How hard it is to become a small scale farmer?

[torus]

If you consider growing and selling black market cannabis to be small scale farming then yeah there is money to be made. Otherwise no you aren't making any money.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

He who does not get pussy says it's impossible. He who does not run a small commercial agricultural enterprise says it's impossible. Fuckin farmcels up in this thread.


I don't blame people for ignoring my longwinded spergy farming posts, but I wasn't kidding when I said I was autistically obsessed with agriculture, specifically pasture-raised meat goats.

If you're a farming sperg, then yes, you can make an actual money-in-the-bank living farming. It's no shortcut to wealth, and it's lots of very hard physical and mental labor, but if it's what you want to do more than anythinh, you can succeed. The USA overflows with programs helping young farmers get into the lifestyle.

I strongly suggest anyone who really wants tk "take the plunge" volunteer with a farmer. They LOVE free labor. If you like that, get a cottage and just a few acres somewhere cheap, and start messing around learning the fundamentals of whatever you want to do on a very small, hobby scale. If you just love seeing wheat progress to the milk stage, or newborn lambs, or lovingly tending your herb garden, then ask google about:

FSA Farm Ownership loans. FSA farm operating loans. USDA housing loans. Agricultural extension agents. The NRCS. The Web Soil Survey. Farm Credit Agencies.

Most critical of these are the Agricultural Extension Agents. Before you buy a BFE bungalo or start volunteering on a small farm, talk to them. They're at least as enthusiastic and more knowledgable than me about not just the science and business of farming, but local conditions and concerns as well as goverment programs. In Texas they're called "Agrilife," if that helps. They know people who can help.

EDIT: I seriously am incapable of making a short post on this topic. Anyway, a few more things. If you can find a partner who shares your enthusiasm and will share the financial and labor burden of the farm, that will help immeasurably. Just, get shit in writing. Even two people in good faith can forget elements of a contract or have a differing perception of a handshake deal. I don't mean a "partner," by that's nice to have, too.

Also, a job to look into on your road to being a farmer is farm manager-- basically you do what a farmer does, buf you're an employer, not the owner. A just-an-example pipeline would be Volunteer --> Hand --> Experienced Hand --> Farm Manager --> Farmer. Or you could get a degree and maybe skip some steps, but that shit's expensive. Plenty of professors and farm owners don't know shit from shinola. I've never met an old cowboy who didn't know his business.

I just sort of fell into this life. With planning and foresight, you can do it better than me, if that's what you want to make your life.

 

[Smegward]

the soil quality where i am sucks so its probably way hard

 

[Sperg_rancher]

Like them, you can grow a vegetable garden.

This. I think most of what folks are thinking of as farms are actually just large gardens...

 

[Stan]

I did some small scale farming in 2020-2022 and it mostly lost money. The trick is getting as many people and dimensions to subsidize you as possible - whether that's community grants, getting public farmland, whatever you can find. Then if you get good you're well off for the incoming apocalypse.
Personally I don't recommend ducks or geese as meat birds.

 

[Greatest Gonger]

I have been experimenting with very small scale growing for a couple years now. What I have determined is vegetables are very challenging to market, though they are desirable. If you live in the country and you want the customer to come to you, you need a somewhat climate controlled area, and a diverse enough selection to justify a customer showing up on your property. If you grow, say, a lot of tomatoes, realistically you can't expect someone to drive 20-40 minutes to you to just get tomatoes. So, you are then relying upon people who would be passing by anyway, or you might have a varied enough selection to entice a customer to buy a large quantity of vegetables at a time, who otherwise would not be coming your direction.

I have instead focused on growing things that people like to buy in bulk, like pickling cucumbers, as people here like to make pickles around the end of summer, but there really aren't a lot of options for bulk purchasing cukes. Beets are also a popular and more stable product people will purchase in quantity. Potatos there is a lot of competition for and mine tend to be a little scabby (taste fine but not ideal for selling). I like growing tomatos but they do not sell for enough to compete with walmart.

I think for a smaller scale, it is actually better to grow not for food, I have grown tobacco this year successfully, and I am collecting fruit trees. Anything that is a bit more shelf stable might be a good idea, but any number of little niches could prove profitable. At one time small dairy farms were selling bovine colostrom to pregnant women for some reason. Health products sometimes require bulk raw ingredients, something I'm investigating.

So, my personal experience is inconclusive as of now.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

At one time small dairy farms were selling bovine colostrom to pregnant women for some reason.

Because people are incapable of comprehending that the reason neonates need colostrum within fhe first 24 hours is that afterwards you CANNOT gain natural passive immunity from colostrum.

It's very aggravating, pseudoscience.

 

[Greatest Gonger]

Because people are incapable of comprehending that the reason neonates need colostrum within fhe first 24 hours is that afterwards you CANNOT gain natural passive immunity from colostrum.

It's very aggravating, pseudoscience.

Seems to have fallen out of fashion, so certainly very faddish. Apparently it made a some farmers a lot of money though. As much as I might scoff at some people's preferences for snake oil, I would not be unwilling to sell it to them, I just don't want to have to market it. I'm not even super enthusiastic about organic labelling, though with meat (and maybe eggs) there does seem to be a distinct qualitative difference between what you get at the grocer and from the farm.

My herbs are better than at the store as well. Big dill, better basil. Celery is better. Tomatoes might be better or could be just different variety. Oh I grew the tomato they have a walmart this year. It is called "tomato on the vine" on the package, not sure if that is just in canadian walmart or all over north america. Interesting plant, grows very upright and has distinct little rows of tomatoes, very unlike roma or the other one I have. My guess is it is bred for green house trellis cultivation.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost II]

are hobby farms large enough to feed a small family at least?

0.5 acres is enough to supplement/majority feed a family of four if managed correctly. 2.5 is the minimum needed for full self sufficiency, the more land just adds more options for pasturage.

You want to look up the Norfolk method, for crop rotation.