[jelliclesfarm]

I started by growing vegetables. Money pit. Then I started growing lavender and aromatics for essential oil distillation. It’s for cosmetic purposes and perfumery. Much higher margin.

Go figure..people would spend more for perfume than for their food. Why? Because. Markets.

It’s ok. If you work with pigs, you have to roll in pig poop. It’s already established what we do the minute we start selling..it’s only a matter of branding and marketing.

I am a little lucky in that I still get to work amidst plants and nature that is my secret pleasure. It’s the selling part that I abhor. But..needs must..etc..

[anon9001]

Just out of curiosity, how much do you have to grow to sell and where do you sell it?

Is that the kind of thing you could do in your backyard for a side business, or do you have to have acres of property?

Not sure if it's a farm->wholesaler or backyard->ebay or maybe backyard->shopify.

[jelliclesfarm]

I lease land..I farm about 3 acres. You could..in theory..make $40k/acre gross if you have markets, capital and land. It’s tricky if you don’t own land, not enough start up capital and people to work for minimum wage. I could also buy 100 acres of orchard ..nuts or stone fruit or citrus and outsource management. I am still farming. It’s more stable. It’s still a farm and you get deductions and land appreciates and machinery depreciates etc.

For me, it wasn’t worth selling kale and lettuce(need a cooler) and find people to work. I paid more than minimum wage (15-25/hour), but that’s not a liveable wage and even that was eating into my margins. And food is plentiful and cheaper at super markets. So what’s the point? Consider this: insurance is same if you are one acre or 20 acres. CCOF certification costs the same. Machinery and capital costs are fixed. Even if farmers markets are profitable, you have two people working 8 hours at minimum wage and need set up equipment and fees etc.

Yes, it can be done in the backyard etc if you have enough space and you have to operate as a farm. Mostly to make sure you follow food safety rules(it is important), but it becomes too much when you are selling wholesale(less than at csa and farmers market) but at volume. You need different set of certifications and audits.

All in all, due to economies of scale, I think you’d need at least 20-40 acres for economies of scale to kick in and you want to do it in an environmentally safe way. Better if you own as you build equity and have land security.

But I also feel like it’s only worth it if you can automate labour ..at least partially. That’s why I feel farm automation and robotics should focus on small acreage farms where they need it and not in commercial large corporate owned farms or commodity crop producing farms that are already hyper optimized and scaled to capture every marginal gain.

Again. Where you are matters. Whether you own the property matters. Markets matter. Even if I had 40 acres, I won’t grow for market if I can’t automate. The numbers don’t add up. I am too old to be romantic about farming as rolling in the hay and yodeling to cows. Also, I studied to be an accountant. I am brutal with numbers crunching. It killed all the farm romance before it even sprouted.