I live about 20 miles from Myrtle Beach and wonder if we have similar weather or you in the mountains. How many acres did you use for 27? Can I private message you with more questions?

Live near Winston. I had the goats on 5-6 acres. Tried to keep about 10 females for breeding and then when all the babies came it was a hand full. 1/2 wooded 1/2 established grass and it bordered a pond so they could get their water. I had the fence ran all the way down to the water on 2 sides. Sure you can send me a private message and I'll try and answer what I can.

 

[ArtMech]

Interesting if US farmers, milk producers suffer from low milk buying up prices? Our farmers do. Meanwhile it is 0.15 euro ($0.16) for 1 kg (2.20 lbs) of milk. Many of them quit keeping milch-cows and are looking for other activities.

 

[forgeblast]

We've discussed using the black landscaping cloth but have not yet tried it. My concern has been using that cloth will block both grass and new blueberry shoot growth. Need to check with our MSU Extension expert (Michigan State University) and the nursery where we buy the plants. It's on the list for next time for sure though as even that heavy cardboard didn't do much.

Around me most use double ground hardwood much to feed and suppress the weeds.