GFP068: Farm Planning and Execution

 “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Isn’t that the truth? 2015 has gotten off to a rocky start but things are really starting to look up. Even with three feet of snow outside I can already see signs of Spring. Birds are starting to sing in the morning, maple sap is slowly slowly starting to run, and my order for baby chickens just went out. It has really been a weird past couple of months. Through a strange turn of events I ended up being the only one running the farm this year in a place that need more than one person to run it. It was a good (albeit stupid) exercise on how far I can push myself in the winter.

That is all about to change. I have adjusted my farm business plan to reflect the changing of the guard and we are moving forward in a more positive direction. We’re going to farm smarter instead of harder. This is a change that would have/should have come anyways, but the situation I was in expedited the process.

On farm this year we are not going to grow any of our operations bigger in terms of production numbers, instead we are going to concentrate on making what we already have more profitable. How are we going to do that? Record keeping and analytics!!! Super fun!!!

Alright, as excited as I am for the Farm Finance Challenge, the reason that it is called a challenge is because it is not coming easy. There are many details to iron out and new habits to form. That being said, it is already working to our benefit.

I’ve gotten to the point where at any given time I can go into QuickBooks and run a report on the financial health of the farm. I can be as vague or as detailed as possible, and man do hard numbers really point out your mistakes!

It is the kind of clarity that any small business needs. It shows you the real financial impact of your actions and allows you to make educated decisions going forward. Money is not why I am doing this, BUT it is the most important tool on my farm if I am to keep farming.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• How money is a tool to help your farm move forward

• What to look for when hiring staff

• Not trying to do it all, but finding people with skills that complement your own

• Outsourcing major projects in ways that benefit your farm and the people who are helping you out

• How to get people on your farm when you’re located “off the beaten path”

• How I plan what is going to happen on Camps Road Farm

• What my office looks like

• What a TLA is…

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Farm Finance Challenge

• New Milford Youth Agency

• NMYA YouTube Channel

• Free Union Grass Farm Podcast, What breed of chicken to raise for meat?

• FatCow.com/farm for 60% off each month for an entire year

  • (Heads up, I’m an affiliate for FatCow so I earn a modest commission if you use this link. My websites have been hosted with them since 2009 and we’re still going strong.)

Take aways:

How are you setting up your farm this year? Are you getting bigger? Are you getting smaller? How and why are you making that decision?

What would you do with detailed knowledge about how profitable your farm is?

Farm Quote:

“Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are only scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.” - John C Maxwell 

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

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• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

May the Force Multiplier Be With You

http://youtu.be/y9PVPRBga6U

What This Post is All About

I would like to introduce my friend and now business partner at Farm Marketing Solutions, Scott Messina. While this post is meant to be all about Scott, I also wanted to share the whole story to highlight how important is has been for me to have another person to work with on my business.

That is the takeaway from all of this, the right business partner can do wonders for your company.

Entrepreneur “Superman Syndrome”

Farm Marketing Solutions was founded in 2012. Kate and I were just finishing up our bike ride across the United States and we were looking more seriously at starting our life in agriculture. We had just spent the year working on different organic farms and were looking to head from San Diego (where we ended) back to Connecticut to work as apprentices.

While on the road I noticed one general theme: small farms could use marketing and business help. So naturally, without having any kind of business degree or background, I started Farm Marketing Solutions.

Fast forward to 2015 and I have started and/or run three businesses: Farm Marketing Solutions, FoodCyclist Farm (my original farm), and now I manage Camps Road Farm. By diving in head first I have certainly learned a lot, which means I made a lot of mistakes.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was trying to do all of this myself. I fell into the entrepreneurial trap of “I’m superman, I can do it all myself.” That’s wrong. So wrong. I came close to completely burning out many times in the last few years. I needed help.

Balancing My Farm While Growing My Internet Business

My first love is my family. As long as Kate and Mabel are happy I will keep moving forward. My next love is my farm. Camps Road Farm is an amazing opportunity to live the life I’m passionate about, while giving me the platform to share that life with others in many different ways.

Two things are clear after spending a few years as a full-time farmer:

1. It takes an immense amount of knowledge and skill to pull this off. That knowledge can be hard to come by even if you are looking in the right places.
2. That demographic of farmers 55 years old+ is worried about their lifes’ work being lost and the knowledge they have retiring with them.

I was learning, usually the hard way, how to be a good farmer. Given my outspoken nature and “nothing to lose” attitude I have had countless conversations with other farmers who have shared their experiences with me. I was getting so much input that I even started a podcast to capture and share those conversations.

After three years of wanting to help other farmers with their marketing and business strategies I was “quickly” growing a community who wanted more. The only problem was that I am one person and I am dedicated to my farm. How do I effectively share more information with other farmers and not detract from Camps Road Farm? Enter my force multiplier!

A Partner with a Complementary Skill-set

In my experience, trying to do everything for your business is just pure shenanigans. With all the skills required to run any business it is good to have another person to share the workload who brings in a complementary skill-set in support of yours.

That and let me tell you, it’s great to have another person to bounce ideas off of. There exists a thing called “decision fatigue” where you have to make so many decisions that you end up just blanking after a while because you’re tired of calling all the shots. Having someone else to help make decisions, to be a gauge for how good your ideas area, and to help you keep focused on your strategy is so beneficial. I cannot recommend it enough.

Result: Growth, Prosperity, Organization, Better Sleep

If the right person joins your company it can work wonders. Scott came on just as the Farm Finance Challenge launched, and there couldn’t have been a better time. The FFC has been a decent amount of extra work on top of what I normally do on Farm Marketing Solutions and I have only been able to pull it off with Scott’s help.

Since the start of 2015 our website traffic numbers have increased by a power of 5, our social media engagement is through the roof, and most importantly we’re helping more people.

I now have someone to help me with the monotonous tasks, someone to help with overall strategy to know if we’re headed in the right direction, and to be another creative mind in the whole “internet business” world.

Scott’s Story

In addition to learning that I need another person to run my business, I have also learned that I shouldn’t try and speak for anyone else. Letting Scott speak in Scott’s words I would like to share a link to an article he wrote on what motivated him to come on as a partner in Farm Marketing Solutions.

“Farming is Tough” - An introduction to Scott Messina

What the Future Holds

Right now we are working on making the Farm Finance Challenge to best that it can be. It’s a big project and we’re both doing this as our second job. Once we’ve worked out the kinks we will get into producing and organizing more content.

Expect to see Scott on some of my videos, posting business information on the blog, and even making appearances on the podcast. Whether he is actually in the content or not, he is taking a more active hand in organizing, creating, and distributing the information that we are sharing on FMS.

Also, Scott now runs our Twitter account. Pop on over to Twitter.com/marketingfarms and say hello!

I am happy/excited/relieved/inspired to have another person to work with. I have been quietly looking for someone for about a year and it is great to find the right fit.

If you don’t mind, please take a second and write a quick note in the comments section below to welcome Scott to the community.

Cheers!

What Sesame Street Taught Me About Farming

As quasi-hippy parents raising our daughter Mabel, Kate and I don't allow much TV in the house. Coming from a television production background myself, I don't think all TV is bad, just a lot of it. If we're going to let Mae watch TV it is going to be one of two shows, Sesame Street and Dinosaur Train.

I happen to love watching both of those shows now. Is it sad that Mabel will lose interest and I'll still be sitting there watching? I say no, haha. Having now watched my fair share of Sesame Street I have come to appreciate the knowledge that they share through the use of puppets. It's cute, it's colorful, and it often carries a great message.

The Right Words at the Right Time

The right advice at the right moment in your life can make all the difference. Sometimes when you need something the most it presents itself in a way you never imagined.

It has been a tough winter on the farm. Pipes bursting, 110 year record low temperatures, trained farm staff quitting, financial pressure and stress, and your typical Seasonal Affective Disorder. It can all lead to a pretty depressing state of mind. I'll be talking about it in the next farm podcast as well as touching on it in the next Farm Finance Challenge report.

I would say 6 our of every 7 days I have had to convince myself to not give it all up and leave. I have to remember that Spring will come, new staff will help relieve the pressure on me, and that I have a wonderful support system on farm. Even with all of that perspective some days all you want to do is throw your hands in the air, yell F*** IT, and get in the car and start driving in the opposite direction.

Enter Sesame Street

http://youtu.be/pWp6kkz-pnQ

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That Bruno Mars, what a guy!!! Mabel loves this song. She will run into my office when I'm working on something and pull on my desk chair saying "music... music..." Though coming from her 1-1/2 year old mouth it sounds like "mew-mick...mew-mick...".

Farming is tough. There's no way around it. But as the quote that I gave on the last podcast episode says, "A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos

It is my passion and my job to make my farm work. Farming is my hard thing to do well. It is going to take time, it is going to take patience, and it going to take getting through the tough times and focusing instead on all the good that this life as to bring. After all, I am who I am.

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http://youtu.be/cyVzjoj96vs

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What I am is a farmer, through and through.

I farm for my family, I farm for my community, and I farm for myself. It is important to always take stock of why you are doing something and to not lose that. No matter what your profession there will be challenges and you will want to quit at times. I may be one of the very few that is willing to openly talk about it though. I hope that my openness and candidness (is that a word? has to be a word) helps you in your journey and lends some perspective.

Farming is not all sunshine and roses. You'll deal with financial stress, death, disease, grumpy customers, the forces of nature, and so much more. At times it will feel like the world is out to get you. But it's not, tomorrow will come, and you will do what you have to do bring balance back into your life.

Take a lesson from Bruno and Will. You are who your are and DON'T GIVE UP!!!

Cheers!

GFP067: Farm Location and Branding Make All The Difference

Farm marketing is really funny in that is can be very easy, or it can take a significant amount of effort. Today's podcast showcases a good example of both. My guests today Patti & Rick from Breakwind Farm are a good example of choosing the right farm location as well as some really successful branding centered around humor. Camps Road Farm, my farm, is a good example of poor farm location and I'll be honest, some boring branding.

Good/Bad Farm Location

When you're starting your farm and you're looking for land, an important thing to consider is how many cars pass by that spot in a given day. If it is in your farm plan to have any people actually come to your farm then natural road traffic or "good road frontage" is pretty critical to getting started. If all you have to do is make your farm look inviting and put up a farm sign with what you're offering you're in good shape.

When you're writing your farm business plan and figuring out how you are going to market your farm products, run some experiments. If you have the time and ability, set up some lawn chairs with a friend on the road in front of your farm and invest a day at different times of the year to count how many cars go by. I'm not kidding. I have been facing my own perceived reality vs. the actual numbers and sometimes it can shock you.

Once you have a number of cars at different some of the year you can calculate, "well, if 500 cars passed by, and I can get 10% of them to stop and spend $20 on average, then I can potentially gross $1000 on a Saturday (or whatever it is)." This can help you get an idea of how much to grow before you make the investment in the seeds and end up with a kitchen full of rotten tomatoes if you over produced.

That's just an idea, I literally just made that up as I'm writing this. Did I do that for my farm? No, because there's virtually no cars that drive by my farm. I've kept an eye on the road throughout the whole year, it never gets busy. Let's get into my situation.

If you live in a backwoods section of town like I do, getting people to actually come to your farm is a whole different story. It is nearly impossible for me to get people to come to the farm on a regular basis. Even though I don't feel the drive is that bad, it is just too far for some. What do I do about that? Enter my unfair advantage(s).

I have been doing a lot to encourage some more people coming to the farm. I've registered the farm location on Google Maps, I've hosted events here, I encourage sales here in the winter when farmers' markets are slow, and I am constantly inviting people up to "see the chickens". In other words marketing marketing marketing.

I also have an on-farm brewery. We're not currently zoned for brewery tours and tastings, so there's only minor benefit of people randomly stopping in to try and snoop around (yes that happens, we lock our doors at night now). If there comes a day when the brewery is open to tours and tastings then the farm should see some increase of traffic as people are drawn to the brewery. I am working on my farm store and signage to best be able to cross-market to any increase of traffic that may come to the farm as a result of my marketing and the draw of the brewery.

What do do if you don't have a brewery starting on your farm? Events and more complete offerings. I am hosting several events and workshops this year as taking more volunteer groups and doing more farm tours. If I give people a specific reason to get to the farm besides just coming to pick up a dozen eggs then my hope is that they'll have a good time, realize the drive isn't as bad as they thought, and then they'll keep coming back. What I mean by "more complete offerings" is having more for sale than just eggs when they come to farm. Even if I just grow enough vegetables (or whatever) to supply my farm store, having a more complete offering where people can come and get meat, eggs, veggies, and honey, then they have more of a reason to make the trip. A "one stop shop" if you will.

Although Rick & Patti are known for their home-made baked beans, they have other seasonal products built into their farm to keep people coming back and spending time on their farm. They offer seasonal Christmas tress, pumpkins, mums, seed starting kits, hanging plants, and even gifts/activities for kids. They talk about all of that in the podcast episode.

It is in my farm plan, and I am starting it this year, to grow and offer more variety on farm. Not only do I want to feed my family with the variety of food I'll grow, but I want to be able to provide a more complete diet for the customers who make the effort to come to the farm. Will this all work? We'll find out in time. You can bet I'll be talking about it here.

Funny/Bland Branding

I mean come on, Breakwind Farm, how can you not at least give a little chuckle when you hear that? Rick & Patti have built a fair amount of humor and satire into their farms' branding. That humor has made them approachable, has made them a magnet for media, and has allowed them to sell baked beans with the name FARTOOTEMPTING. What do you get from the first four letters of that?

They are similar to Lucie of Locally Laid Egg Company. "Local chicks are better" and "Get locally laid" I mean, come on now. Their branding is good enough that they're in Minnesota and I've heard of them over here in Connecticut.

Now Camps Road Farm is not bad branding, just a little bland branding. I didn't choose it, and nothing against the guys who did, but it is a bit more work to get people to give a crap about Camps Road Farm. Camps Road Farm is located on Camps Rd. which is half a mile from the more locally famous Camps Flat Rd. I cannot tell you how many times I've had the conversation of, "no no, not Camps Flat Rd., Camps Rd. If you keep going on Camps Flat you'll reach Sawyer Hill and that leads to Camps Rd. a little further East."

Am I saying that I would prefer a funny name? Honestly no, Camps Road Farm (CRF) works really well for our goals, and a brand can be what you make of it. While we're not going to get the buzz of a name that has to do with farts or sex, we'll instead earn our reputation from what we produce and the stories we tell. It takes longer and is more work, but fits well with our holistic goals.

What's the take-away from all this? Pick a brand that you like and fits your personality and the personality of your farm. A brand is only as good as the people behind it.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• finding an idea and running with it

• accepting a challenge

• the role location and branding play in your farm business

• how to get people on your farm and keep them coming back

• the role humor can have with your farm business (hopefully a big role)

Interview with Rick & Patti of Breakwind Farm

Breakwind Farm is family run business. They started selling fresh vegetables, herbs, seasonal flowers and baskets, pumpkins and wreaths at a stand outside their house in 2009 and more recently at the Contoocook Farmers Market. They have enjoyed welcoming their new and returning customers each year. They concocted the idea of Breakwind Farm's four varieties of FARTOOTEMPTING Baked Beans in the spring of 2011 and started selling them at the Farmers Market where they quickly became a hit.

It wasn't long before their beans were being requested at local fairs, festivals and other venues. They added FARTOOTEMPTING Breakwind Bean t-shirts to their product line by the end of the summer and they too have become a hit. They have four mouth-watering flavors of baked beans, each offering a unique taste, all guaranteed vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and delicious!

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Breakwind Farm

• Breakwind Farm on Facebook

• Farm Finance Challenge HUB

• Permaculture Voices Conference PV2

Permaculture Voices Conference in San Diego March 4th - 8th

PV2 isn’t just another permaculture convergence that focuses on hyper-local DIY skill building and resiliency; we instead decided to look bigger.

We are blending the practical techniques and tactics found in workshops with the entrepreneurial spirit and opportunity of a business conference.

We have brought together a diverse group of creative and innovative doers in a variety of fields looking to share experiences, knowledge, connect, and create in ways that increase passion, purpose and profit. These doers come from a variety of fields both within and outside of permaculture. Each field has its own needs and yields. It is this edge that creates the opportunity for things to happen, and it is this opportunity that offers value to the attendees – how can you fill needs and utilize yields to create more value in your life.

Farm Finance Challenge

Click here for the HUB with all the farms

For the first posting we had some farms that chose to publish late due to whatever reason. Farm life, sick kids, etc... Nothing wrong with that. As we move forward we are all trying to publish as a group on the 15th of every month. So the middle of every month going forward we will have our reports up and to you guys so that we can all grow as a farming community.

Fresh Farm Aquaponics

• Aquaponics and Consulting

• Gross Income: $2210.31

• Expenses: $262.27

• January Report

Humble Hill Farm

• Vegetables and Fruit

• Gross Income: $1043.00

• Expenses: $6365.23

• January Report

Take aways:

Are you maximizing the potential of the traffic you get on your farm? Are you giving them a reason to come back?

What message are you sending with your brand?

Farm Quote of the Episode

"A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well." - Jeff Bezos

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

GFP066: Stockpile Grazing, Saving Money on Farm, and Sharing Information

What if you could save more money every year just by managing your farm a little better and taking care of your land? What if the strategy that made the most ecological sense made the most financial sense as well? Well, turns out people have been doing it for years! We're talking stockpile grazing. Where basically instead of cutting hay you are leaving the grass on pasture and letting the cows graze longer. Seems simple right? Well yes, the concept is simple, but the actual execution is a little tougher, that's maybe why not so many people do it. Also, there's a bottle neck of information into a few books and not a lot of up to date real time information.

Enter The Grass Whisperer.

Troy Bishopp "The Grass Whisperer" is an experienced farmer and great writer that is taking his skills and filling in that information gap. On today's podcast he talks about saving a whole bunch of money by keeping your cows on grass longer, he drops some words of wisdom about how to learn on farm, and the rest of the interview is jam-packed with helpful tidbits whether you raise animals on pasture or not.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• What is stockpile grazing?

  • How do you do it?

  • How do you plan?

  • What effects does it have on your land?

  • Will is save you money?

  • How Troy grazed his cattle on pasture until January!

  • How being flexible will keep you sane

  • The benefits of letting your grass rest

  • What it means to keep your microbes well-fed

Interview with The Grass Whisperer

Troy Bishopp, aka “The Grass Whisperer” is an accomplished professional grazier of 27 years, a grasslands advocate, and a voice for grassfed livestock producers to the media, restaurateurs and legislators.  In addition to working with the Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Upper Susquehanna Coalition as their regional grazing specialist, Troy is a free-lance writer for a variety of publications, and a popular presenter for workshops and conferences.

Troy is a life-long learner, taking advantage of new knowledge and past experience to bring a holistic approach to grazing planning.  Instead of thinking in terms of grazing 8 inches down to 2 inch residuals, he helps farmers chart a course that pays attention to their personal goals as well as their profits.  Visit his Grazing Help and Speaking & Workshops pages to find out more about what Troy brings to the table (or the pasture).

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• TheGrassWhisperer.com

• OnPasture.com

• American Grazing Lands

• Camps Road Farm

• Farm Finance Challenge

• Greg Judy's Green Pastures Farm

• Kevin Fulton on the Grass Fed Network

Click the image to go to Troy's website.

Farm quote of the episode:

"I've often been asked what drives me, particularly through the last 50 years of abuse, and ridicule. What has kept me going is one word - care. I care enough about the land, the wildlife, people, the future of humanity. If you care enough, you will do whatever you have to do, no matter what the opposition." - Allan Savory

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

2015 Pasture Raised Pigs Budget

http://youtu.be/ftn4VSjF8sk Raising pigs on pasture is something that I am very excited about adding into the farm this year. I already have my 12 pigs reserved for the spring. I intend to raise feeder pigs rotating on pasture throughout the summer and sell them by the whole and half in the fall. The breed that I am getting are Yorkshire Landrace Crosses. I am definitely not the only one excited about bringing pigs on farm. I already have people reserving them and it looks to be a fairly successful addition.

To download this excel file:

Farm Marketing Solutions is founding on the idea of mutual support and transparency. If you would like to download the excel file that I am using in the video you can scroll to the bottom of the post and enteryour name and email address to subscribe to our email newsletter. The first email from us that you will receive will be a link to download the excel file as well as all the previous excel files from the other areas of the budget.

Once subscribed I will send you (kind of) weekly emails with the new areas of the budget as well as updates on what content I've posted on various places on the internet. I promise to keep it simple, useful, and to the point.

That's Kate bonding with some piglets that we met a few years back.

Adding a new operation to your farm:

One of the best pieces of advice I can give is to start slow when adding something on to your farm. Start with just a few (of whatever) and grow it as you feel comfortable. You will make a 1000 mistakes, there will be a steep learning curve, and you will appreciate not being overwhelmed by a large volume of product if the market doesn't respond the way you expect.

Now, I think I will have a great market for the pork. There are people already reserving pigs which is incredible. My hang up is that I have not raised pigs on pasture before and I have not raised them in this area where I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to take them when it's time for processing. So many things to figure out.

I am starting small for my scale at 12 pigs because that's where I feel comfortable but it's still a better scale for me than raising 3 pigs. I've done this with other areas of the farm in the past and it's how I started in with chickens a couple of years ago. Enough to make some money while not crushing myself.

Steps to adding a new operation on to your farm:

1. Start slow at a small scale
2. Figure out all the details (feed, processing, growing techniques, etc...)
3. Keep diligent records
4. Develop your market
5. Keep diligent records
6. Scaleup next year if you feel comfortable

You'll note what's in there twice. Keeping diligent records. This is a mistake I have made in the past and one that I hope to rectify with the Farm Finance Challenge. Diligent record keeping is something every business should have to assess profitability and over-all financial health of the business. Even if you are doing it on a homestead scale. A business is a business and bills have to paid.

You can bet that this year with a new operation I will be writing down everything so that when it comes time to budgeting next year I have accurate numbers to make an educated prediction of my year.

Numbers change:

Already since the publication of my video I have 9 comments about how other peoples' numbers are different than mine. Especially on processing. I have budgeted about $400 per pig for processing and there are other people who are paying $133 per pig. That's a $267 difference! Multiply that by 12 pigs and that's $3204. I mean, that's crazy! We'll see what happens with me this year.

I also already have a change to my own budget. I budgeted $150 per piglet and was even expecting to pay a little more. When I confirmed my pigs this winter I also confirmed the price. I'm paying $95 per pig and not the $150 that I thought. So I'm already doing better than I thought.

The lesson learned here is that a number is just a number until it's changed. You can make your budget look like whatever you want. I made mine pessamistic because I wanted to be prepared for the worst case scenario. If I wasn't able to handle the worst than I had no buffer and that's a stressful place to be for me.

As the budget sits right now I'm at a predicted loss for the whole year.  And that's fine. It is now my goal to change my plan around, adjust my growing techniques, and find where the holes in the boat are so that I end the year closer to break even. Remember, I'm in a brand new business and for all intents and purposes this is year two. Hard to be overly profitable on a farm in year two, but I'm working as hard as I can at it.

Raising pigs on pasture:

A slightly younger, much less stressed version of me gives a pig a belly-rub out on Tara Firma Farm in California.

Like I said in the beginning of the post I have never raised pigson my farm before. I have some experience but there will be a lot of learning going on. I am adding them in because they attract people, we're know for being a protein farm and this is a welcome addition to our products, we have good land for pigs, and they are good at processing brewers' grain (and we have an on farm brewery).

Because I'm learning I will be relying on the places I know where I can get some good information on pig raising.

• Forrest Pritchard has a great article on raising pigs on pasture and the lessons he has learned. That puts be a couple years ahead of my initial mistakes already.
• My friend Ethan Book over at The Beginning Farmer raises a lot of pigs on pasture and I have his phone number on speed dial.
• I am part of an amazing Facebook group about pastured pigs.
• My friend Austin at This is Homesteady raises pigs locally near me (I know, I have some in my freezer)
• All that, and I'm not afraid to ask questions of anyone I think might have some pig experience.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. As farmers we are a community and as a community we need to support each other. Publishing my content is my chance to give back and to ask for support. I get all sorts of comments on my content and they are all appreciated. If I am ever slow to get back to you it is not because I'm not thinking about you or because I'm too lazy, haha. It is often the opposite. Even though I love having running Farm Marketing Solutions, my farm always comes first. And you know that running a farm takes a lot of work. Thank you for your patience, understanding at my typos, and your support with what I am trying to do.

Cheers!

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Are online farmers markets the wave of the future?

As a farmer I am always looking for new ways to market my products. Getting farm products in the hands of willing and eager customers can present some serious challenges. For instance, right now my chickens are doing amazing and producing a lot of eggs considering it is the end of January. My problem is that local farmers' markets are scarce this time of year, I pretty much lose money wholesaling eggs, and it's currently nearly impossible to get people on farm. Actually, as I write this we're in the middle of a snow storm, no one is going anywhere. We are producing enough food to "feed the world" (I f***ing hate that phrase) but the problem is distribution. How do we get the food to the people now need/want it?

My farm is also at the disadvantage of being kind of remote. It can be tough to get my relatives to drive out here let alone someone who just wants a dozen eggs. So if I cannot get people to come to the farm how then am I going to move my products?

That is an answer tech moguls are trying to answer. But are the answers that they are coming up with the right ones?

A friend of mine sent me this article from Tech Crunch about a new online farmers' market that connects willing customers with farmers in need of a new marketplace. Sounds great right? My opinion as a farmer is both yes and no.

Are online farmers' markets a good idea?

Yes:

I love that people besides farmers are concerned with helping farmers sell and distribute their products. The truth is we do need help with marketing and distribution. I know I do at least, and I'm the guy who started Farm Marketing Solutions. I'm looking for and experimenting with solutions to these problems every day.

As my/our customer base gets more and more online at home and on their phones, having a marketplace that connects with them where and when they want to buy is a beautiful thing. But let's get into some of the disadvantages.

No:

The hard truth about life is that no matter what you do, if you expect to pay your bills then something that you are doing has to make money. No big shocker there. The tricky question is, "where is that money going to come from?" For me as a farm producer my money comes from the eggs, chickens, hops, apples, and vegetables that I grow. For an online farmers' market, that money has to come either from the people buying the product or the people selling the product. They're a middle man, and every good middle man takes his cut.

I sell my chicken for $6 a pound retail. I have to sell it at that price or more (currently contemplating a price increase) in order to remotely come close to making a profit. Now imagine my position when someone is going to take a cut of that, or imagine being the consumer and having to pay $8 a pound for chicken when you can get it in a grocery store for $1.29 per pound. That's tough either way.

Now granted there is theoretically less time marketing my products and distributing them. That's what these services provide. However the price of that can be pretty steep. Here's a real life example:

For Camps Road Farm we used to use GoodEggs.com to market and distribute products in Brooklyn, NY. We would put up a list of things we had for sale, GoodEggs would take orders and let us know what customers wanted, and then we would harvest, process (clean and bag), and drive them into Brooklyn from the farm which is roughly 1.5-2 hours away. After the expense of growing the item, packing it, and driving it into the City, GoodEggs would take a 30% cut of of the sale price. That was more than our net profits in most cases than if we sold it locally ourselves. So we were operating at a loss selling through GoodEggs.

We started out at a 25% commission on GoodEggs and then it was up to 30% . On products where we make 10-30% net profit in the first place that was a steep loss and we couldn't handle it. Especially with the added expense of driving a lower volume of food into the City each week.

Now there's a solution to the driving and distributing problem presented by GoodEggs with GrubMarket. The customer orders it, the farmer harvests it, and GrubMarket comes and picks it up and delivers it to the customer. At least that's how I understand it.

While GrubMarket seems to solve several of the pain points that consumers and producers face with GoodEggs I still have trouble seeing it work long term. I have a hard enough time making money as a farm without having to pay someone to sell and distribute my products. Granted there are farms that function selling primarily wholesale and maybe the margins here will work for their business structure, I don't know. I can only speak to my situation specifically.

Farming is a business of extremely tight margins. Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank would hate everything about it. Getting rich is not why we do it, but staying afloat is necessary in order to keep farming. So often is the case that the farm is subsidised in some way. Those subsidies can take the form of the Federal Government, a spouse who works in town, a team of investors, or a winning lottery ticket. Whatever the case may be, giving up any more money then we have to is a sure fire way to go backward quickly.

Is this a band-aid to a much larger problem?

I hesitated to even write this post as I try to keep it positive on Farm Marketing Solutions and I really hate to say anything remotely bad about anyone besides myself. My mother always used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." On this topic I have to admit that I am a little negative.

Our food system is broken. That is the truth of it. It is wrtten about in countless articles, spoken about in videos and by speakers all over the world. Things are not really working out and we're heading toward some sort of global tragedy. The inevitaility of the eventuality of an international food crisis is written on grocery store shelves around the world.

What then is the solution? What can we do to help solve this problem?

The solution is happening, but it is happening on a relatively small scale. People are falling in love with food again. Everywhere new farmers' markets are popping up, people are traveling further and investing more in their food. But until our food policies better support small farms, until more people are willing to buy locally, and until food becomes more of a focus for people instead of an after-thought, we will have to struggle with finding a solution for how to get food to the people who actually want it.

I applaud GoodEggs and GrubMarket for their efforts and ingenuity. Thank you for what you are trying to do. Hopefully we can figure this out.

A Solution for Farmers:

There's something you can do to help further the slow food movement, get good food on people's tables, and grow your business. Tell your story. Transparency sells better than anything else and people are looking for it. Talk about your story, the products you produce and why you love them. The more open you are about your business, both the good and the bad, the more people are going to be drawn to what you are doing which leads to us having a bigger affect on how food policy is written.

If the creation of GoodEggs and GrubMarket is proof that more customers are online then you should be there to. Get to marketing online through: ( links below to free tutorials)

• Your farm website
• Facebook
• Email list
• YouTube (working on this one)

People vote with their dollars and politicians are greedy. Market your farm, tell your story, and buy change with every tomato sold.

2015 Young Orchard Yearly Budget

http://youtu.be/dZrQ_RGDNSs While the orcahrd is not a money maker on farm at the moment it is an important part of our narrative. As part of the farm we work very closely with a distillery who produces apple-based spirits like Apple Brandy, Hard Cider, and Bourbon. We invested in putting in an apple orchard for a number of reasons.

• Our orchard will help provide rare apples that are good for distilling that the current growers are having trouble supplying because of the increased demand in the market.
• It adds marketing juice to the distillery to esentially have their own orchard where they source locally from.
• It further diversifies our farm so that down the road we have several operations to keep our income diverse.
• The farm can use the apples for cider, you-pick, apple pies, etc... if we so choose to go down that road.

So while there is no return this year as far as apple yeild, that has been planned for in the budget. The distillery helps cover part of the cost, the other operations on farm help cover part of the cost. It's a tricky endevor, but also quite exciting. Personally I really enjoy watching the trees grow up.

To download the excel file:

If you would like the excel file shown in this video then you have the option of scrolling to the bottom of the page to sign up for the Farm Marketing Solutions Email List. When you enter in your information then I will send you a free copy of the excel sheet for you to do as you wish.

As part of the email list I will automatically send you the future budget sheets so you only have to sign up once. You will also receive exclusive content, news from FMS, and a little bit of hilarity in your day.

Starting an Apple Orchard

Establishing an orchard of any kind is a process that takes years. The first year you plant trees which look like weak little sticks that you hope survive. Over time with love and attention you eventually get trees that bear beautiful fruit that you can eat raw or turn into delicious apple pies or distill into apple based spirits. Here's the timeline for our orchard as I see it:

• Spring 2013: Apple whips were planted on a hillside with good drainage, plenty of sun, some nearby hedgerows to help buffer winds but plenty of air circulation still the same.
• 2014: Trees were pruned in the winter after having a year to grow. We are pruning them to have a central leader and to take on the shape (kind of) like a Christmas Tree.
• 2015: They will get another winter pruning as they will get each year further shaping the tree. Still no fruit because we pinch all the buds back to encourage tree growth and not fruiting.
• 2016: Still no fruit as we are working on developing strong trees.
• 2017: Hope to see our first harvest this year, but who knows? Maybe that's too soon. Maybe I waited too long. I hear both stories at this point. If you have advice please leave it in the comments below.

Now, I'm really new to starting and maintaining an orchard. I will tell you one thing, there are 100 conflicting ways to do it! We are attempting to do it organically which I am also told is impossible. More on that in just a second.

Wait, you keep talking about a Distillery

I took that picture of the apple. Fun product shot right? Anyways, yes, we have a distillery. Camps Road Farm, the farm that I manage is part of "The Food Cycle LLC". Under the umbrella of the LLC operates three separate but interlinked and interdependent businesses. There is the farm, a craft brewery, and a distillery. The Brewery iswhere the hops from the farm go and in turn we get their spent grains to do with as we please. The distillery is where our apples go and we get the spent apple mash.

The distillery is Neversink Spirits,and I'll let them tell you their version of the story:

Neversink Spirits was founded by two long-time friends with a passion for spirits, wine, food, and nature.  After years of tasting, tinkering, sipping and planning, Noah Braunstein and Yoni Rabino found a project in which their passions could be realized – and Neversink Spirits was born.  Making spirits is their calling, apples their muse, and they finally found the vehicle in which to share their vision with their fans.

A spirit’s quality can only be as high as the ingredients from which it’s made.  When they formed a team with Camps Road Farm and Kent Falls Brewery to form a local collective known as “The Food Cycle,” they knew they had found a way to make their spirits truly unique.

Working together, the partners carefully developed a growing plan for the farm, cultivating ingredients specifically designed to make exceptional spirits and beers.  Being able to verify the supply chain’s provenance allows Neversink Spirits to make spirits of the highest quality, while minimizing the footprint on our planet.  Waste from the brewing and distilling processes is recycled back on the farm as compost and animal feed, increasing the productivity of the farm and closing the sustainability loop.

Apples are the cornerstone of Neversink Spirits’ production.  In 2012, through a grassroots effort from volunteers and friends, we planted over 350 apple trees on Camps Road Farm.  Spirits produced from the over 15 varieties of apples, all difficult to obtain heritage varietals that produce excellent cider and brandies, will excite the palate with new ways to experience of America’s favorite fruit.  We are passionate about apples and want to share that passion with our fans.

Based in Port Chester, NY, Neversink Spirits is currently setting up its facility and refining recipes. The opening is being planned for the fall of 2014 and Neversink Spirits will start releasing its line of fine spirits.  Look out for an apple brandy, an apple and herb eau-de-vie, a whiskey made with sustainably produced New York grains, and a surprise collaboration with the brewery!

We love spirits.  We love apples.  We love our planet.  And, we love you.

How we grow our apples:

We are attempting to grow our trees organically. We are following the organic standards on farm with everything we do potentially working toward actual certification. At the moment it doesn't make sense for use to certify, I also think we're not yet eligible.

I have started a YouTube playlist with videos about what we have done so far in our orchard. Here's that playlist to show you more specifically how we have started our orchard.

http://youtu.be/soRIMMY4968?list=PL-O8flggtY_vpymji6Fgy5FI65MUCegaM

If you have any further questions please leave themin the comments section below and I will do my best to help you out.

Other apple orchard information:

There have been three great places where I am getting a lot of my orcahrd information. The first is my neighbor Averill Orchards who has been in the apple business for I think a million years, or at least the family has. The youngest generation to pickof the pruning sheers is about my age and I have to admit, they're awesome. I constantly badger them with questions about how they start new trees and how they maintain a healthy orchard. They are low-spray, not organic, but that doesn't stop them from being a weatlth of information.

This is a good point to bring up that the best information that you will get is not going to come from a book, but from another local grower. They know your climate, they know the minutia, they have the examples on their farm to show you, and they probably have been doing it longer. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask questions. Just a word of advice, do more listening than talking, take notes, and bring them a gift for their time. They're as busy if not more busy than you.

The second place has been my local agricultural extension agents. Same thing as above, but they are designed to answer your questions. Make use of your extension agents, they're great, they're nice, and they know where to find the answers you are looking for.

The last place is indeed a book. "The Apple Grower" by Michael Pillips. I have learned a lot from this book. Not all of it I have taken action on and there's even things I do a little different. It's all about learning as much as you can and adapting it to your situation. Here's a link:

A favor to ask of you orchardists out there:

What is my budget missing? I don't pretend to have all the answers for everything farming. I am only a handfull of years in and I am learning as I go. If you have more knowledge or something to share I want to invite you to comment in the comments section below and I will add it into the blog post here and give you credit. I am constantly lookingto improve all areas of the farm and I know this is an area that I could stand to get some growth.

Subscribe to the FMS newsletter and receive your FREE copy of the 2015 Orchard Budget 

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GFP065: Is a homesteader considered a farmer?

When it comes to owning and operating a farm business there is a lot of talk about scale. Are you big enough? Are you too big? What is right, what is wrong? There is only one right answer, whatever works best for you is what works best for you. I operate at a large small scale. I mean that I only have 52 acres and at the same time I can't believe I have 52 acres, it's insane. It is not 10,000 acres or even 1,000 acres, but there is a lot that can go on with even just one acre. On the show today is a guy with about 10 acres and he is striking a balance that works for him and his family. He is also approaching farming or homesteading in a very smart way and has a lot of good information to share from doing so.

Is there a right or wrong scale, it depends. It all depends on what your holistic goal is. What are you looking to get out of your hard work on farm. And it will be hard work no matter what scale you operate at. For me personally I have been trying to balance the scale of the many different operations on farm to balance the fact that I am unable to do any one of them at a large enough scale to benefit from the economies of scale.

Not only have I been trying to balance how big or small things need to be to make money on farm, but taking into account that I miss my friends, I love spending time with my family, and I want to have a semblance of a life outside of farming. It all comes down to what your goals are and what life you want to live. Can farming provide that? We'll find out in this episode and throughout 2015.

So, can a homesteader be a farmer? Listen to the podcast episode and find out.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• Whether you can consider a homesteader a farmer

• How to start and grow your farm sustainably

• How much time is spent marketing vs. "in the field"

• Different business models for farming

• A great resource for all things homesteading

• A free cow is not free

• Getting time off from farming

Interview with Austin Martin of This Is Homesteady

In Austin's words from his website: "Imagine this scenario. Farm girl moves to city. Farm girl meets surfer boy. Farm girl shows surfer boy country, chickens, and how to shoot. They marry. Surfer boy becomes country boy.

Then came the babies.

After the birth of our son, we quickly realized our third floor apartment was not going to be right for the family we wanted to have. We wanted to find a place where we could put down roots. After a year-long search, we found Squash Hollow.

Surrounded by fields and woods, so began the idea of starting a small farm. With our farm we could provide our family with the freshest food available. Now we grow enough to share our harvest with your family as well!

Our Farms' Mission:

We believe the earth we live on and the animals around us are beautiful gifts to be taken care of!  We strive to give ouranimals the happiest life possible, and enrich the land around us."

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Squash Hollow Farm

• This is Homesteady

• Chicken Tractor eBook

• Homesteady Podcast

• Farm Finance Challenge HUB

• Squash Hollow Farm's Farm Finance Challenge Page

Take aways:

What would be your first step on your farming journey? Or, what is your next step to improve upon your current farm?

What scale do you think you would be most happy operating at?

Answer in the comments section below.

Farm quote of the episode:

"The road is rocky, make Homesteady." - Austin Martin

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

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• Past Episodes

2015 Hop Yard Budget

http://youtu.be/lmYm2lG59aY At Camps Road Farm we grow our hops following organic standards but we are not yet organic certified. Growing hops this way adds a lot of obstacles that might be easier to face if we were growing them conventionally but we feel it is worth the extra effort. Nothing against growing them conventionally, just putting it out there so you have perspective on our numbers.

The hops are technically in their third year but there were a lot of mistakes made in teh first couple of years as the learning curve has been very steep. They should perform this year as second year hops. We have done a fair amount of propogating and replanting so there are bines at different stages of the process throughout our yard. The yard itself is 1.4 acres. There are 21 rows that are 250 feet long. I'll get into a little more detail about how we grow hops and what are some of the mistakes we made a little later in this post.

To download the excel file:

If you would like acopy of teh excel file used to create the video you can scroll to the bottom of the post and put in your name and email address to join the Farm Marketing Solutions email list. If you are already on it you will be receiving a copy of the file in your inbox after this post goes live.

Wet Hops vs Dry Hops

To figure my production numbers for this years budget I have two numbers, wet hops and dry hops. When it comestime for harvest the hops cones (pictured above) will start to dry out in the field. They get to about 80% of their full moisture level and you want to get them off the bine and help them finish the drying process. Once harvested you dry the hops to roughly 8-8.5% moisture content.

What gives the hops their flavoring quality is the lupulin inside the cone between the leaves. You want to get rid of a lot of the moisture because it can casue off-flavors in your beer due to oxidation and decomosition. We use the UVM moisture calculator to calculate the moisture in our hops as we harvest and dry them.

Brewers can use wet hops to brew beer if they have it available. They have to use more because the flavors are not as concentrated and they have to make up for all the water weight. Dried hops are more valuable because (ideally) they have been preserved at their peak flavor and the variables that cause off-flavors have been mitigated or eliminated. There is definitely a lot of art and science to all this (like everything on farm) and it takes some skill to get it right. I am still learning for sure.

Peak production for out hop yard

The estimations for what you can produce from a hop yard per acre vary depending on who is giving you the number, where you are growing it, how you are growing it, etc... We estimate that when the hop yard is full of plants and all of them are fully grown we will yeild around 3000 pounds of wet hops. We have 1.4 acres and will have roughly 1400 plants.

For this years' budget however we are definitely not at peak production. I anticipate we will get about 1000 pounds of wet hops this year.

Labor on a hop farm:

Whether you are starting or running a hop yard there is a lot of labor. Even just walking around to check for pests and problems takes a lot of time. It is just like any other plant that you might grow on farm. They require love, attention, and a heavy dose of understanding. There are pests, nutrient imbalances ordeficiencies, and of course the dreaded downy mildew.

With such a small yard we don't benefit from doing anything at a large scale. Most of the work we do in the hop yard right now is by hand or with simple tools. We train by hand, prune by hand, and trellis by hand. All the manure spreading, ammendment spraying, and over-all care is done in a simple and kind of inefficient manner.

As the yard develops we are going to better track the labor necessary so we canplan out our labor better in the future. A good thing about the hop yard is that even though it is 1.4 acres, all the plants are basically the same. That means it can be easy to train in a group to a task and set them loose.

Ammendments:

Even though we are managing the hop yard according to the organic standards there are still things we have to do to ammend the soil and assist the plants as they grow up to be the hearty beasts they become by harvest time. We ran soils tests earlier this year and we are are a little too acidic at 5.7 so we will be adding lime to get us up closer to 7 where hops are happier. We also usecertain foliar sprays like fish emulsion for a boost of nitrogen when the plants are younger, we use OMRI approved pesticides though we do use them sparingly. As in only if we really really need them.

I apologize that this is a very basic and very vague overview of how we are growing hops. This blogpost is about the budget for the year and not meant to go into real detail about our growing practices. I will be posting videos and other content as the year goes on about our hops operation and all the other things we do on farm. If there are any specific questions or if there is anything you would really like to see this year please leave a message in the comments section below.

Other products you can get from hops:

Besides the hops themselves there are other products you can get from humulus lupulus. We have made wreaths from the bines, propagated and sold hop plant starts, and even gone so far asto experiment making tinctures with the hop flowers as a medicinal herb. It can be used as a sleep aid, can be used in soaps and shampoos and in cooking as hop herb butter.

The possibilities are only limited byyour imagination. It is good practice on farm to get all that you can from the things that you grow. We will be testing our market with different products to see what is successful and year to year get better at making the most out of our hop harvest.

Lessons learned from starting a hop farm:

There are a lot of mistakes you can make when starting a farm. It is part of the learning process. No one is going to do it perfectly and we can all learn and grow as farmers by sharing our hard lessons learned with each other so that we are not all making the same mistakes. In short order here are a few things we would do better when starting the hop farm.

• soil tests, soil tests, soil tests
• ammend soil before planting based on test results
• till and mulch rows before planting
• install irrigation earlier
• make sure the area that the hops are planted is well drained year-round

There are some good stories with each of these examples and I will go into them as the year goes on. One of the best places to follow along with Farm Marketing Solutions and thus my farm is through the FMS YouTube Channel. Subscribe and get updates when I post new videos (if that's your thing).

What we hope to improve on in the future:

Hops need a lot of love and attention. Because we are a very diversified farm there can be things that get over-looked on farm. Livestock has always taken prescidence because we won't let the animals suffer at all because we're "too busy". As we move forward we are more actively planning out time to observe the farm and make sure we are doing all that is required for optimal health of the plants and animals.

In the coming years I plan on having the rest of the hop yard planted where we haveempty spots, we will increase plant health and yeilds, and we will build a community of people involved in the hop yard to help us keep labor costs down.

Farm Finance Challenge:

All of my record keeping this year will come into play as we launch the Farm Finance Challenge on Farm Marketing Solutions. I will be publicly publishing my production and financial records on the blog to share with other farmers so that we can all learn from each other and hopefully save a few people from making the same mistakes that I have.

There are a dozen other farms that are joining Camps Road Farm in the Challenge and that is quite amazing!!! Starting 2/9/2015 follow along each month as I publish my records and then the next day publish everyone else's numbers. I am really excited for the transparency and the community that I know will grow from the project. At the end of the day we're doing it to keep ourselves accountable and to support beginning farmers with the power of knowledge.

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GFP064: Successful online farm marketing in 2015

We live in an increasingly digital age and as farmers we have a lot of options for how to market our farm online. Where do we focus? Where do we spend our time? At the end of the day, where do we make the investment? Today's podcast is not about registering on places like LocalHarvest.org  or similar sites where we can get a posting that people can find. It is about actively engaging our customers so that once they find us they stay informed, engaged, and keep coming back. It takes a lot more effort to get a new customer than to keep a returning customer, but it still takes effort. I want to break it down into what I plan on doing this year. It is more simple than it may appear at first, and since it's my plan and I'm going to be (have been) acting on it, I am happy to share on FMS how it all works.

The way I see it your active online presence is separated into two groups, Primary and Secondary.

Primary:

1. Farm Website

2. Email List

Your Primary is your home base on the internet. "All roads lead to Rome." Every other presence, including your Local Harvest listing, should point back to your farm website. This is your opportunity to educate your customers on everything you are doing and to keep them coming back by continuing to add new content.

Your website should have details on what you grow, how your grow it, and where people can buy it. After that it is up to you as to how much detail you want to go into. The more the merrier as long as you keep it organized.

Your email list is your gateway into peoples homes and cell phones. An email can be a very private and important thing. People are always listening for that little bing that tells them they have a new message. If all the Social Networks in the world fail you will always be able to sell through your email list.

Secondary:

1. Facebook

2. YouTube

3. Instagram

This is the second layer of what you are doing online. These three are great for a couple of reasons.

Facebook is very approachable and there are a lot of people using it. It is a great place to get started with all of your farms' basic info and story. Even though the updates that Facebook has been rolling out has made it a little harder to reach your audience these days you still can reach people AND it links to just about every other network so cross promoting outside of Facebook is easy. Here you can post photos, videos, stories, articles, whatever you want that is relevant to you and your brand. If nothing else it is a good gateway drug to the world of Social Media.

YouTube has been really good for me. While my farms' YouTube page doesn't have a ton of views, the customers that go there because I included a link to a video in an email have come up to me and said how much they loved the video. It is a way to give people a tour of the farm without actually having to host them on farm. From the comfort of their own home people can see what you are doing, how you are doing it, and you have control over the whole interaction. With the Smartphones getting better at not only taking video, but sharing it to the web, uploading videos to YouTube is getting easier and easier.

Instagram for me is one thing, a means to an end. I cannot attribute many sale directly to Instagram, but I can indirectly. Let me explain. I have an Instagram account @foodcyclist. I have friends and family that follow me there. I also have other people involved with the farm that have their own Instagram accounts. The beautiful thing is that we can use the APP to take a photo, edit it, add a fun filter, and all upload it to the farms' Facebook page. The pictures we post get more engagement than anything else. Because it is so easy from my phone I use it as much as I can.

Farm Website Posts on FMS:

• Everything you need to know to set up a farm website (free video tutorial)

• Using Google Analytics to Measure Success With Your Farm Website

Farm Email List Posts:

• How to start an email list (free tutorial)

• Success with email lists at a Winery GFP033

• Leasing Apple Trees GFP016

Other useful links:

• Using video for your farm marketing GFP052

• Engaging customers with Facebook

• Getting started with Facebook video tutorial

Take aways:

The world is getting increasingly digital. How are people going to find you online and what are they going to see?

If you had to start or focus on one thing this year online, what would it be? Let me know below!

Farm quote of the episode:

"That's my only goal. Surround myself with funny people, and make sure everyone has a good time and works hard." - Joe Rogan

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

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• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

2015 Pastured Broiler Budget

For the full post explaining more about the budget visit me at http://www.farmmarketingsolutions.com/2015-pastured-broiler-budget/ For plans to my chicken tractors check out the eBook at http://foodcyclist.com/stress-free-chicken-tractor-plans/ To view all my budget categories visit: http://farmmarketingsolutions.com/2015farmbudget

Raising pastured broilers is one part of our very diverse farm. 2015 will be the third year in a row that we have done a combination Pastured Poultry CSA as well as selling pastured broilers retail at farmers markets and wholesale. It has been a great part of our operation as it take very little money to start up, it is great for reclaiming and conditioning pastures, and it fits in nicely with the other things we have going on at the farm. That and we're kind of the only show in town for pastured poultry at the moment, which doesn't hurt.

Every year my numbers get a little more refined. This year I have got even better than in the past at putting my yearly budget together. I know that with the efforts of the Farm Finance Challenge they will be a piece of cake to put together next year. The video above and this post are the numbers as best as I can put them together this year. If you scroll to the bottom of the post you have the option to enter your name and e-mail address to get the broiler section of the excel file that I am referencing.

Creating your broiler budget:

When I am sitting down to do any budget I treat the piece of notebook paper, the excel sheet, or whatever I am using as a blank canvas. It doesn't matter what I am putting where because I am creating it for myself. I can change it to suit my needs whenever I want. The trick is to get it started and to get some real work done each time you open it. Add a little, walk away, come back, add a little more. The point of the whole thing is to get usable numbers for yourself. After all, you are doing this for your farm not just for fun.

Start with just thinking about all the element that would go into creating your budget and keep adding them into your budget sheet. At some point you are going to run out of things to add and you will have you "final" numbers. It might take you some time, it might require a fair amount of research, but each year it will get better, I promise.

What things did I include in my budget?:

• How many chickens I intend to raise

• What breeds

• Numbers of batches or rotations

• How much feed

• How much labor

• How many processing dates

• Quarterly breakdown for cash-flow

• What I get price per pound retail

I basically went through everything I would need to know to raise broilers and pulled from my records or other people's information (current price of feed) to populate my budget sheet. From there it was just a matter of creating the necessary equations as I went to get the numbers that I needed to end up with. Those were Gross Profit and Net Profit. After all, this document was created to see if I was going to be able to keep the farm at the end of the year.

chicken tractors

Labor costs:

This is going to certainly be an area of debate, and I mention it a little in the video. I figure for $12 an hour in my budgets for any operation. That doesn't mean I always pay $12 an hour or that I am actually getting paid $12 an hour. It has just worked out to a nice round number for labor for me. Throughout 2015 we will be more closely tracking how many man hours are spent on any given operation throughout the year to get a better sense of what is required.

There are things like volunteer days, mishaps and nature, apprentices, full time staff, and friends of the farm to consider. When you are figuring the numbers on any farm there are certainly areas where it can get murky and labor can be one of them on a small farm. The best I can figure out is that $12 number. If you have a better way please leave a comment in the comments section below and let me know what you do.

Chicken feed costs:

Because the price of feed fluctuates what you budget and what actually happens can differ. I currently get my feed from Morrison's Feeds in Vermont and I used the latest price of their feed off their website to do my budget. I do have another potential non-GMO feed supplier close by that may be able to get me feed a little cheaper because they are closer but that's not locked down yet. For now I want to figure on the higher price. Better to be prepared and do better than to count on a good price and have to pay more and not have the cash on hand.

Chicken processing:

I have gone seasons where I kill every bird on farm with the knife in my hand for each one. This past season I chose to get the birds processed off farm for a number of reasons. The main reason was that having a USDA approved stamp on my chickens opened up other markets for me. In Connecticut the State laws make it almost impossible to operate any small business successfully and poultry farming is no different. We have been making baby steps in recent years but we still haven't caught up to our neighbors to the West or the North.

The place I currently take them costs me $4.75-$5.25 per bird depending on how I have them packaged. That gives me the average of $5 per chicken. It also takes me 2.5 hours to drive there, woof. You may not need all that where you are.

Some of the other benefits of "out-sourcing" my processing is that my liability of someone getting hurt or sick is lower, I don't have to pay a crew, I don't have to take all the lives myself, and I get to spend a day in an internet cafe and get caught up on office work. Will this be my forever plan? Who knows? It's going to have to work for now until I can figure out something better.

How I raise my chickens:

For my cornish cross broilers I raise them in chicken tractors out on pasture. The chicken tractor is my own design created to suite my needs and very adaptable to wherever you may be farming.

I feed certified organic feed that is also non-GMO. The farm is not certified organic but it may be something that we will be working toward in the future. I buy in chicks as day-old from Meyer Hatchery, raise them in the brooder for 2-3 weeks and them move them out to pasture for the remainder of their lives. I often process at 8 weeks old and I get a finished weight of 4-5 pounds on average.

chicken tractors

For more information about my chicken tractor plans and the farm that I started using them on click here or the banner below.

chicken tractor plans

My current farm is Camps Road Farm. I was hired as the farm manager there (here?) and I could not be happier. Pastured broilers are part of a very diverse operation including hops, apples, layers, pigs, sheep, foraged foods, vegetables, and events. We are still raising broilers in the FoodCyclist style tractors that made the trip from my original farm.

What I hope to improve on in time:

No one will ever know everything there is to know about anything. I cam constantly learning and through that learning I am striving to make every operation on my farm better. As part of improving the farm we are taking part in the 2015 Farm Finance Challenge. We will be increasingly diligent about our record keeping both in the field and in the office. I am already looking forward to next year when the 2016 budget has already bee created by the 2015 numbers.

Record keeping is something all farmers struggle with and that was the reason the FFC was created. I am working on improving and so are the other farms that are taking the challenge with me. It's kind of exciting! This blog post comes out in the beginning of January 2015. Depending on when you are reading it we may already be underway. I invited you to check out the challenge, help to hold me accountable to my record keeping and reporting goals, and support the other farms that are taking the dive with me.

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Supporting apple trees with steel posts

Tips from the Field: Apple Orchard

I am pruning my apple trees to a central leader style. With that style of pruning each tree should be supported, especially in the early years when the base of the tree is thin and fragile. The tree is especially susceptible to breakage at the graft union. That is where the grafted "scion" connects to the root stock.

Originally I had bamboo rods as the support for the trees. That worked only for about a year or so. After that the bamboo, even though it is initially a strong wood, began to rot, disintegrate, and  fall over. During some heavy wind and rain storms I lost a few trees that either fell over or snapped right off at the graft union.

It is really depressing to go into your orchard and see one or more of your trees lying on their sides. Taking active steps to ensure the long term health of the orchard we switched to metal stakes from Best Angle Tree Stakes.

What do the stakes come delivered as?

The stakes come in bundles of 100 or 255. The 100 piece bundle weighs nearly 864 lbs and the 255 bundle weighs about 2200 lbs. I bought one of each. The 2200 bundle almost flipped my tractor as I was dragging it off the delivery truck. After we got it off we broke open the bundle to transport the stakes across the farm to the orchard in smaller batches. I have about 355 apple trees so the order minimums worked.

Painted or Unpainted Tree Stakes?

I chose to go with unpainted stakes instead of painted for a few reasons. The first was money. With and additional $0.69 per stake that was an extra $244.95 for paint. With a tight budget I opted out. Also you can't be 100% sure what's in the paint. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have the metal rust than mess with possible contamination from paint. They'll look a little funky with the rust but it really doesn't bother me. I also think, and only time will tell, that they should hold up structurally just as well painted as not. That paint will break down over time and you're going to end up with rusted stakes one way or another.

How do you put them in?

To put the stakes in we used a post-pounder. These things are useful all around farm. It's taxing on the arms after a while, but if you have a big area just do it in sections and/or have more people there to trade off with.

Where do you put them in relation to the apple tree?

I put the stakes on the North side of the tree about 8 inches away from the base of the trunk. On the North side because I wanted to maximize the Southern exposure of the tree. Also on my property the prevailing winds come from the North  blowing South. I would rather the tree pull against the rubber tubing we used to tie it up vs rubbing against the steel angle iron and potentially damaging the bark.

Do you have anything to add? Please keep the conversation going in the comments below.

GFP063: What's coming on Farm Marketing Solutions in 2015

2014 was a great year for Farm Marketing Solutions and for Camps Road Farm. On farm we expanded in a few areas, built a lot of infrastructure, and learned a lot about our land and what it is capable of. Online I made a lot of great progress as well. I am constantly listening to hear when farmers are struggling with something or if someone needs some advice or to hear a story about life on the farm. My whole goal with this website is to bring as much value as I can to the readers, listeners, and watchers. I am also learning a lot as well. About farming, about marketing, and about my audience. I then share what I learn here and on my other "channels" so that others may learn with me. Well, 2015 is going to be no different. I have a lot to learn and I want to learn and grow as a group. That is why I have already launched my content plan for 2015. I have been very busy.

Right click here to download the MP3

Farm Finance Challenge:

I have to get better at record keeping and financial tracking. Last year was a growth year, and this year is still kind of a growth year but my budget is way tighter and I have to be really smart about what I do and how I do it. I also need to justify all my decisions to the boss and to myself. Keeping on point with my record keeping will make running the farm easier year to year, it will help me make decisions, and it will help other farmers with their businesses as well.

As part of the 12 Month FFC I will have:

• Monthly Production & Income Reports

• Participating farms reports

  • Story about each farm

  • Podcast episode with each farm

Growing Farms Podcast:

I will keep the podcast going as it is, same format, and same schedule. I have seen the podcast grow from the very beginning to over 100,000 downloads. Considering every episode is 30-60 minutes, that's a lot of podcast time. During the year I will be interviewing more farms from all over the world, I will be interviewing the participants in the FFC (by the way, it turns out they're really interesting people), and I will continue to openly share my story so that we can all grow our farms together.

• Bi-weekly podcast just the way you like it

farm podcast

Videos on YouTube:

I found that when there was something I needed to learn on farm I turned to video. Now having learned a lot, I still turn to YouTube, haha! I am also creating a lot of videos from around the farm and in the farm office to share what I have learned. The videos are typically 1-3 minutes on a very specific topic. I really don't sell anything on them. The videos are meant to be actionable pieces of advise that you can walk outside and use.

• Lots of video on YouTube and reposting to the blog

  • Tips from the Field

  • Tips from the Farm Office

farm marketing youtube

 

Updates to FMS:

Aside from all the fun content there is not quite as fun website maintenance, restructuring, reformatting, etc... There is a whole back-end side to running a website and building a community. At this time I do everything and I farm full time so you can guess that I cannot always get around to everything. I have a few more big ideas and projects in the works but my mission in 2015 is to stay focused, get my farm running smoothly, get Farm Marketing Solutions running more smoothly, and then we'll think about these new big projects.

I will be and have been creating a lot more content and sharing what I have been doing. What works and what is not working. If one thing I post saves you some time and headache then it has been a good day for me.

• Cleaning things up

  • Getting the website I want it (will it ever be done?)

  • Thinking about a site redesign (maybe next winter)

  • Getting book sales on the website

  • Publishing more content

Farm quote of the episode:

"Entrepreneurs may be brutally honest, but fostering relationships with partners and building enduring communities requires empathy, self-sacrifice and a willingness to help others without expecting anything in return." - Ben Parr

--

Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

GFP062: 3 Things I will do differently in 2015 on farm

Hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back on 2014 there are a number of things that I  would do or manage differently on the farm. There are little things, like how we raise our chickens, or bigger picture stuff like how we communicate as a team to work more efficiently. With the year coming to a close, it is about time I start thinking about the lessons that I learned this year, and how I am going to apply what I've learned in the coming months.

1. Spend more time with family

The first thing that I want to change about 2015 is that I want to spend more time with my family and friends. There is always something more to do on the farm. The laundry list of chores and projects just never seems to get shorter. With what it requires to run a farm, it can be easy to get caught up with what you have to do instead of who you should be spending time with. Setting aside time and making the effort to unplug from the grind of the farm allows your brain to reboot. In 2015 I want to make more of an effort to spend time with my family and friends and to maintain a good work/life balance.

2. Get on top of my record keeping

It kills me to think that my farm could have had a better year, or could have been a little easier if I had just been able to track my production and finances better. But it is true. While my records weren't quite the mess I might make them out to be, they are still far from where I want them. I fully understand the importance of having detailed records for all areas of your farm. It would make the winter decision making easier if I had detailed records of what the year was like. So, going forward into 2015 I am swearing to hone my record keeping skills. I have a few things that I am trying out to keep organized and better collaborate and I get into that in the episode.

3. Get better at outsourcing and delegation

I have a fantastic and dedicated support network involved with the farm. I am humbled to be a part of such a lovely group of people. As part of my support network they are always willing to lend a hand when and if they can. What I need to do is detail out what my tasks are so that my support people can choose an area to help out that best suits their own motivations. I then need to make sure I have the processes figured out so I can effectively delegate that task to that person. This will help me with both #1 and #2. Click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• My strategies to get more time with family and friends

• The tools that I intend to use more of in my record keeping

• A method for outsourcing at least some of your tasks

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Farm Marketing Solutions on YouTube

• The E-Myth Revisited

• GFP Episode 39 Getting Investment to Start a Farm

• Google Docs

Take the 12 Month Farmer Finances Challenge With Me

Starting in 2015 I will be publishing a monthly income report for my farm. To better keep on top of my cash flow I am going to make the commitment to publish it. January's report will come out in February, February's will come out in March, etc... Good or bad I will share it with the FMS community so that we can all learn and hopefully better the moment of sustianable farmers. If you would like to add your own story and transparency to the blog in an effort to improve your record keeping and to serve as a case study for other  farmers then contact me and let me know. I would publish your reports on the blog as well as have you on the podcast to introduce you to the audience. I believe in getting farmers on the land and keeping them there. If sharing my numbers and all of my "behind the scenes" info can help that then I am happy to share. If you feel the same way then I encourage you to make the 12 month commitment with me. It's only 12 reports and it could end up being a really big help to a lot of people.

Take aways:

What are you planning on doing differently in 2015? If you could outsource one thing that you do on a regular basis what would it be? How can you manage to delegate that task in the coming weeks?

Farm quote of the episode:

"The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success: Concentration, Discrimination, Organization, Innovation and Communication." - Harold S. Geneen

--

Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

GFP061: Bringing the farm all together

There are SO many topics to cover when to comes to farming. Each topic reflects on something that the average farmer has to deal with as he or she runs their operation. Today's podcast episode covers it all. The mindset to focus on today is that of the big picture. It is very easy to get caught up in the minutia of each farming task. Exactly what tool to use, exactly how to grow something, or most often exactly how to fix something. As we work through all of the little details, which are super important, we must remember the big picture and our holistic goal.

I have been focusing a lot of my big picture lately. My 2015 budget projections are due. I need to have my plan for next year laid out and I need to have it fairly detailed. With that chore on my plate I have been focused on just how all the pieces are going to fit together and how I am going to properly use my resources to accomplish my goals. Let me tell you, it's a little scary.

As 2014 winds down think of all the things you have done this year in relation to every other thing. What would you change? How could you improve? What are your pain points? What was successful? All of these questions, when thoroughly gone through will help you start the new year on a good foot.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• How to work with brides to assemble organic flower bouquets

• Collaborate with other farmers for flower bouquets

• How to settle on crops that work for you instead of you for them

• You can’t say yes to everything

• Finding the time/income balance

• How to track profitability of certain crops

• How a computer can me instrumental to record keeping

• Quickbooks as a tool for farm finance tracking

Interview with Robbie & Deena of Sweet Roots Farm

Robbie and Deena grow a variety of vegetables and flowers on roughly four acres in Grass Valley, CA.

They market through a CSA, a local coop, various wholesale accounts, and weddings.

Their mission statement as seen on their website:

We pride ourselves on growing great soil and the quality, flavorful produce that follows.  Through the use of integrated organic systems and the farm’s many microclimates, we produce food, flowers and nursery starts that are healthy and vibrant.  We have a diversity of crops and markets that will build a healthy farm and business.  Farming brings us close to the land, which we will preserve and improve for the future. Our business management and sustainable agricultural practices will eventually support our family while providing equal access for a diversity of community members.

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Sweet Roots Farm

• Camps Road Farm

• UC Extension

• Farm enterprise calculator

• Easily build a farm website

• Farm Marketing Solutions on YouTube

Take aways:

Are you actively keeping the big picture in your head?

How are you preparing for next year?

Farm quote of the episode:

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." - Henry Ford

--

Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

GFP060: Finding a farming model that works

It takes a long time to figure out what your farm is and what it is going to be. Even if you think you have an idea of exactly what you want to do on your farm that vision is bound to change. Today's podcast talks to this theme with Forrest Prit.

Just like Forrest I am trying, experimenting, documenting, and learning different ways to enjoy my farm while making it profitable. With such an unconventional start-up story it's a little hard to say when it actually started, but for me it really started just about a year ago. I took over management of Camps Road Farm and integrated my farm FoodCyclist Farm. With one business it was time to settle on one vision. But what exactly is that vision?chard, a guy who has tried just about everything to make his farm succeed and is still evolving his vision.

With the help of Alan Savory's book Holistic Management I am making strides in finding out exactly what we're doing here at Camps Road Farm. Sure I know what we're doing now, and I have a good idea of where I want to be in 10 years, it is the getting there safely and securely that is the trick.

It is a weird position to be in to know where you want to future to go, but not really knowing where it is going to take you. There is a lot of excitement, even more anxiety, and a whole lot of wishing for a crystal ball. I take solace in knowing that I am not alone. The smartest farmers that I know never stop experimenting and trying new things. Not every experiment is a success as your goals in life are evolving with your business.

As you start your or continue you journey in agriculture always keep your eyes and ears open, never assume you know it all, and be modest.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• How to better your customer retention

• Ways to find what farming operation is right for you

• The benefit of celebrating the little triumphs

• Remain connected to your customers

• Tell your story

Interview with Forrest Pritchard of Smith Meadows

Forrest Pritchard is a professional farmer and writer, holding degrees in English and Geology from the College of William and Mary. His farm Smith Meadows was one of the first “grass finished” farms in the country, and has sold at leading farmers’ markets in Washington DC for more than fifteen years. His book Gaining Ground, A Story of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food and Saving the Family Farm was named a Top Read by Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post and NPR’s The Splendid Table.

Forrest’s new book is slated for release Fall 2015, from the award-winning press The Experiment.

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Smith Meadows

• Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm

• NY Times: Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Be Farmers

• Joel Slezak from Episode 58

• The Start Up Podcast

Take aways:

What will be your biggest influences when choosing your farm business?

5 years ago did you think you would be where you are today? (Listening to the Growing Farm Podcast, haha!)

Farm quote of the episode:

"Taking time to do nothing often brings everything into perspective."

- Zoe Zantamata

--

Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes

GFP059: Starting a farm at your College

Starting a farm anywhere can be an uphill battle. The thing you have to focus is is that you are (hopefully) doing it with good intentions, and you have to want to live your passions. If you focus on those two things the rest will fall into place. If you want to start a farm at a College or University you may be in luck. We live in a time where more and more people are open to and interested in small scale sustainable agriculture. While it is nerve racking to just jump in and do it, sometimes that is what it takes. If you do decide to go rogue and start gardening in the Quad there's a few things you might want to keep in mind first. Let's start by asking these questions:

• Are there other students on campus who might be interested in helping out?

• What other schools have tried this and succeded/failed? Why?

• How would a garden or farm benefit your school besides being self-serving to you?

• Do you have the experience necessary to start a farm?

• What other areas of the school might be able to build AG into their curriculum?

• What branch of your school would adopt your farm?

Going ahead and starting a farm without permission (which we discuss in the podcast) is all well and good but you should have a plan going into it. When the farm arrests you for vandalism what are you going to say? Where is the food that you're going to grow headed after harvest? Sit down and think through every scenario and then nothing can take you by surprised.

Be warned: There will still be surprises. It will be amazing. You're parents may get pissed.

There is a lot of potential for good in the world, though sometimes you have to give people a visual and tangible example before they will believe it.

Some ideas for incorporating a farm into your school:

• Science experiments

• Supplemental class time

• Traditional food gardens to supports multi-cultural organizations

• Food for dining hall

• Supporting area restaurants

• Buzz-worthy for school marketing

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• How to start a farm at your College or University

• What can happen when the faculty challenges the dreams of the community

• How to build an adobe home

• What my farm plan for 2015 is

• How my many small scale operations makes up my one large scale operation

Interview with Nai de Gracia of Pamona College Farm

Nai grew up abroad and came to the US from Cairo for college in 2010. She was a student at Pomona College and graduated in 2014, starting as full time farm manager the summer after that. She majored in Biology and was involved with the farm all four years as a student employee and as a member of farm club. Interests include urban farming, the soil food web, composting tea, vermiculture and permaculture. She can be contacted at farmmanager@pomona.edu.

Items mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Pomona College Organic Farm

• Pomona College Organic Farm on Facebook

• Pomona College Organic Farm on Instagram

• GFP011: The importance of online farm marketing

• TBF084: Five reasons for an on-farm event

• Google Farmer: Google Calendar

• Out of Milk APP

• Trello

• Adalyn Farm

Visual farm update:

Take aways:

What would starting a farm do for you?

How do you think your family/friends/school/community respond to you starting a farm?

Farm quote of the episode:

"It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission." - Grace Hopper

Our proud sponsor:

The show must go on! That's the way that FatCow.com feels. FatCow is a website hosting company that supports farmers and the Growing Farms Podcast. For listeners of the show they offer a special price of $3.15 a month for a website and a ton of other good stuff. I have been a customer of theirs since 2009 and so far I couldn't be happier.

Don't have a website and don't know where to start? I created a 100% free tutorial walking you through building a website without writing any code. Click here for the tutorial.

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

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• Past Episodes

GFP058: What type of chickens should you raise for meat?

The are SO many farming operations to choose from when starting a farm. The one I chose to start with, and that has become the cornerstone of my farming operation is pastured poultry. That specifically means in this instance raising chickens on pasture with the intention of selling them for meat. When raising meat chickens there are a number of factors that you have to take into account when you are choosing a breed. Any option can be a good option as long as it works for you.

There are three options in my eyes for which direction you can go. At least in the United States there is. There's the Cornish Cross which is the production breed used in most larger scale poultry operations. There are Freedom Rangers which are quickly becoming a favorite with small-scale farmers. Then there are dual purpose egg laying/meat birds. Each breed has its' positives and negatives. To determine which breed is going to be best for you and your farm start by asking a few of these questions:

• Is pastured poultry going to be a main focus of your farm?

• Do profits matter to you?

• What kind of production system do you think your land can support? (Can you test it small first?)

• What type of chickens are readily available in your area?

• Can you handle the physical labor of the different types of production systems?

Thoroughly answering these questions will help you get started in choosing a breed. The other thing to try is, well, to try it. Start with 25-50 birds of any given kind. Raise them, take notes, and then try another breed. You will find what works for you and what you think you will be able to scale up and sell. It is not like a cow that can take 2 years to see a result. You will have a case-study in two months time.

Right click here to download the MP3

In this farm podcast you will learn:

• What the main differences in the different types of broiler chickens are

• Typical systems for raising meat chickens on pasture

• Farm business advice on how to get started in agriculture

Interview with Joel Slezak of Free Union Grass Farm

Joel was born and raised on the farm in Free Union. When he was young, his father David milked Jersey dairy cows and “gave away” raw milk to all the neighbors, and also kept a flock of laying hens for eggs. He home-schooled Joel and his siblings, which gave them plenty of time to help out on the farm. Joel took an early interest in the animals and would often help with milking and chicken chores, which laid a foundation for his future as a farmer. He attended high school at Tandem Friends School and received a political science degree at Guilford College in North Carolina. Various adventures on sailboats and yachts followed, but Joel returned home to Free Union and spent a couple years working as a cheesemonger at Feast! in Charlottesville. Selling artisan cheeses and finely cured meats to the masses gave rise to an obsession with quality food and reawakened his life-long love for farming.

While working on an organic farm in Scottsville, Joel came across the now  ubiquitous “Pastured Poultry Profits” by Joel Salatin. He kicked off his career as a farmer by raising and processing several hundred chickens of his own.

Photo Credit: Modern Farmer

Items Mentioned in this farm podcast include:

• Free Union Grass Farm

• Free Union Grass Farm on Instagram

• Polyface Farm

• Forest Pritchard

• Camps Road Farm

Take aways:

If you're thinking about adding poultry into your operation, what breed do you think would best suit you?

How can the mentality of "whatever works for my situation" be applied to your farm in the choices that you've made? Explain in the comments below.

Farm quote of the episode:

"The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing."

- Seth Godin

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Thanks for taking the time to listen in, and let me know what you think. You can leave a comment below, send me an e-mail, reach me on Facebook , or leave a 5 star rating in iTunes if you liked the show.

• Click to subscrible to iTunes

• Support the podcast with $1 a month

• Past Episodes