Is Market Gardening Profitable? Making a Living On a Small Farm

[Music] is market gardening profitable this question and variations of this question I get asked literally several times per week and I get you're on the edge you want to start a farm but you are scared of losing your monthly salary from your job you're scared of not making it you don't know how to let go of the uncertainty and wonder how the heck will you survive as a full-time farmer in this video I'm going to open up the curtains take you behind the scenes and share with you important data and insights that will allow you to make the right decisions to move forward I'm going to let you in other revenue numbers running costs profits the initial investment costs and a lot more so stay tuned [Music] hey guys my name is marina from the Dutch farmer calm on this channel we cover all things market gardening we cover both the production side as well as the important business side of running a small farm and if this is your first time here welcome and consider subscribing ever since this channel gained more traction and exposure I've been receiving a lot of emails from you guys and one of the recurring topics is specifically around finance lots of you are asking about startup costs how to finance a transition how long it takes to generate an income how to balance your income before leaving the nine-to-five how can you be sure that you can provide a constant income for your family and of the whole bunch of other questions and as much as I would like to answer each and every one of them so that I can help you guys out with achieving your dreams there's only so many hours in a day I simply can't dedicate several hours per day responding to every email even though I would love to I still have a wife and a daughter I want to spend time with and our family farm to run therefore I've combined all the questions that have been receiving up until this date regarding finance I've categorized them and I will answer each and every single one of them in this video much like in a Q&A style now it is highly possible that I'll be answering some questions that you personally already know the answer to so to make your life easier and not let you sit through each of these questions below this video I've included timestamps with all the different questions that I will be answering so you can simply press on the ones you want to have answered and you'll be prompted immediately to that part of the video but before you head over to those specific questions as promised I will let you in on our personal farm numbers my thought process of making a living on the small farm and what it all entails before I do that I really want to clear the air here sharing our numbers is not something that I've ever done before publicly nor is it something that I thought that I would ever do and the reason for that is pretty simple how often don't we get advertisements pushed in our faces telling us that make X amount of money pursuing our dreams or other hollow promises I mean I just don't want to be another guy on the internet telling you to quit your jobs to start the farm at all be well and to a certain extent I do feel guilty about this through my videos I hope to inspire you and educate you and show you what's possible on the other side by showing you the footage of the bounty the bird singing in the trees and all the other good stuff happening on the farm it seems like the Sun is always shining there's an abundance of rainbows and unicorns and we're all singing the kumbaya around the fire at night but that's just not the reality of farming making a small farm work takes bloody art work it takes dedication and motivation and I promise you there will be plenty of times when you would think by yourself from geez why the heck did I get into farming and that's just the reality of it having said that that's probably not one occupation that can be more interesting nor fulfilling and meaningful than being a farmer and I truly think and I hope you guys know that as well that if you want to start farming for a living the main reasons that you're going to do it are to create a better life for yourself and your family to grow the majority of your own food so that you can be less dependent on the system and to live a simpler more meaningful and fulfilling life was being a part of the solution having said that I think that by sharing actual data like the numbers it can help function as a reality check for those of you who are on the edge I believe that making and living on a small farm is within the reach for those of you who are willing to make the efforts we're willing to go out there to do that research and planning and for those of you who are determined to create a better life for yourself and your family there's no get-rich-quick schemes involved in farming but simple roll up your sleeves attitude and start working if that puts you off I highly recommend you don't start a farm and instead either support your local farmers and buy your produce from them or grow in your own garden and with that out of the way let's get into it the way we like to work here on our farm is to first come up with a financial target a financial goal that to live our chosen lifestyle and allows us to pay our bills this is a crucial first step which I cover both in this video as well as in our free guide which you can download from my website I will make sure to share the actual link to that guide at the end of this video by setting yourself this financial goal you can break it down into an actual production system that is in line with the local demand I cannot emphasize enough how crucially important this step has been with the success of our farm it gave us all the clarity we needed to move forward with confidence in the previous season we have put our financial target at sixty thousand euros in u.s. dollars as of today that is roughly sixty seven thousand dollars that is excluding the revenue we make from microgreens nursery related income like spring starts and plans we sell and the fruits and nuts from the trees due to some losses and shifts in demand we were able to make ninety-four percent of the total of our initial target which comes down to fifty-six thousand and four hundred euros in gross revenue our annual average running costs for the Market Garden is ten thousand one hundred and thirty dollars or eight thousand nine hundred and seventy six euros as you can see here this is broken down by the following things compost twenty five hundred and eight dollars seeds sixteen hundred and ninety three dollars all the way down to bank fees insurances and things like this for five hundred and seventy seven dollars that means that if we deduct our total annual expenses from a revenue we come to a total gross profit of fifty three thousand five hundred and twenty five US dollars or forty seven thousand four hundred and twenty-four euros which is basically our salary not to put things a little bit more into perspective our farm is being operated by me as a full-time employee and by my wife as a part-time employee on average we work about five to six days per week eight to ten hours per day during the height of the season and a lot less obviously during the winter the gross minimum annual wage as of today in France for one full-time at one part-time employee combined is 29,029 euros which comes down to thirty two thousand seven hundred and sixty three US dollars if we compare our numbers to the minimum French standards you can clearly see that our gross profit which is basically our gross salary is well above the minimum for this country now I'm not telling you to compare things to your country's minimum but this can just give you a little bit of perspective making a living means something different to each individual and so you have to decide at what standards you want to live it now to get to these numbers we have to sell our crops to a diversity of customers including all co2 organic grocery stores in the area and a local food distributor restaurants and chefs as well as on farm sales to make a small fund like this work in the rural setting that we are and the customers that we serve we need to focus on having a diverse range of projects we can offer but still with the focus on mid to high and profit crops so things like lettuces leafy greens and bunching roots for this season though we are now putting much more efforts into promoting and marketing the unfarmed sales where people come directly to us on the farm on predetermined days this is allowing us to diversify our production a bit more since we'll be selling more projects directly to the end consumer and so we can demand higher prices we think that we'll be able to do slightly better than last year with the Market Garden and so we've increased our annual financial target with 5,000 euros to a total of 65 thousand euros no these numbers will give you some perspective of a small farm that's been running for a couple of years now but what if you're just starting out and you have to invest in all of the equipment and tools more specifically what is the initial investment cost to start a small-scale Market Garden like ours with the general overview of our phone numbers covered with going into the Q&A part of this video as I mentioned earlier on below this video in the description box I've included all the questions I've been getting from you guys regarding finance and included time stamps for each question this allows you to jump immediately to questions you would like to have answered so let's get started question number one what is the initial investment cost of a small-scale Market Garden in order for me to answer this question I will have to break it down into two segments I will show you the exact initial investments that we've made on our farm broken down by individual tools equipment and infrastructure and I'm going to show you what things are optional when you get started as well as the tools and equipment that are a must this way you will get a clear overview of what it can cost you to start a small-scale Market Garden I will make sure to show prices both in Euro as well as in u.s. dollars alright so the size of our farm is about half an acre with roughly one third of an acre on the production the initial investment costs to start our farm was nineteen thousand five hundred and ninety three US dollars or seventeen thousand three hundred and sixty years this initial investment cost is broken down by the following things fourteen hundred and fifty-seven US dollars for the entire walk-in fridge which we built with an air conditioner second hand insulation panels and a coolbot forty one hundred and one dollar for the high tunnel nursery and all the equipment so Fox traced ventilation and so forth four hundred and seventy one dollars for the post-harvest ation and some packaging twelve hundred and eighty nine dollars for the harvesting equipment and this includes a green harvester harvesting crates and knives eleven hundred and eighteen dollars for general tools and equipment like a broad fork of bethlehem power drill and batteries rakes fork shovels and so forth twenty four hundred and fifty three dollars for the entire irrigation system fifteen hundred and eighty dollars for the Cedars including shipping eleven hundred and ninety three dollars for crop protection including fleeces and insuk netting fifty two hundred and twenty two dollars for compost seeds and potting mix and seven hundred and one dollar for a bit of earthworks fences windbreak weed barrier and a soil analysis this is the entire initial investment that we've done to get a farm up and running in for us the most efficient and practical way but having said that I realized that not everyone has that amount of money to get started with and will have to do it with a lot less than that in fact let's have a look at the things I've listed on the list that we initially invested in that I think you can do without when you're just starting out on a small budget if we work our way from the top to the bottom we have the walk-in fridge which in my opinion is a must to have when you start a farm so we keep that in place the high tunnel and nursery space could probably be left out even though the cost for these spaces were not extremely expensive for us since we bought everything secondhand except for the small nursery tunnel you don't need this space to get started with a bit of flexibility and resourcefulness you could potentially convert an existing space within your home into a small nursery space to get started you do need some nursery trays labels and pots and these we bought at a total of two hundred and eighty-two dollars since we already had an existing building outside we simply converted this space into a post harvest ation and we source pretty much everything for this area and got ourselves a secondhand spinner to dry our greens total cost for this was four hundred and seventy one dollars the next one on the list is the harvesting equipment at twelve hundred and eighty nine dollars from this total we paid nine hundred and twelve dollars for the greens harvester including shipping three hundred and one dollars for harvesting crates and the rest was for knives and the like obviously the big one in this list is the harvester this is a tool that I highly recommend you get if you're going to do decent amount of volumes of salad dreams it will really save you time and go very quickly pay for itself on the other hand if you simply don't have the money but you have more time at hand you could do it potentially without this - initially also if you're not going to do lots of arugula and salad drinks you don't need this tool and we included in this calculation because I recommend it but it is optional then we have the basic tools for which we paid eleven hundred and eighteen dollars from this four hundred and eleven dollars was for the better order that we bought it's a great tool to have in combination with a 6-row cedar but not a necessity two hundred and six dollars was for 18 volt cordless drill to run the harvester and the other big one is the broad fork at two hundred dollars both of these I recommend you have so I'll let them in the calculation this gives us a total of eleven hundred and eighteen dollars minus the bed roller is seven hundred and seven dollars the next category is our irrigation system set up for which we paid twenty four hundred and fifty three dollars the high price we paid is a bit inflated because we farm in an old family style orchard and we created a fixed overhead irrigation system which sprinklers throughout all the plots since there are many obstacles in the fields we needed to create our irrigation system set up in triangles thus increasing the amount of equipment needed on the other hand I think that you can easily do it for half this by creating an irrigation system set up that is manually placed wherever it's needed this way you only have to install the main lines connected with a quick coupler system and you'll be able to reduce a lot of the material needed therefore if you're on a budget I recommend you go that way we could do this part for about eleven hundred and twenty nine dollars then seeders we paid fifteen hundred and eighty dollars for the gem cedar the six rough cedar and additional accessories and the importation if you're just starting out one cedar will suffice you in that case I would personally go for a gem cedar because you don't have to be very picky on the way to prepare your growing beds the cost of this cedar was 540 dollars without importation nowadays these tools pretty much everywhere available in the Western world so the transport cost should be pretty low next category is crop protection at eleven hundred and ninety-three dollars from this the insect netting was by far the most expensive at six hundred and twenty three dollars honestly we bought quite a lot more than we actually needed in reality we only need half of it so I can reduce the price by 50% then row covers for season extension was $175 and we bought galvanized steel wire and packs to create tunnels which comes to a total of three hundred and ninety five dollars for these two that means that instead of eleven hundred and ninety three dollars we could have done it for eight hundred and eighty one dollars then a big one on the list is compost for which we paid twenty five hundred and eight dollars initially to create our new lake beds this was quite a steep investment but a necessary one as it allowed us to increase the organic matter in our soil which was lacking and improved the overall quality seas were sixteen hundred and ninety three dollars and the potting soil was thousand and twenty one dollars you can't potentially buy the seeds and potting mix in sections when you just start out then the last category is some land preparations including a windbreak upgrading a small part of a fence and put a weed barrier around the perimeter that prohibits weeds creeping in from the sides this section can be done without and was only optional so I won't include it into our total then if we combine everything together we come to a total of eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety seven dollars or about ten thousand six hundred and thirty euros of initial investment costs mind you know that at this price level you have all the seeds necessary for the entire year plus all the potting mix needed for a full year of drawing transplants that means that so far we've already shaved up seven thousand five hundred and ninety six dollars from the initial investment plus I'm sure that we can even be more resourceful and do it for even less than that so to answer the question based on this I think that we can start a small stream market garden in our area here in France using the approach we use with the Nordic method anywhere around ten thousand dollars these are based on real-life prices we paid for the equipment in these parts of the world obviously depending on where you are this will vary but this can give you a good indication depending on how badly you want to get this farming thing going and you're willing to spend more time initially you could potentially even start seeding your first crops by hand and water it manually but I highly recommend against it I think it's wiser to keep your job a little longer save up the required capital and once you have what you need you can get started I hope that this break that makes sense and can help you out just to find a word before we head over to the next question realize that even though starting a firm and doing it for a living can seem very attractive and even romantic and its core a farm is a business and it simply takes money to start a business it is possible that these numbers might scare you but running a Market Garden is different than gardening for yourself or a family things starts to shift when you do it on a commercial scale and if you want to succeed you need to have the mindset of an entrepreneur and approach it like a business and not as a hobby question number two how to find the startup costs besides taking loans from a bank and how did you do it ok so the way we did it on our farm was that both my wife and I were working on farms before coming back here to France to start our own farm during the time that we were working there we were literally trying to save as much money as we possibly could without undermining the quality of life that we want to have we did this for several years which allowed us to gain enough funds to get started mind you know we only had the possibility to get started on rented land since it would simply not be economically feasible to buy land due to the high cost of land here renting allowed us to get started on a relatively low budget in order to find the startup funds there ways you can go about it for me personally the most logical way of doing it is by having a job and if possible work overtime and as much as you personally can handle if overtime is not a possibility consider getting a second job for the evenings and weekends I would do literally everything in my power to get the required startup funds to realize my dreams but you might be thinking by now yes but I still want to have a life and I have a family I need to spend time with all that is understandable and fine and you don't have to work 24 hours a day but I think Joel Salatin said it perfectly I heard him say somewhere like if you wanted you gotta want it and it's totally true you've got to be waiting to do what it takes it might mean that you have to give up on watching television it might mean that you have to skip going out when all your friends are going to a party to a lake or whatever you do in your spare time you've got to be willing to make sacrifices early on so that you can work towards your dream of starting and running a farm but before you start looking at ways to make money the thing you've got to understand about it is that the first step you have to do is looking at where you currently spend your money I'm sure there are several things within your monthly personal expenses you can live without and these things usually add up very quickly therefore before looking at how to find the startup costs I would look at ways to minimize your monthly expenses once you've minimized your costs it becomes much easier to reach the desired startup funds besides getting a job which I mentioned just before you can also look at what grants are available in your country I know for example that here in France there are several ways to get money to fund things like high tunnels tools and equipment but as well for the organic certification tax deductions were getting farms and other benefits look into the local legislation and opportunities for small farmers and make use of them if they are available in your area this can greatly help you in doing the personal investment needed another way of earning some money would be to sell some of your old stuff that you don't need use anymore I'm always surprised with the amount of stuff that we just seem to accumulate over time I'm sure you can get creative and sell some of the things that you own you can also take it even a step further and actively look for things that you can buy for a low price and resell it so like flipping things I mean there are so many creative ways to get to the required initial startup cost that we could possibly make an entire video about it crowdfunding is another example of a way to acquire the needed funds I mean become resourceful and creative work a second job reduce your monthly expenses sell stuff you don't need anymore look into crowdfunding and look if there are any grants or funding available for small farmers in your area question number three would you recommend to start on a low budget and invest in tools and infrastructure later on I would always recommend that you start smart with the funds that you have available if you're on a low budget which is basically 95% of us that get into farming you've got to be very flexible lean and willing to do what it takes to go where you want to go as far as tools and infrastructure goes and this is where the starting smart comes into play there are simply several tools and infrastructure a small farm like ours need in order to get started effectively and efficiently take for example a tool like a cedar that's just one of the tools that you can't get around when you start a farm it is simply not efficient and practical to seed everything by hand on the other hand take for example a piece of infrastructure on that farm like the high tunnel that is something you don't need in order to get started if you don't have the money for a high tunnel you can get started with cheap fleeces it is obviously not as effective as a high tunnel but you can extend the seasons just a little bit and it's great to get started with other infrastructure that I deem a necessity when starting out includes a post ARCA station you just need a space where you can process and clean up your produce this area does not have to be extremely expensive and most of the material and equipment needed to create an efficient station can be sourced and bought secondhand another piece of equipment which is a necessity on the farm is a walk-in cooler I can't imagine running a small farm like ours without the use of a fridge a small storage space for your tools and equipment and one other piece of infrastructure that is also a must on a small farm is an irrigation system setup I've heard some stories of people watering their crops using watering cans manually and honestly if you're even a little bit serious about farming and still want to have a life next to you can't do without an irrigation system set up vegetables like most other organisms are mainly composed of water lettuces cucumbers tomatoes carrots spinach celery and a whole bunch of other crops are for 90% or more made out of water this means that basically we are farming water and so an irrigation system is a must as far as the necessary tools go I recommend to you watch the answer I gave to question number one so just to finish up this question I recommend you start with the bare essentials do it on a shoestring budget start generating an income and from the generated revenue reinvest into upgrading and scaling your farm exponentially question number four how much time labor and money is needed to set up infrastructure okay so the money part of this question I covered in question number one in terms of time and labor needed to set up the infrastructure it depends it depends on how much time you can spend each day on getting your farm up and running if we take our family in our farm as an example we arrived a couple of years ago on this specific plot in June so the season was already well on its way and we started seeding in August in the meantime we converted the existing grass field into a production area with all the raised beds we installed the irrigation system the plant nursery and we converted existing buildings on the site into a post harvest ation an area for the walk-in cooler and a storage space it took us about two and a half months working seven days per week about 10 to 14 hours a day to get that done that was me my wife and our newborn baby at the time when any outside help from others the item oh we have here was installed that following winter if you don't have any existing infrastructure on your land yet I can imagine that you can easily double if not more the amount of time to set everything up that was also one of the reasons we looked for a rented land with already existing buildings on the site this allowed us to get started really quickly which was a must for us at the time over all the time it takes to set up the infrastructure will really change for individual and depends on how much time you can put into it on a daily basis how efficient you work and your own physical condition question number five when is the right time to start okay assuming that you are a hundred percent sure that you want to get into farming for me the right time to start is when you've developed a solid business plan once you know the initial investments needed to get your farm up and running and you have those investments plus additional money saved on the bank as a cushion you've done your research and you know exactly what crops you're going to grow and the quantities and you've identified who is going to buy the project from you once you're at that stage you're ready to get started question number six what is the minimum lancers required to make a living for oneself and or a family well there's not really a standard in terms of minimum length requirements to make a decent likelihood for oneself and order family first of all making a living means something else to each individual but let's assume that making a living means that you can pay your bills and earn extra money to put aside generally speaking the closer you get from cities the small and land serves you will potentially need in order to make a decent living the further you get away from cities the more lent you will potentially need and the reason for this is simple if you're close to cities you will most likely have a much larger pool of potential customers allowing you to focus only on the highest profit crops so things like lettuces and leafy greens the further you get away from this pool of potential customers the more diversity you need in order to satisfy the demand people in more rural settings one customer in a rural setting is much more likely to buy a variety of produce from you whereas certain customers in the cities like chefs and wholesale can buy larger quantities of one single item from you and that's basically what we do on our farm even though we are pretty rural with the closest cities at about a 45 minute to an hour drive from our farm we are able to make a living on 1/3 of an acre farm by targeting mainly chefs restaurants and wholesale accounts in these cities this allows us to focus for at least the majority of our produce on how you profit crops but since we're also developing more the unfarmed sales outlet we realize that in order to make it interesting for the customers that come directly to the farm we need to have some variety if we want them to keep returning so I can't really give you a definite answer to the minimum requirements needed for you in order to make a living on those specific land services there's people making it work on the quite an acre and there's people that are making it work on two acres or more I recommend that if you are looking for land to farm on I would look for at least one acre of land this does not mean that you have to start immediately with that acre instead get started on a quarter acre get the production systems under control and start building relationships with the customers in your area from there you can grow based on your experience and the local demand question number 7 is there a market for small farms in my area maybe the only way of finding out is doing a market research when we initially started out we compiled a big list with all the potential customers in our area we listed all sorts of possible clients from restaurants to CSA to wholesale to distributors to farmers markets unlike with the farmers markets where we simply went out to see what the possibilities were the rest of the potential customers we simply called up let them a little bit in on our project and asked them if they would be interested in working with us and locally grown produce from there we very quickly identified if there was a market for an extra small farmer in our it allowed us to identify the demands and based off of that research we've developed a production plan that was in line with that in math as well as our financial targets so go out there compile a list talk to people visit the farmers markets and find out if there is a market share available for you question number eight how long does it take to generate a revenue and the timeframe from ceiling to selling a revenue can be as quickly made as the days of maturity of a crop if I plant a redish crop right now outside on average 30 days later I can harvest that crop and sell it allowing me to earn revenue so the time frame from seeding to saddling can be as short as 30 days like is the case with radishes and arugula but it can also take 60 days for beets and carrots 90 days for cabbages and even 275 to 300 days for garlic so how long it takes to start generating a revenue really depends on the crops that you're going to grow as well as the season that you're in in early spring late autumn and winter crops take longer to reach their maturity compared to crops in late spring and summer and this brings us directly to the next question question number nine how soon can you earn a living from the farm unlike generating a revenue which can be done quite quickly making a living from the farm is something else entirely I prefer to look at it in terms of a whole season I believe that if you follow the right practices and you've gained valuable experiences through working on other farms and for other farmers you can earn a living as soon as the first season on your own having said that that's definitely not the standard if you've never found before at all the farming knowledge that you've gained comes from looking at YouTube videos and from books it is very likely that you won't exactly make a living in your first year or even in year two too many variables come into play when it comes to making a living as a starting farmer basically starting at zero there are so many things that you need to learn that it can become pretty overwhelming you need to learn how to run a business and all the aspects that talk into play with dead side of farming you need to learn the duk-soo site and produce high-quality produce on a consistent basis and all the other things that come into play if you don't have an experienced mentor that can support you in times of need it can easily happen that you will dedicate large amounts of your time on tests that shouldn't get much attention in the startup of your farm when starting out the most important things you need to pay attention to early on is producing marketing and selling setting up systems to manage these aspects of farming early on will allow you to continuously optimize these systems and become more efficient with every growing season therefore keeping data and records from everything that you do on the farm is a really important practice definitely in the beginning knowing days to maturity off crops the use that you get from your beds their costs and inputs to get the crop from seed to finished product the prices you sell them at and the customers you sell the net are all important information to keep track of this will allow you to continuously improve your production marketing and sales strategy and make decisions based on data and not on assumptions now to get back to the question of how soon you can earn a living from the farm if you firm for other farmers before and you've gained valuable experience from that plus you have potentially a mentor to guide you you can earn a living in your first year if that's not the case and you've never grown anything on a commercial scale before it can take you two or three years I recommend that if you want to start farming and you don't have any experience you start installing all the infrastructure and you buy all the tools needed whilst you keep your data and as soon as you're at that stage I personally would go all-in at the beginning of a new growing season this will allow you to work at least a full growing season on your farm which will give you lots of experience and data and in the worst case scenario if you did not make enough of an income to sustain yourself over the winter you should look into getting a job for the winter months that's one way to go about it another way would be to reduce the amount of work you do at your night to a part-time job and spend half of your time on the farm that's another solid way to do it question number 10 how much revenue kind of one acre farm make in a season on the normal farming conditions alright so first things first normal farming conditions I have honestly no idea what that means if I've learned one thing with farming is that literally nothing is normal normal farming conditions do not exist every year is going to be entirely different from weather to demand to management change is the only constant with farming and when it comes to the amount of revenue or one acre farm can make again there's no standard for these things it highly depends on your markets the experience of the farmer the efficiency of your management of the farm and the type of projects that you are producing amongst many other influences but to give you a quick and easy answer on 1/3 of an acre we are able to make between 55 to 75 US dollars annually this means that if we multiply this by 3 to get to a full acre we are looking at making on a 65 to $225,000 mind you dome that at the scale of an acre lots of things would change on our farm it would require lots more management employees inputs and a whole bunch of other things also if you have an acre of land to farm on you've got the potential to create several additional farming enterprises on top of the Market Garden think of fruiting crops and trees mushroom production laying hands and broilers spring starts and other nursery plants and several other enterprises this will then completely further change the revenue potential of the small farm at question number 11 how to scale up especially with a limited budget assuming you're making a living which is your first goal when starting a farm scaling is done through the profits that you've made at the end of the season meaning that once you've paid your fixed and operational cost and your salary everything that's left is your profit obviously taxes will have to be paid on this and we leftovers whatever they may be you can reinvest into the farm to scale up the farming enterprise if you barely have any profits left at the end of the year you need to increase your financial target to a point that will allow you to have your desired profits you can then break this down into new production system based on your local markets question number 12 how can you be sure that you can provide a constant income for your family given the fact that a bad year Halestorm etc can or destroy a high percentage of your crops good question you can't I mean at the score you can never be sure of what will happen in the upcoming season that's just one of the realities of farming as you mentioned a hailstorm can damage a large part of your production you can lose an important client you can break your leg and many other negative scenarios can happen on the farm what we can do as farmers is to expect the worst and plan for it take for example our farm at the beginning of each season we set our financial targets that we want to earn at the end of the growing season in order for us to reach that number or at least come very close to it we make sure to plan to produce fifteen to thirty percent more than we need to this way we can be sure that we have a very high chance of reaching a predetermined revenue goals for the season on top of that we also have created a list with potential customers that serve strictly as a backup for us in case we cannot sell the produce with our main customers let's say we over produce a certain crop and a primary sales outlet cannot take that amount we always have access to additional sales outlets pretty much ensuring us that we can sell all of our produce we've been very clear with these secondary customers of ours that we are running a small farm and we can only produce crops in limited quantities and we can't deliver them on a regular basis since we've already engaged ourselves with other customers first some customers don't accept these terms and so they won't become a professional partner from the farm other customers don't mind it and love the additions from the small farm like on an occasional basis it's all about clarity and communication other elements like natural forces - wind rain hail and storms are much less within our control sure we can create wind breaks to buffer winds but we can't do a lot more to control the weather this is where tunnels and greenhouses come into play growing under the protection of these structures allows you to be in charge of the inside climate and so you can be sure of a constant production and a constant source of income of course these structures will need to be invested in but they will very quickly pay back their initial investments so just to recap plan for the worst have a list of potential customers as backup for your primary customers and growing on the protection will allow you to be in charge of the climate and show you can be sure of a steady source of income question number 13 when did you start making enough money to meet your daily expenses in the first season after the second or third month of production question number 14 how much savings is required under the bank I recommend at least the savings amount of six months of living expenses if that is not possible at least three months but I would also make sure to have a list of potential places you could get a part-time or full-time job in worst-case scenarios question number 15 how to price your produce when it comes to pricing your produce you need to understand a couple of things first of all you need to understand how much the actual items cost you to produce you never want to go below that number because that means that you would be losing money on the other hand you can only price the items at a cost your potential customers are willing to pay for then as third you are working with something like a commodity and the prices usually don't differ all that much and a quite universal there's oftentimes a standard in your area of what people are willing to pay for specific items the way we price our produce initially was to look at what other organic farmers were pricing each item at and we compare that to the prices in the local organic grocery stores in there and this we compared to our production costs from there we were able to see based on the price as far as demand for each item what the actual profitability of a crop would be for us and if it would be profitable in the first place we quickly realized that some crops were much more profitable for us to produce than others another thing to look at is the actual customers you will sell your crops to for example we sell our crops to wholesaler comes restaurants and chefs which can be considered between wholesale and retail and we sell directly to the end consumer each of these customers buy the exact same produce from our farm at different price levels obviously the wholesale since they buy large quantities they get it for the lowest price chefs pay a bit more and individual customers on the farm pay the full price depending on the customer we serve we adapt our offer for example we could never profitably sell cabbages at wholesale level whereas if we sell individual cabbages to people that come to the farm we can make a profit on it it might not be much but there's still profit on the other hand if we take lettuces which is a very profitable crop on our farm we can sell large volumes of it to wholesale outlets and still make a good profit on them then it just becomes a numbers and volume game so I recommend you make a calculation of the estimated costs to produce an item compare it to the local market prices and see if there's profitability remember to compare your prices to similar farmers so if you farm organically compared to other organic growers as last you can't decide to price your produce in such a way to be just a bit more expensive than the average but you need to make sure that the quality and service is there to justify the higher price question number 60 how do you let go of the uncertainty of not making it how to overcome the fear of failure and where are you scared at first yes my wife and I were both scared at first I think that's just part of the process and it's totally normal definitely when it comes to the unknown but I think that being scared can be a potential asset as soon as we become afraid of something it unleashes a certain power within us that if we can control and harness it we can put it to good use this power and energy is something that we use to make sure that we were going to succeed and this in turn allowed us to let go of the uncertainty and the fears of failure since my wife and I worked for many funds before we started our own firm we knew that the lifestyle and life far offered was the one that we wanted to fight for and do everything for in order to achieve success what helped us a lot in overcoming the fear and uncertainty was the creation of a solid business plan and reaching out to potential customers to get direct feedback from them as soon as we had a business plan on paper and we knew who our customers were going to be and what their demands were it kind of allows you to let go of many of the uncertainties at least that was the case for us after directly talking to several potential customers it gave us the ability to move forward with confidence so if you're currently on the edge and the thing holding you back is fear I recommend you go out there and talk to some potential customers wherever that is possible see why they would be interested in working with you ask what they are looking for the quantities and you get the ball running from there the more research you do the more you plan and the more upfront work you do the more you will gain confidence and at a certain point it just becomes a matter of going for it and following the plans that you've made question number 70 can your farming technique compete with larger commercial farming in terms of profitability to be honest with you I personally think we shouldn't compare the two together at all it's a complete different category of farming and pretty much the exact opposite of one another we don't compete with large scale agriculture in terms of profitability but in terms of freshens of produce diversification customer relationships amongst many other things we as small farmers playing entirely different game we do our work manually and we can quickly adapt to change usually we also serve a different type of customer than the one that buys the majority of their food in large grocery stores so to answer your question don't compare the incomparable question number 18 how to ensure good production and revenue as a transition good production comes from good farming practices use good quality CDs to direct seed your crops and create a small nursery to grow strong and healthy transplants keep your weeds to a minimum and put lots of effort into the health of your soil and it will pay you back with an abundance of good production also make sure to plant crops in succession so you will have a steady supply of crops throughout the entire growing season allowing you to earn a consistent revenue with season extension you can lengthen the growing season on either end allowing you to earn more revenue as well question number 19 what is the best way for you to transition from giving up your regular job to become a full-time farmer in the free guide which you can download on our website I talked about the three different ways of starting a farm you can either start a farm whilst keeping your 9 to 5 you can start a farm by reducing your 95 to a part-time job or you can save up enough money to invest in the necessities including some extra money on the bank and go out in my preference goes out to the last method which is what I call the full-time farmer approach the matter of the fact is if you can devote all your time to farming you will learn so much quicker than doing it on the part and basis or a spare time basis once you go in it kind of gives you the power and need to succeed obviously caring attention are required and you need to develop a solid business plan but saving up enough money for the startup cost having a little caution on the bank and then going all-in is the approach I would personally take in fact it's the exact approach that my wife and I have taken but this does not mean that it is truly the best way of going about it I think that that's more of a personal thing some people prefer to have more security and are willing to more time to get that farm up and running so you can definitely start investing in tools and equipment whilst you still work at your 9 to 5 you can also do it on a part-time basis where you reduce the amount of labor you work at your 95 to a part-time job and so you can spend more time establishing your farm there's not one way of going about it and there's a different approach available depending on your personal situation and preferences question number 20 what are the financial steps to take to transition into farming before deciding on the approach you're going to take to start your farm and make that transition get clear on paper what the initial startup cost of your farm will be once you know that you have either two options you can decide on invest in the equipment bit by bit whilst you keep your day job and you slowly build your farm over time and maybe you even start selling already on a small scale or you save up enough money for the whole initial investment including an additional some has backup in case of need once you've reached that specific sum you can then decide to leave your job and go out in question number 21 how can wants to revise the first couple of months of transitioning into farm I recommend you have enough money on the bank that covers at least six months of living costs then once you start your farm after a month or two months into production you will start to generate revenue from the farm question number 22 how much did the left Garfield I'm having a hard time finding the capital to acquire the property to farmer don't find the financial capital to buy a property get started on rented land that's probably the best advice I can give you my wife and I also wanted to own land and start a farm on land that was ours but we simply didn't have the financial capacity to do so at that stage we could have done either two things we could either both get a nine-to-five job and save up as much money as we possibly could until we had enough to buy a net or rent a piece of property and get started immediately and so the decision was quickly made and I wouldn't have done it any different now we're in a position where we can work towards a more permanent solution for our family whilst we're doing what we love pretty much a win-win situation question number 23 how do you manage to balance family life farming the business side of farming as well as educational content creation well I look at it in order of personal importance the most important for me and my wife is our well-being in our family life so that comes on one but the big part of our family life and the quality of life that we aim for is being supported by the farm so I have to say that the farm and the functioning of it shares the number one place in terms of importance because if we cannot sustain ourselves financially with the farm we cannot live here let our job grow up in this environment and probably have to move back to the city get ourselves a paying job and continue life there well I can tell you that will never happen even if they have to force us therefore in terms of management work on the farm gets the priority once that is done we can spend our time together the way we want it at the beginning of starting a farm it can be a bit hectic organizational ways but with time you become more efficient everyone has that job and it becomes routine the online educational content creation comes in the last place in terms of importance because I never want to let it interfere with our personal life nor the functioning of our farm that's probably also the reason that I don't upload videos on a weekly basis but closer to a video every other week or even less I simply don't want my daughter to grow up looking at her father working all the time outside and once he's done with the farm he's in front of the computer the rest of the time that's just simply not an option for us I hope that by answering these questions you'll be able to take what you need and make the right decisions moving forward in your journey of becoming a successful small farmer if you learn something new in this video make sure to like it and subscribe to the channel also head over to the Dutch farmer come and grab yourself a free copy of our in-depth ebook on how to make a living on a small farm if you want to video that shows you the actual steps to take to start the farm I highly recommend you watch this video next thanks for watching and I see you there

Channel: Dutch Farmer Moreno

Views: 133,809

Rating: 4.9551592 out of 5

Keywords: market gardening, is market gardening profitable, is regenerative agriculture profitable, most profitable crops, how to start a farm, how to start a farm from scratch, profitable market gardening, small farming, urban farming, dutch farmer moreno, the dutch farmer, small farm in france, aromath farm, market garden tools

Id: IJ04HY1wD1k

Length: 53min 46sec (3226 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020