Running your own small farm is demanding enough, but making it profitable presents a host of further challenges. In this business-savvy guide to farming on a small scale, Sarah Aubrey covers everything from financial plans and advertising budgets to web design and food service wholesalers. Learn how to isolate your target audience and craft artisanal products that will delight and amaze customers. With a solid business strategy in place, you can confidently turn your passion into a productive and profitable venture.
"Brings the business planning process alive to help today's agriculture entrepreneurs transform farm-grown inspiration into profitable enterprises. Sample worksheets illustrate how real farm families set goals, research processing alternatives, determine potential markets, and evaluate financing options. Blank worksheets offer readers the opportunity to develop their own detailed, lender-ready business plan and map out strategies" --back cover.
A practical, how-to guide for farmers who want to achieve and maintain financial sustainability in their businesses When you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of accounting and bookkeeping, and learn how to manage a growing business. Author Julia Shanks distills years of teaching and business consulting with farmers into this comprehensive, accessible guide. She covers all aspects of launching, running and growing a successful farm business through effective bookkeeping and business management, providing tools to make managerial decisions, apply for a loan or other financing, and offering general business and strategy advice for growing a business. Whether you've been farming for many years or just getting started, The Farmer's Office gives you the tools needed to think like an entrepreneur and thoughtfully manage your business for success.
Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture. At Soul Fire Farm, author Leah Penniman co-created the Black and Latino Farmers Immersion (BLFI) program as a container for new farmers to share growing skills in a culturally relevant and supportive environment led by people of color. Farming While Black organizes and expands upon the curriculum of the BLFI to provide readers with a concise guide to all aspects of small-scale farming, from business planning to preserving the harvest. Throughout the chapters Penniman uplifts the wisdom of the African diasporic farmers and activists whose work informs the techniques described--from whole farm planning, soil fertility, seed selection, and agroecology, to using whole foods in culturally appropriate recipes, sharing stories of ancestors, and tools for healing from the trauma associated with slavery and economic exploitation on the land. Woven throughout the book is the story of Soul Fire Farm, a national leader in the food justice movement.--AMAZON.
An insider's guide to market gardening and farming for those in the business of growing and selling food, flowers, herbs, or plants. Market Farming Success identifies the key areas that usually trip up beginners—and shows how to avoid those obstacles. This book will help the aspiring or beginning farmer advance quickly and confidently through the inevitable learning curve of starting a new business. Written by the editor of Growing for Market, a respected trade journal for market farmers, Market Farming Success condenses decades of growing experience from every part of the United States and Canada. It focuses on the factors that are common to market gardeners everywhere and offers professional advice that includes: • How much you'll need to spend to start a market farming business; • How much you can expect to earn; • Which crops bring in the most money—and whether you should grow them; • The essential tools and equipment you will need; • The best places to sell your products; • How to keep records to maximize profits and minimize taxes; • Tricks of the trade that will make you more efficient in the greenhouse, field, and market. This new Chelsea Green edition of a 2006 classic is greatly updated and expanded, and includes full-color photos, charts, and graphs, plus many inspiring and instructive profiles of successful market-farming pioneers.
“Eloquent and detailed...precise and well-thought-out...Read her book — and listen.” — Jane Smiley, The Washington Post. Beth Hoffman was living the good life: she had a successful career as a journalist and professor, a comfortable home in San Francisco, and plenty of close friends and family. Yet in her late 40s, she and her husband decided to leave the big city and move to his family ranch in Iowa—all for the dream of becoming a farmer, to put into practice everything she had learned over decades of reporting on food and agriculture. There was just one problem: money. Half of America's two million farms made less than $300 in 2019. Between rising land costs, ever-more expensive equipment, the growing uncertainty of the climate, and few options for health care, farming today is a risky business. For many, simply staying afloat is a constant struggle. Bet the Farm chronicles this struggle through Beth’s eyes as a beginning farmer. She must contend with her father-in-law, who is reluctant to hand over control of the land. Growing oats is good for the environment but ends up being very bad for the wallet. And finding somewhere, in the midst of COVID-19, to slaughter grass-finished beef is a nightmare. The couple also must balance the books, hoping that farming isn’t a romantic fantasy that takes every cent of their savings. Even with a decent nest egg and access to land, making ends meet at times seems impossible. And Beth knows full well that she is among the privileged. If Beth can’t make it, how can farmers who confront racism, lack access to land, or don’t have other jobs to fall back on? Bet the Farm is a first-hand account of the perils of farming today and a personal exploration of more just and sustainable ways of producing food.
The third and final instalment of Peter Nuthall's "Farm Business Management" series, this volume teaches the practical skills needed to manage a farm, such as risk analysis, budgeting, cost benefit analyses and much more. The key characteristic of this book is its ability to simplify the complex subject of business management into a clear, accessible volume tailored to the topic of farming, by using engaging techniques such as worked examples to fully explain the complex decision making tools necessary for this discipline.
