If you have a small farm, or are contemplating small farming for profit, you probably want to know how much profit is possible. In a recent letter I wrote about the
High Income Market Garden Here's some data from my experience to give you an idea if small farming for profit is the business for you.
Our first year operating a
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) market garden, we sold the equivalent of 10 full shares.
The gross income from that was $8,900. We also sold about $4,500 of meats and eggs, for a total gross income of $13,400. After paying for a small greenhouse and a plant-starting room and some other stuff, we netted about $1,000.
That might not sound like a lot, but remember this was literally a bootstrap operation; income from sales paid for all our equipment and supplies and our part-time farm help. It was also our learning year.
One key piece of advice for the market gardener - buy LOTS of seed EARLY. Seed houses often sell out of popular varieties. Most seed keeps for several years, don't risk running out mid-season.
This is one of my go-to resources for Heirloom, organic and non-GMO seeds. Awesome selection, great prices and excellent customer service.
Note that we could easily have done this whole garden ourselves and saved the cost of the part-time helper, but I was working off-farm quite a lot and we wanted to be sure we could harvest and deliver on schedule.
The other thing to note is, if we amortized the cost of the greenhouse and plant starting room over 5 years (a reasonable life expectancy), then our actual profit would have been about $4,000.
This is an important distinction when small farming for profit by the way, the difference between cash flow and profit. As I wrote in
Farm Risk Management financial risks result from inadequate cash flow to meet obligations. Small farming for profit means keeping a close eye on the spending.
Now let's have a look at the year we operated a larger garden, Gross sales of CSA shares came to about $49,000 (93 families). We sold another $6,000 worth of meats and eggs, for a total of $55,000 gross sales.
Equipment
and supplies cost us about $7,000; we also had about $14,000 in salary
costs for 3 part-time farm helpers and delivery drivers. So total costs
came to about $21,000; gross profit therefore was about $34,000.
And of course, we got just about all our own food, too. This was on a
market garden of about 1 acre, plus another half-acre or so to raise
pigs and meat chickens.
Again, we could have worked longer hours in the garden ourselves and
reduced the money we paid out in salaries. Suzie and I each put in about
a 30-40 work week in the garden, However, we were both pushing 50, and
having more help seemed the prudent course.
And, knowing what I know now about small farming for profit, I could
probably cut the salary cost in half, and use more efficient methods.
I think a farm couple with proper equipment and approach could
look after a one-acre market garden by themselves. This is a trade-off,
of course, since this would require more of an investment in equipment.
See my
5 Acre Farm Plan for an idea of the equipment I consider necessary.
So, what conclusions can we draw from this? First, a full-time income from a CSA market garden becomes possible around 100 customers. With sales of other farm products (see
How to Raise Meat Chickens and
Pigs on Pasture ) you can probably net $40K-$50K or even more from your small farm.
Second, this is probably also the minimum size to justify an
investment in equipment to mechanize your operation. Tractors and other
'heavy metal' are expensive to own; you need to use them a lot to
justify the expense.
Third, if you are small farming for profit on a full-time basis, it
would be possible to 'layer on' even more businesses to make additional
income.
You could add everything from bedding plants to bees,
limited only by your ability to manage. These additional sources of
income make it feasible for a couple to live and work solely on their
small farm, and make a right living.
If you've surfed around my site you may have seen my farming books - 'Bootstrap Market Gardening', 'Bootstrap Greenhouse', 'Bootstrap Survival Garden'.
I didn't know it when I wrote the books but there is an AWESOME supplier of commercial-quality farming and gardening supplies serving the U.S. and Canada.
You need to check out BOOTSTRAP FARMER.
They have everything you need for seed starting and greenhouse growing - including the greenhouses! They are worth a look if you need to get your growing game going.
Get my FREE One-Acre Farm Plan and learn how to raise pigs, chickens and more, integrated with an organic market garden, to
make more money from your small property.
Imagine building a profitable and sustainable mini-farm even on a small piece of land.
Download your free mini-farm plan here
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