Small acreage profitability

Good Luck and Have Fun !! P.S.

Yes if you hate working ground or farming stay out of it.

Better look at as a hobby !!

Teddy

And then there is the problem of varments. Some friends of mine did both strawberries and raspberries near Spokane, but I don't think they ever made a profit because the multitude of deer in the area just wouldn't let the crops mature. And with the strawberries, after the second year, some kind of fungus got into them and destroyed about half of the plants. They finally just plowed everything under last Spring and planted timothy.

My cousin lives in Western Montana and has made his living for about 15 years raising hydroponic tomatoes in several large greenhouses. It is a full time job during the season from March through mid November depending on the weather outside. He has done OK, not got rich, by having lots of contracts with food stores all over Western Montana. His operation uses a wood fired boiler for heat and he only plants a couple of varieties of tomatoes that happen to do well in greenhouses and sell well. His tomatoes cost a lot more than the usual supermarket tomatoes, but they taste a lot better, since they really are vine ripened. He can sell almost everything he grows. But he works very hard at it all the time--it is not easy money. And he worries all the time about plant diseases.

I wish there was something that a fairly small acreage owner could plant and make a decent profit. So many areas of 5 to 40 acre tracts end up unused and just going to weeds. One local area was a large old family farm broken up into 10's and 20's. There are about 5 houses that have been built over the last few years, but the covenant agreed to by all the buyers made sure that each parcel remains unfenced and all are farmed by a nearby farmer. It looks good....little islands of nice buildings surrounded by well cared for wheatland. I don't know what the farmer has to pay to farm the various parcels, but it must be OK for him because he continues to farm them.

I wish there was a good solution. I would be satisfied to just pay the taxes, which my acreage has never done. Good luck!

Hope this helps

Some ideas that come to mind off the top of my head are asparagus, tomatoes, blueberries, etc. All are either high cost up front or high labor (or both). You cant make it small scale on bulk commodoty crops or livestock, has to be something 'special'. Catnip is a great idea. The key is going to be marketing and packaging it. Internet is great, lets you marke tto the world at your finger tips. Also, be sure and not to forget non-program crop Federal Crop Insurance. I'd say to properly set up to grow, harvest, dry, package, and market catnip figure on sinking at least $100,000 in the business, maybe 2 or 3 times that. Sure want to make sure you have crop insurance to ensure cashflow. Lots of folks say it cant be done, one of my friends that I ggraduated high school with got out of college and couldnt find an ag teaching job. He started planting asparagus for fresh market and worked odd jobs on farms. Three years before he had something to sell. Made all the farmers market rounds. That was 18 years ago, now he markets pickled asparagus world wide, sells retail out of his home, also freshwater shrimp ponds, and sells organic alfalfa. He just has 30 acres, yet makes a profit in the low 6 figures annually. Took risks, sunk everything he made for years back ing the business, then just when he was making good money (clearing in the low 40's) he borrowed a million dollars and put in a top of the line pickleing and packing plant.

There is a book about making big bucks on an acre, its based on intensive gardening by contract with the buyers paying in advance for garden crops. It is labor intensive.

Gerald J.

Have you checked with your local extension office to see if they have reccomendations?

Paying the taxes is fairly easy - rent it out. Paying for itself is a little harder and will take a tad bit more than conventional farming. Catnip maybe a good start. But what/where is the market. How you gonna get it from point A to point B? You will have to not only mow it, but pick it up, move it, and sell it. A lot of cost in those steps. To make some kinda of real income/profit from that little piece of land, your gonna have to be very creative. That catnip is gonna have to be a good quailty, packaged pretty, tied with a bow, carted to town and sold to people with more dollars than cents.

Short version
Set a goal. Then locate a market for a product that is in demand. It may or may not be a locally grow product. Chances are it won't be. Then set down and pencile it out.

Don't be afraid to think outta the box. I would have never thought that there would be a shrimp farm in Ohio. But just down the road outside New London OH there is.