Ideas please- need to make $10K on 10 acres per year

It is possible to gross $10,000 on 10 acres, and it might almost be possible to net $10,000 on 10 acres if you are in the right location & have the right talents & skills - mostly maketing to a near metro area.

However, such things take _heaps_ of labor, and probably several years of investing time & money before they pay off. Nut/ fruit trees, berries & vines, etc take 2-10 years before they are up to speed.....)

The person is working 7 days a week over the summer months, and will have 5 months off over winter - when nothing is actually growing.

I'm trying to figure out how that will work out? Seems the time available does not fit well with the resource available.

--->Paul

Are you real close to any major metropolitan areas? If so, lots of folks make good money selling "pie in the sky" stuff to wealthy yuppies... don't fool with honey, go with organic free range honey... Forget chickens or turkeys, free range organic chickens/turkeys... fresh vegetables (greenhouse?) make a lot less than organic free range vegetables... Getting the idea? Sell expensive items to rich folks, and if you're close to Vancouver, or one of the other large areas, you can make a good living.

look into organic CSA's also...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Get plastic bags, an electric sealer, and bulk grains. Bag up what you think is a marketable amount - say 5 pounds or 2 or 2 1/2 kilograms of red beans, white beans (great Northern, navy, cannelini), Borlotti, Lima, broad beans, garbanzo, pinto, black-eyed, soy, lentils, wheat, pearl barley, rye, triticale, maize. Maybe millet and sorgum. Don't go with organic - just work on "natural whole grains". Start with the ones that are likely to be most popular, start with bushel quantities, and do some test marketing. You can probably start this at night, weighing and bagging. Label them with contents, weight, and your trade name, district and telephone number; and anything else the law requires. Find a couple of outlets - say fruit and vegetable stores, whatever you call them there. Maybe place them on consignment, but quote them a price which will double their profit if they buy outright from you rather than you and them having to administer consignment stock. There's an enormous difference between the per bushel cost and what people will pay in large packets, and a lot of people want bigger than the little packets they can buy at inflated prices in a grocery. Half the value to the stores though will be that it taps into a new distinct market segment for them - homesteader and self-reliance-minded people, and vegetarians. Pulling those people into the right stores could increase their business a LOT.

Your test-marketing from bushel quantities probably hasn't made a big profit. However, if it works in your area, expand from bushel to half-ton quantities, then on up. Wherever you can, buy direct from the farm and cut out all the other middlemen. If you can't make at least a dollar a bag, and move at least a few thousand bags a year (say two shops to start, ten bags a week each, sell a few direct to friends and workmates at a little more than wholesale, then more shops), I'd be surprised. Just use your test marketing to find out which grains people are willing to buy enough of to be worth your while.

Hey, the worst that can happen is that you increase your stock-up stores, and live free (on beans, admittedly) for the rest of your life.

There's not much legal you can do on 10 acres that will RELIABLY net you $10,000 without putting something in the area of $10,000 worth of labour into it. Doesn't sound like you have that much available when you need it.
Probably lots of non-farm things you can do in the winter instead of your job but that'll depend on your area.

We're on a 1350 acre diversified farm here.. some years we net 6 figures. Some years our net is negative.

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If your not a sex offender and have a good driving record you could drive a school bus for the school district you live in. 2 hours a day for almost 10 months will give you almost half of that $10,000. Then you would have the middle of the day and weekends to do stuff at home to raise the rest of the $10,000 or more.

This is what I'm planning on doing next year. I just took a bus driving coarse and am waiting to take my written and driving test so I can start driving a school bus. Then during the fall months in between bus routes and on weekends I will be processing deer for hunters. When school is out for the summer I'm gonna do market gardening plus raising for my own pantry. Will also have time to raise my own pork, beef, chicken, etc.

I think I will be much happier then what I'm doing now which is electrical work.

Asparagus?

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I believe in God's willingness to heal.

Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

Not much gets done in the winter around the farm. Summer is when you get things done and hope to make money.
On ten acres working half the year seven days a week off the farm forget it.

put it in alfalfa and get yourself a mini baler
supply bails to the pet food market
by mini I mean 4x4x8 inch

The heck with planting it. Just buy a big round, spend the money to get an official test then rebale it. I couldn't believe the prices some of that stuff gets.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

If winter is your season that's free, maybe pick up an Elliot Coleman book on off season gardening. There are a few places like this popping up that supply local restaurants and grocery stores with fresh winter greens and herbs.

You could also keep a portable hoophouse for free ranging winter fowl on winter greens planted special for them. This would cut down on your winter feed bill. There are other ways I've been reading about, such as buying bulk grains and mixing feed yourself, using sprouted grains, kitchen scraps, local restaurant or school cafeteria scraps.

I'd love to have ten acres of fertile land to play with. The possibilities are endless.

You could try growing mushrooms, cut perennial flowers, artisan cheese-making with a dairy cow or goats.

Organic coops are looking for producers. Their prices aren't as high as what you'd make dealing direct with people, but if it gets product off your hands that would otherwise go to waste, there's no harm in saving some aside for them and your own customers.

It would take time but the best route given the amount of land you have is something direct-to-consumer via internet. Are you close to Vancouver or Banff? If your land is partially wooded, can you stick a rental cabin on it somewhere?

Two things come to mind: heirloom garlic, for planting, culinary, and value added (some type of gourmet garlic powder) and

http://www.bcginsenggrowers.com/

Having followed Highway 1 from Vancouver to Winnepeg, I have fallen totally and incurably in love with BC. Good luck to you.

Deb in Ohio

We have 100 acres and haven't made $10,000 a year off of it yet. We've had it leased to farmers for corn and maize. We've raised cattle ourselves. We've leased it to other cattle owners. We've had seismic survey companies pay us to run a seismic line. We've baled hay.

Hubby now has 350 pecan trees that he put in about ten years ago. Haven't had a marketable crop yet.

Good thing we have day jobs. :baby04:

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Thank you all so much! So many ideas, I need to go through them all and takes notes. Had some good laughs as well.
I know it is a bit unlikely with my awful hours. Of course those same awful hours are doing a very good job with the mortgage and that wouldn't be possible 100% on the farm.
Yeah... the realities.

Any thoughts on what on could net raising keeping 2 sows and a boar, selling weaners? Seems to me weaners may actually be underpriced, even when they seem expensive at $40-80 each...

If you can raise your own feed for the sows...corn is getting astronomical with no end in sight.
Bigger operations are selling off sows. Slaughterhouses are booked solid, some guys have to wait up to 2 weeks to get rid of em and I've heard rumors of feeders being euthanized for lack of sales in the big pig areas.
Course if you can find a market with smaller homesteader types anything is possible.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I am hooked on poultry. Free range Holiday turkeys is an idea for you as well as me. Buy a small flock and a good incubator. As someone else said, sell to the wealthy and get a down payment for a farm raised free range turkey.
I am trying to design a flyer now to stick in paper boxes in the high end neighborhoods.
Even if TSHTF the wealthy are going to buy them a thanksgiving turkey and they will pay $50-$75 for them too. And a mere 200 sales would get you there each year. That would be $10 - $15,000 gross, and after the initial cost you are home free.
But make sure you buy a breed that will mate so you can hatch your own eggs. I was looking at them and they are about 9 bucks each so if you just get 100 of them started you are already about 900 bucks ahead. A part of the gross I want to stay in the net department. Just another idea I came up for myself.

Dennis

Hey Jim,

Had I bought $$$ worth of scrap steel last year at this time, and cashed it in today - it would have been a far better investment than most anything I can think of.

We have made upwards of $28,000 an acre for certified organic seed garlic. It's a good gig. It's very intense in early November and mid-July. Other than that, it takes care of itself.

Not exactly on post, but one way that we save money is to look around for the deals. Another poster mentioned the 10 Acres book, that you could buy from the website posted, or just get for free by downloading on any major school library as the copyright has expired on it.

I know, not exactly what was asked and a little off topic, but one way to reach a financial goal is to seek other opportunities not to spend.

Joseph

Hogs are in a terrible tailspin right now, feed going up, pork going down, many going to sell out & depress prices even more.

Weaners are 40 lbs or so, will you get 50 cents a lb, and you can get maybe 30 per year per sow.

So, 60 of them, times 40 lbs, times 50 cents, is $1200 a year gross.

Housing, water, feed, & vet stuff to be subtracted from that. As well as the cost of the boar. Heat, if you plan to go for 3 litters per year in your climate.

Now, if you are in a specialty market & could get 3x the normal price for your piglets. But, we don't really know how good your marketing skills are.

It comes down to this:

You need to find people willing to pay extra for 'something' you do. You need to find suckers, plain & simple. They can buy anything you can do on 10 acres much cheaper from the mainstream. What can you add to your product that makes it worth a couple times it's mainstream value to a few people?

Trouble is, as ecconomic times get worse, these types of market skrink, and you may lose your buyers.

Many of these things take a lot of labor, and many years to get going. So you have to work for free for some time, and plan ahead to have product at a time when people want to buy it.


I probably sound like a wet blanket here. Not really - follow your dreams. Just look at what your oppertunities are, don't follow the crowd, and work with your strengths. Be prepared for it to take time & effort before you ever see a dollar.

I live out in the rural. See people with big fast dreams, going to camp out on 7 acres, make a fortune off the land unlike those big farmers next door, and have it easy. They leave after 2 years; or worse yet stay & try to get laws passed to pave the roads (the cost for their frontage is $2000, the cost for the neighbor is $40,000 yea that's fair) or to stop any dust or smell.

We get kinda scared of pople like that.

Seems like you have a lot more reality than those type.

But, $10,000 net off of 10 acres of land is a big reach. It won't come easy, and it will have to be designed for your location - what soil, climate, topograpy do you have? And your location - if the only town over 5000 population is 100 miles away, you will not be a novelty and you can't sell your old-fashioned style as well.

If you are next to a metro area, plant 2 acres of corn, 2 acres of pumpkins, set up the rest as a parking lot, and ruin a corn maze & sell fall decorations. Four weekends in fall, you can be grossing $15,000 in a few years, and insurance will likely be the biggest expense.

If you have the time when needed, and the population next to you, and the ground will grow corn.

--->Paul

I have noticed something over the years: it is dead easy to make money off of a homestead.

And, it is HARD! to make a living off one!

I see that a few pwople here ARE making a decent income off of their place. I would like to add a few bits: things that I have seen but not done.

1. Some people not too far away from us made a living off of their greenhouses. They advertized 15 cent tomatos and marigolds. People came for the 15 centers, and while they were there ANYWAYS they also bought the melon seedlings, the petunias, and so forth. They advertized in the local paper for some weeks before they opened in the spring, with a drawing of the map on the ad.

2. Some people were getting their kids college tuition by farmers marketing every summer. I suspect they were earing $15,000 a year, by the looks of the business they were doing.

3. The writer of The Flower Farmer lives near us. From what I can see, she has done everything she claims to have done in her book. I see her selling or at some booth here and there. Her name is Lynn Byzinski (sp). She has a THRIVING business, by the looks of it!