Loan vs Starting Small

I didn't read the replies.

If you really do t want the loan and it makes you nervous and you haven had many loans or credit card debt, I would say the loan route should work out for you. Responsible people can use a loan to buy the one big asset and use it to their benifit and will repay the loan without getting in trouble.

If your credit cards are maxed out and you have had some bad debt and so forth, then taking on a loan might not be the best route for you.

Paul

You are at a fork in the road of your life. One way is to take on debt in order to maximize gross income. If you take that road you will be pretty committed to it. It will be very hard to work all that debt off, and there are all kinds of risks associated with farming that could wipe you out. But the debt will remain. The other branch of the road means paying cash for almost everything, and only taking on small short term debts. If your chickens get wiped out or your crop fails, then you lose what you put into it, but you haven't tied yourself to debt that must be paid off.

You have some money to work with, but I think the main thing you are missing at this point is knowledge. Taking on long term debt without knowing what your are doing would be a big mistake at this point in your life, in my opinion. You are going to make some mistakes, some things are going to go bust. But you will be learning as you go. My advice would be to start small, pay as you go, and learn as much as you can about farming and business. In a few years you will have tried some things, learned from your mistakes, and found what works for you and what doesn't. At that point you will be a lot smarter and taking on debt won't be so risky.

I'd say the best thing you have going for you is your age. You're young enough to try and fail and still have time to succeed later. If I were you I'd try to find a job I liked as locally as possible. I'd borrow the money to buy the land I wanted and could afford, making sure my job income could comfortably cover the debt load and living expenses. I'd start small with farm enterprises, learning as I went, figuring out what I liked and didn't, figuring out what I'm good at and not, and reinvesting money and time into those things that show some potential for success and personal happiness. You don't really want to find out that you've invested all your money into pastured poultry only to find out you hate raising chickens and hate marketing them. Don't be afraid to try and fail, and most of all, don't be afraid to succeed.

I would do everything I could to stay away from borrowing money.Your plan is very iffy but I would go for it slow but sure.

Around here, you can share-crop 2 to 5 acres of land [offer the land-owner 1/3 of the gross income]. Plant veggies and sell them at a Farmer's Market.

You will need to support yourself independently during this process. Each month give the land-owner 1/3 of your take from the market.

There is no big start-up costs.

I see many vendors here who started by share-cropping, after a few years each of them has been able to buy land.

__________________
http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx