How To Start A Farm in 6 Steps (with photos)
/You’ve become obsessed with the idea of starting your own farm. You’ve seen the documentaries, you’ve read the books – now what? What is that first step, and how do you take it?
Step 1: Define What You Like
Getting started in agriculture is as much about following your passion as it is about creating a business that will be financially viable. And that passion is important, because, no matter which road you choose, you are going to work your butt off.
When you start raising your own food, you are going to live what you “do” – every day. That may sound obvious, but most people in the typical 9-to-5 grind don’t define themselves by their profession; farmers do. Farming is a way of life. There’s an intensity to the experience, and a connection to something bigger, which people rarely experience outside of agriculture.
The farms that succeed find a balance between four things:
What you love
What the world needs
What you are good at
What you can be paid for
The Japanese have a philosophy about this balance, which they call “Ikigai” (pronounced “icky-guy”). Here’s a Venn diagram that illustrates the intersections of those four factors:
For farmers, the factor which causes the most difficulty is the one named “What you can be paid for.” Don’t worry if you’re a person who especially struggles with that issue – we’re going to address it in this series.
Step 2: Create A Personal Budget
Just as you must learn to walk before you can run, you cannot expect to run a business well if you cannot run your own life efficiently. To find out how well you manage your existing financial factors, see if you can answer these questions:
Do you know your monthly income, and your expenses?
Can you state your total debt?
If you had to provide details of that financial information, could you?
Could you list what you absolutely need, and what can you live without?
Of course there are successful small farms all over the world, run by people who have found ways to make it work – but a factor common to most of those farmers is the ability to track what they do, analyze those records, and make decisions based on that information.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Decisions based on facts and figures, not feelings or faith
Whether you are already farming, or are about to start, a personal budget is paramount to your success. Ignorance is only bliss until it comes time to pay your bills.
Four ways to track your personal budget:
DIY Personal Spreadsheet
With Excel or Google Sheets, you can create a simple and easy-to-follow budget:
Pro: Simple to understand and edit, with little set-up time required
Con: No automated entry - you have to enter all the information manually
Free Software
Mint.com connects to your bank account to help you track your income and expenses. (Note: While Mint is a powerful tracking app, it is less useful as a budgeting tool…)
Pro: Your expenses are entered into your budget automatically
Con: Ads, so many ads. Remember: If something is free, you are the product.
Free/Paid Software
You Need A Budget (“YNAB”) is a quality budgeting tool, offered in both free and paid versions. It takes your personal spreadsheet to the next level. The company serves its customers well, with an easy-to-follow platform, and a robust “How-To” library of information.
Pro: Easy to get started, and well-suited to beginners
Con: Advanced users may find the platform limited
Paid Software
Quicken allows for much customization, which is especially valuable for advanced users. This is a great personal finance application, which will be familiar to those who know Quickbooks. (This is how I track my personal finances.)
Pro: Flexibility and advanced features
Con: Steep learning curve for its more advanced functions
Step 3: Pick Something You Like To Eat
When you are just starting out and considering what to farm, the choices seem endless. Do you raise chickens? Vegetables? Bees, berries, dairy cows, flowers? Do you plant fruit trees? Do you grow grain, make goat milk soap? I’ve found that the easiest way to figure out what you should grow is to choose something you love to eat.
If you are passionate about a certain ingredient, that item will be a great starting point. If there is a style of food that you like to make, see if you can grow the main ingredient in your local climate. You could simplify further, and just say that you love BBQ, and you want to grow the tastiest meats to put on your smoker.
Committing to something you are passionate about will automatically give you a competitive advantage when it comes time to sell the thing you want to grow. Most small farmers are zealots about the things they produce. No one knows more about roasting a chicken than a poultry farmer, no one knows how to make a salad quite like a vegetable farmer, and passionate dairy farmers make the best ice cream. If you love the food you hope to grow, you already know where you can buy it, what a quality sample of that food looks like, who else is eating it, and who knows the best ways to prepare it. You will be amazed at how your knowledge as a consumer will help you as you become a producer.
What do you like to eat?
For the sake of this exercise, let’s use chicken – the most consumed animal protein on the planet, and the gateway to pasture-based livestock.
Step 4: Set A Price
Now that you have your product, it is time to set an imaginary price.
There are a few ways that you can do this:
You can make up a price
You can reference the price of a similar item which you purchased
You can do market research
Make Up A Price
This is the easiest method. You can just set a price of, say, $10 per pound, and work with nice simple numbers. You know this price has no basis in reality – for now, you are simply interested in learning the process, without having to fuss over prices of $4.39 or $6.99/lb.
Set The Price Based Off Products You Buy
Farming is akin to full-contact grocery shopping. Not only do you have the opportunity grow the things you love to eat – you get to make them even better. The goal is to create something that makes you happy, and brings happiness to others.
If you love roast chicken, you probably have some in the house right now. How much money did you spend on that chicken? If you know that number, then you can figure out how many chickens it takes to pay your rent.
John’s Rent = 62.5 Chickens
***Author’s Note: I love that the above math means nothing to you, because it is only relevant to me. I will also point out: this math relies on gross profit rather than net profit.
Setting Prices Off Of Market Research
Market research is an investment in yourself, and in your farm business. If you don’t know how chickens are being sold in your area today, how are you going to know how to sell chickens in your area tomorrow? It is perfectly acceptable to study the strategies of your competitors, and look for strengths and weaknesses.
Now it is time to get in your car and go to all the local grocery stores, to the farmers’ markets, the farm stands. Anywhere you can buy a chicken, you should visit that place, and start asking questions.
What does each one cost?
What does the packaging look like?
What are the “Best by…” dates?
What claims does the packaging make?
How did you want to raise chickens?
How do you see your chickens on this shelf?
You can do the same with any product, in any category. You just have to go where the item is being sold, and take some notes. The trick is not in the information you gather, or the math you apply; the “trick” to being successful is to just do it, and follow through.
An idea without action will remain theory.
Compile your notes. Compare the claims that are on the packaging, and the price of the chicken. You will walk away from this exercise with a better understanding of your local market, and a small data sample which you can use to build your plan.
Step 5: At What Scale Do You Have to Operate, in Order to Survive?
At this point in our journey, you need to know at least two things in order to continue:
1. How much income you need, in order to survive
2. How many chickens you need, to hit that income number
Based on the prices you have set for your products, how many of them will you need to grow in order to reach financial sustainability?
When you settle on the number of chickens you have to raise in order to live the life you envision, find a farm that is producing that amount of chickens. Is it 10,000 broiler chickens? 80,000 broiler chickens? Is it 1,000 broilers, 200 layers, and a small herd of goats? When you find that farmer, ask questions and take notes. How do they live? Do they get to take time off? Do they seem happy? Can you see yourself in their shoes?
Good Advice: Keep Everything in Perspective
As you do your research, and you look at examples of larger or “more successful” farms, remember that they have their own story about how they got where they are. Do not compare your own self to those people; instead, focus on the things you love about their lives – how they live their lives, and what they do to afford those pleasures. Money is an important tool, but it is not the only way to measure wealth.
Step 6: YOU CAN FARM!
The good news is, you can farm. Farmers come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Farmers come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Farmers come from every background; some are from families that have been doing it for generations, and some are just starting out.
What brings us together are our shared values of healthy food, healthy people, and a healthy planet. If you are working toward those three things, then you are well on your way to becoming a farmer.
If you want to read more about this specific topic, I recommend Joel Salatin’s “You Can Farm.” In this book, Joel shares some of the strategies he has used – for himself, and when coaching others to start their own farm or homestead.
See It In Practice - How I Started My Own Farm
If you are interested in more of my backstory, I put together a four part series of blog posts that give you the longer story behind how I started my farm.