In answer to "Would you mind posting about the economics of tiny farming?", a three-way extended chat (maybe verging on a mild rant on my part :) in Tiny Farm Blog. Interesting and I think quite...practical!
Tiny Farm Forum » Tiny Farm planning
Can tiny farming make money?
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Posted 2 years ago #
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This is a question I'm interested in as I move to start my farm. I've started to sketch out income goals and projected expenses, but it's really overwhelming! What are the key points to consider when you're first starting out?
Posted 2 years ago # -
So as I move forward I've decided I'd really like to focus on CSA business, as opposed to farmer's markets and wholesaling. And I'd like to shoot for about a $1200 per month income. If I were to charge $400 for a full share, I'd need 36 full shareholders per year. That seems like a big number. Is this a realistic projection for a single farmer (my husband will continue to work off-farm)? And how in the world do you calculate produce for 36 full shares per week for a 5-6 month season!? Number crunching is making my head spin (but it's also kind of fun). Anyone have thoughts or insights to share?
Posted 2 years ago # -
You posed THE main planning question for microfarming overall, not just CSA, when you asked: how in the world do you calculate produce for 36 full shares per week for a 5-6 month season!? Answering that leads to more head-spinning (and more fun!).
From what I've learned so far, EVERYTHING stems from your production plan. One quick way to get a taste of hard numbers is to find a veggie yield chart with quantities per 100' (I just found this chart, it's perfect for planning!). This leads to all kinds of practical thinking. For example, if you can get 70 heads of broccoli from 100', that's about enough for two weeks of 36 shares. And you don't want to harvest all of that in one week, so maybe you plant 50' twice (starts your succession thinking!), or two varieties with different maturity at the same time (varieties and maturity dates are really important!)? And growing extra as a safety margin is a good idea (planning that can get tricky, but at the beginning, maybe add 25% to the quantities). And now you know you need to reserve that 100' (well, 125', and by what width for broccoli?) on your overall garden map (is that half an acre? one acre?...). It also starts you on your materials list and budget: you need a plug tray or two for your 70+25% broccoli transplants, and a space for the trays in your grow rack. Of course, you need seed... The field production plan leads to everything else.
It may sound crazily complicated, and it's a little (actually, a lot) head-spinning at first, but if you get a few seed catalogs, a pad of paper, a calculator, and a couple of cozy winter months, it'll work itself out. You basically fill in the same bunch of blanks for each crop you want to grow, then add 'em all up, see if it works overall, then start adjusting! Paper works great for the initial selection, then a spreadsheet for the main numbers can make the tweaking easier.
Your veggie production list (crops, varieties, planting quantity, planting date) is a pretty practical base for figuring everything else: garden area/map, supplies, season schedule, BUDGET. And from that rough budget, you can start to get an idea of how much you have to charge in order to come out ahead!
Hope that sounds fun (it is!) and not terribly confusing (it isn't once you get going, just take long breaks :). There are all sorts of ways to get started, but I'm pretty sure a rough, basic veggie list is your best (quickest, most practical, most reality-grounded, most fun) approach!
Posted 2 years ago # -
WOW. Wow. I've got my Baker Creek catalog, the seed yield chart and an Excel file open... I'm glad I've got another extra year before I even own a field to worry about planting! But I can't wait to get started, so off I go... :-)
Posted 2 years ago # -
Firstly I'd like to say what a tremendous blog! It's been a real inspiration for me and has helped me work out a lot of the things I need to be doing when I get my organic plots going next Spring over here in the UK.
Secondly, a question if I may. It relates to that very useful planting and yield guide you linked to here in the Forum. I have been calculating the various yields per veg plant per square foot I might expect next year and up until you posted the link, I was working off this very handy chart from the great resource at Gardeners Which in the UK (2nd page - be warned it's a .pdf! Link is here), as well as some online seed catalogues etc.
The thing that's really bugging me (in both documents and elsewhere) is the amount of space needed between rows (i.e not between plants). For example, in the link you gave, it recommends for beets 5" between thinned-out baby plants and 16" between rows. Why is the distance between rows always so much greater than the distance between plants? I appreciate that the distance between plants (not rows) is based on the eventual size of the finished product in the ground and that they need that distance to grow to full size, but why are the rows so wide?
I'm planning on using 4ft-wide beds and am trying to calculate my best-case yield per square ft. In theory, to take the example of beets, I should be able to cram them in 5" apart in both rows and columns (if you see what I mean). I then have a pathway either side of the 4ft bed to gain access. Cramming them together at 5" should also cover up the ground nicely and cut down on the weeding...
Am I right to be confused about this - or has the spreadsheet I'm working on blinded me to the bleedin' obvious!?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Hey, Jules, the approach you're talking about I've seen referred to as intensive planting. It's kind of what I'm trying this year with the garlic, equidistant in-row and between-row, for space efficiency, greater yield plus saving on mulch, watering, weeding. I believe the basic rule of thumb is: mature foliage diameter (the leaf spread) is about equal to root spread, so if you plant this distance apart in all directions, you make maximum use of your space without crowding. To save the most, you also plant zig-zag, not in a grid, like a rack of billiard balls (push together a bunch of same-sized round coins so they're all touching, you'll see what I mean). In a fairy-tale world :), or a perfect garden, the plants will shoot up, progressively shading out weeds on more of the bed until the bed is completely covered, self-mulched... You also have to weed, water, etc...less! The costs compared to having more space between rows is that you'll likely be doing more precision hand weeding (no pathways to run tools like a wheel hoe down), and your denser crops will be using more nutrients, so you'll have to fertilize your overall garden area more. Neither of these costs may be a big deal, particularly in a smaller area, and you should be getting greater yield. All in all, it seems that intensive planting's main advantage is most efficient use of space from a yield perspective.
I don't know the textbook answer to WHY between-row spacing (or how exactly that's calculated), because I can't recall reading one! I do know that there's quite a big variation between sources, more than with the in-row spacings, one source's 18" is another's 24" or 30". So it's obviously not an exact thing.
Common sense with my humble bit of experience says there are two main advantages to greater between-row spacing. First, as mentioned above, you can use more efficient tools to cultivate (weeding and scuffling, which is, loosening up the soil), like a wheel hoe or small tiller. Even using regular garden tools, it's quicker and easier to work in a wider area than to pick your way around every seedling. Then, if you still need to do precision hand weeding (hands and knees work), you only have to go down the rows for the in-row spaces. Second, the between-row gives you a safety margin, for nutrients, water, sun, air circulation, by providing some extra growing space. Let's say you intensively plant broccoli at 18", and due to variety, great conditions, whatever, your crop is BIGGER, your leaves (and presumably, roots) are spreading to, say, 24". That can easily happen, until you're quite familiar with your local conditions, crops and chosen varieties. In your intensive bed, your plants will be crowding each other, reducing yield, also, blocking air flow, which for some crops can lead to disease (by not letting plants dry out quickly after rain, dew). And so forth. The between-row gives you a bit of a safety zone.
There may be even more reasons for the between-row difference (and in big, industrial, tractor farming, ample between-row is mandatory for the machines), but I'm pretty confident that if you take the above into consideration, you won't go wrong on the way to building up and fine-tuning your experience (which, in the end, is probably just about everything, experience, that is!).
Oh, and all of that relates to THINNING, something I really only took 100% to heart this fifth season. In principle, it's easy to understand that crowding leads to stunting, but it's also easy to put off thinning. It's basically a form of weeding, and just like weeding, where you should get 'em when you can barely see 'em, thinning is something you can put off when other things seem more pressing. But when you actually see how much difference timely thinning can make, you're hooked. You can control sizes both ways, leave things a little closer, like, if you don't want BIG beets, or space 'em out to get monster results, like huge carrots for juicing. Results are all caught up with crops, varieties and growing conditions, of course, but it's still a MAJOR controllable factor. Probably a good place to start is thinning when the average of your advice sources recommend per crop, like, three weeks in, or at this leaf stage or whatever. And if you think about thinning and spacing as kinda both aspects of the same thing right from the start, you'll probably be ahead in your first year!
Hope that helps (it's a rainy, miserable day here, so I'm typing away :).
Posted 2 years ago # -
Mike - thank you for such a considered and detailed response. I'm glad I caught you on a rainy day!
Weighing up the pros and cons, I conclude that decent row spacing wins against the intensive model IF you have enough land to allow for it whilst also meeting your yield-per-square-foot targets and, ultimately, your yield/revenue targets. Intensive growing is probably more suitable for small-scale production, such as kitchen gardening, rather than market gardening.
For the purposes of my spreadsheet (the master/business plan), I'll follow your advice and, where there are conflicting recommendations as to the amount of space to leave between rows, use the average from all the various sources I have. As you wisely say, experience will ultimately provide the right answer. In the meantime, I'd rather play it safe than be sorry! If, or more likely when, the cost of land and all the various inputs (seed, compost/fertiliser, fuel, etc) rise to a level which makes intensive growing a neccesity, I'll revise the spreadsheet!
Having said that, though, by all accounts the market price of veggies (and indeed all foods) is elastic and certainly seems to be increasing as factors such as oil/fertiliser costs, climate change and ever-increasing population/demand take their toll...
Which brings me, in a rambling sorta way, to another question(s). The price of all foods is on the increase here in the UK (and globally from what I've read). Have you noticed this in Canada and, if so, are you adjusting your market prices accordingly? What about the CSA prices? I guess the 'share price' is fixed in advance, so how can you compensate for rising costs and prices as they occur during your harvesting period? Would you simply supply less for the same money? Maybe rhetorical questions today, but are they issues you've thought about for the future?
Posted 2 years ago # -
For the pricing question, I started a new thread: Setting prices: how much to charge?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Hi Mike,
So the past few months have brought massive change. First, Roddy and I were pursuing community farming on Vancouver Island (see http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/NewSiteFiles/programs/farm/community_farms.html for more info). Since I shifted to working from home for DSF and moved over to Victoria to join Roddy again, we finally gave into urges to check out cheap arable land in Nova Scotia (land is prohibitively expensive to buy land out here and the thought of being mortgage-free was driving us).
We just returned from NS, where we considered buying a 70 acre farm/steading in Cape Breton - 11 acres cleared field, mixed forest, sand pit (great resource for the cob house!), 2 creeks, numerous apple trees, wild strawberries and 2 blueberry patches all tucked in a stunning valley for only $50,000. Can we farm and drum up support for a community farm so far from friends, family, and quality entertainment though? (after living for a few years far from good live comedy, theatre, "pub banter", fantastic live music and DJ's we're *thirsting* for this last component of the good life!)
The short answer: probably not. So, we're planning toward starting a community farm in the Scottish Highlands. : ) Hooray! See ya later 9-5 office shite!
This is what we need to know though: assuming we farm a couple of acres, how much money do we need to budget for start up costs for a tiny farm? (we know land is pricey in the UK, we're willing to blow our nest egg)... we need to know costs like: equipment, seed, mulch, compost, tools, row cover, water, etc, etc, etc! What did your start up costs entail? And how much should we budget for? This would be priceless information - it will allow us to know how much of our savings to set aside.
Cheers in advance!
Posted 2 years ago #
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