Farming as a Profession

Maybe Robots will do all the farming for us.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Is robot latin for illegal immergrant. To do anything successful today, you have to be creative. Creative in finance, marketing and management. If anybody thinks having enough money will make them successful in what ever, they are wrong. You have to be creative and start small. The big picture is not what you should look at, it's the baby steps to get big that is were you should be looking.

Chilipalmer is correct about Nebraska. We just bought a 100+ acre farm here in Nebraska. About a fourth of it is in alfalfa and the remainder is in pasture. We have a nice cow barn and a house that is nearing a hundred years old. My husband works full time and I stay home and homeschool our 5 kids. Our oldest son is a teenager and quite capable of fencing and driving tractor. He will be the one to do the farming. This year we will probably be working out a shares deal with one of the local farmers as we still have yet to find a mower.
I'm sure if I keep hitting the auctions I will find one reasonably priced.
I guess the best advice I can give you is to research the area you want to live. But most likely the afordable farms are going to be in sparsely populated areas. We have a farmers market within 20 miles of us but it is in a small town. I couldn't make enough to live off of selling there. Then there is a larger farmers market about 50 miles away in a city of about 30,000. We also raise goats and have a good market for them about 30 miles from us.
So again I say to research area prices and markets. It can be done if you find the right area and take your time to work into it.

Our farm is second generation and will be inherited, if MIL doesn't outlive us.LOL I, the wife, have NEVER worked an outside job, although we have 3 businesses going here. The crops/farm.....custom cattle feeding......customer based natural beef. It takes both of us plus a full time employee to make it work. I am looking for outside work now as our profits are getting slimmer every year with our expenses going sky high and continuing drought. God willing we will continue but will take a series of miracles.

Agriculture is suffering, it is not an easy business to be in. Stressful to the hilt. If you want to hobby farm and have a couple extra jobs then it will probably work. No way you can buy a farm and equipment and make payments without some outside income. Although there is a neighbor who is a worldwide pilot for United who farms.LOL He makes 500K a year so he can pour all his money into the farm.......yep, his wife doesn't work.

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Disease is not an entity, but a fluctuating condition of the patients body, a battle between the substance of disease and the natural self healing tendency of the body......Hippocrates

Oh, Lord, this is a good response! Read this and then read it again.

We are dairy farmers and former tobacco farmers, and I'm the one that works the off-farm job. We could make it without my income; it would be hard (but not impossible) to make it without my insurance. We've bought land and inherited land, and we'd have been OK without the inheritance. The greatest assets to our farming operation are DH's mechanical skills and the tenacity to work as hard as he has to. Like I said, a REAL good response...

It will be very hard to be successful if you are doing the same thing as your neighbors.
If you are a novice, you'll need vocational training (horticulture, animal science, aquaculture, agronomy, ag. science, .........). Your first investment should be in yourself.
You'll need to find a crop that others can't/aren't raising, make yourself the expert in that crop. Develop a market and serve that market with the best quality product. When you finally turn a profit, don't let your farmer neighbors know it. Farmers are the biggest copy cats and idea stealers around.
Diversify your profits into other business or different new crops, or products.
Never take government loans, grants, welfare, disability, or any other handouts. If you do, you can't in good conscience keep any secrets about your operation from your tax paying neighbors or any other fellow citizens.
There are so many things in this world that nobody has thought to grow and harvest and derive a good income from, the sky is the limit for a farmer with a new idea, a good work ethic, and marketing ability.

True but then the next year or one after all the farmers at the market are selling it after seeing it sell so good, atleast you will have a headstart and make a little at first that way.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

I dont know about 100 acres but around here you need access to at least 2000 acres of land to make a sustable living with

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Gary in Central Ohio

TrailDog posted -

For a dose of reality I would suggest heading to MoviesAmerica or another video store and see if you can find a copy of the movie "The Southerner". Also possible to find on Ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Southerner-1...QQcmdZViewItem
(no - I am not the one selling it)

"The film was banned in Tennessee and attacked throughout the South for its "sordid" depiction of Sourthern life. "

Personally I don't find anything sordid about this movie. It is realistic though.

Let me share my story.

All of my life I wanted to do things that everybody said was a bad idea. Things like wanting to farm.

This is the only life that I have, so I decided to go for it. As I tried to get land, I picked up usefull classes at the colleges.

Life....happens.... and everytime I thought I could get started, something ......happened. We DID manage to buy a house on one acre, where I started trying out tiny ag. enterprises.

When I was almost 50, we managed to put a good down payment on 5 acres, and at my age I knew that that was likely to be the only land that I would get. But, the dream was still there.

So, I decided to make the most of it.

5 acres of cattle will not bring in a usefull income, but I had been growing blackberries in my oversized yard and selling them on weekends and I did it fairly well. 5 acres of BLACKBERRIES, now.....

Then again, blackberries only ripen for a few weeks out of the year, and I cannot pick 5 acres of blackberries in 3 weeks time. I should branch out into raspberries, vegetables, and honey bees. On paper, it looked promising.

You know, I managed to figure out a way around EVERY difficulty excepting how to lick the MS that set in 2 years ago. I am still working on that. Right now, my plans are on hold as I haven't gotten that one figured out, yet!

The point I am trying to make is that it is all in the numbers. If you can figure out a way to make the math work, you can likely figure out a way to make the business work.

Crunch the numbers, and remember that at LEAST 15% of any enterprise is going to be unexpected expenses. Learn how to draw up a business plan. Learn how to sell something: the weekend farmers market can give you practice with customers, and the other vendors can give you tips.

You are wanting to start a small business. Some small businesses make it, some do not, and some top out as part-time businesses. You will build what you succeed in building, and it will be you that determines if ANY business (farming or not) is successful.

As for a niche marketer being at the right place at the right time, don't you believe it! Instead, they hunted for those markets and they either found them or created them. They set out something that made people say "Wow! I WANT one!".

When I sold my blackberries, everybody else had blackberries set out at the same time. A lot of my berries were unsold. So, I made jam with the unsold fruit, which has a longer shelf life. Then, I sold some of my fruit to the market pie maker for a little less than for the customers.

Look, and think, and always THINK!!!!!!!

Then think some more, and learn everything that you can.

While I agree with many that have said money isn't everything, we all know that ones economic survival must take place.
I wholehardedly believe one's health means everything.......but still, the rent must be paid. Somehow.

Farmers markets and supplying restaurants with fresh produce do indeed produce revenue. Unfortunately, farmers markets & restaurants needing sizeable supplies are all likely to be located in cities. As we all know, the bigger the city, the wider the circle of exorbitant land prices.

One of my neighbors sells his produce out of his house. He has a very small operation. This is a gardening operation more than a farming operation. Basically he sells asparagus and rhubarb, two items suited for the Northern Wisconsin short growing season. He claims to have annual sales of approx $6000.
Enough to supplement his retirement income. Certainly not enough to live on.

When he purchased his 2 acre lot 30 years ago, he paid $2200 for it. 5 acre lots about a mile away (suitable for agriculture) are now on the market for $42,000.

There is a "Pick your own" strawberry farm located a few miles away. The farmer that runs it is in his mid to late 70's. I visit the farm at least twice during the picking season and know them on a first name basis. The farmer is considering retirement and the kids most assuredly WILL NOT continue the business. The land quite likely will be a subdivision within the next 20 years.

Another HUGE business interest undertook the painstaking aspect of starting a cranberry farm. Land was purchased. Trees were cleared. Permits were gathered. Irrigation & ponds were built. Cranberry plants were started. I believe it takes a minimum of 3 years before the first harvest takes place. The investment is enormous.
In the meantime, cranberry prices tanked. Oversupply sent the prices down to 50% of what they used to be.

By all means go for your dreams. Realize however, farming is a most precarious means of generating income.

Define sucess. If the family wants a simple 1920's lifestyle, it is very possible. If not depriving the kids of gameboys, ipods, etc is important...then no. We live a simple (read that as pooooor) life. Our computer, telephone and internet are our luxuries. Our cars are all 80's models. Live in a doublewide moble home with spendable income of $600 per month. This is for electric, food, gas, insurance, low morgage payment(almost paid off..Praise God), medicine, you know living expences. No credit cards. I have a 14 year old daughter...designer jeans?..no way, read horse feed instead. It is not easy and right now I have nothing in the bank. Want what you have ..not have what you want.

The Mama sounds like you are some really frugal people. I hope you get the mortgage paid off soon.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer