The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: StephB on May 08, 2015, 11:57:51 am
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unfortunately think I already know the answer but I live on a 6.5 acre smallholding which we have just been raising sheep, pigs & chickens for our freezer and a large veg plot.
BUT I would love to be able to make a small income from the land if at all possible and I wondered if anyone on here was managing to do this?
I have considered raising table ducks or geese (although geese in large quantity would be too noisy).
Would love to hear any of your success stories.
Thanks x
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You could try taking what you're best at and enjoy most and working out a strategy to add value. If you like rearing chickens then you could specialise in an unusual breed, show them and sell hatching eggs, offer hen-sitting services for people going on holdiday, go for something unusual like quail and sell their eggs to local butchers' shops and delis. If you like keeping sheep you could go for whatever breed is popular in your area as a terminal sire - get well known and a small number of good quality shearling rams could bring in a fair amount in the Autumn sales. Vegetables - local restaurants might be interested in unusual things like pak choi, wineberries and edible flowers. Have you tried beekeeping? Research and starting small can make or break a new project.
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How much money do you want to make? Enough to live on, or enough for your venture to break even? Whereabouts do you live, as location, soil, climate and markets will make a big difference to the possibilities?
If you want to keep your family on the proceeds, you would need to go intensive, for example cover the acreage with battery hen cages or Danish piggeries. I somehow think that's not the way you want to go.
All around us small family farms of 250 to 500 acres are going bust, selling up to the big boys, or covering the land with timber. So what chance do we have with just a few acres?
If you just want a little bit of profit, or for your smallholding to break even, then some of Marches Farmers ideas might work. They tend to rely on making a name for yourself, which is a long slow process, with no guarantee at the end.
Having a full time person within the family bringing home enough to live on, so any profit from the smallholding is a bonus seems to be the way most of us with very small holdings go.
This question has been asked before many times, and it would be so interesting to know what those folk are doing now, whether they have made a go of things or not.
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There is a report called 'small is succesfull' which I think was written by the ecological land cooperative which is good for inspiration.
I would say yes, its very possible. We have friends making a living from 3 polytunnels in a large back garden and others withs pigs and poultry on 4 acres who are both making a living from their 'small holdings'.
I think the key things are really thorough research and planning, knowing your land, having a realistic idea of how much time and effort you can/are prepared to put in and, if your planning on relying on the income (rather than it just being a nice extra) doing some contingency planning for what happens if things go wrong!
Good luck!
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Someone not far from here went into "medicinal market gardening" I think they made a lot of money and won an all expenses paid fully catered holiday at a big hotel. Or something ;)
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Needs something Niche and special so you get a premium price or normal but with no or very little overheads
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First thing you need to do is think outside the box...sorry stupid saying but. Identify a market and then try to fill it.
People try to grow flowers, but cannot compete with commercial growers.
Not many people grow shrubs for foliage and that's a huge market.
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The problem may wll be less of crop rather than how to sell. And of course what the soil can support or be improved to support. And how much work you're prepared to put in.
6 acres of honeyberry plants or blueberry seedlings or mulberry saplings etc could be worth a lot if you could grow them and sell them but no point trying to compete with dutch computerised greenhouse growing for plants.
HesterF (a member here) has started a 4 acre vineyard.. that's 2000 vines IIRC
a very low-yielding vineyard that produces 2 tons per acre makes about 1,440 bottles, or 120 cases, while an acre that yields 10 tons produces about 7,200 bottles, or 600 cases.
so 6 acres...average that out to say 15,000 bottles?????
Now I have a nice aspect 3 acre hillside that's very fertile.. so I suppose I could make 8 or 9 thousand bottles but with the new council garbage collection rules thay only give us a small bin for bottle collection every week and my wife hates carting the empties ;D
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yes..you could make a living out of 6 acres…
it depends on how much hard work and thought you put into it,
some guy makes a living out of one acre..micro farming…
you just need a good plan, and some good research ...
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yes..you could make a living out of 6 acres…
it depends on how much hard work and thought you put into it,
some guy makes a living out of one acre..micro farming…
you just need a good plan, and some good research ...
...... but very unlikely with any stock .... stick to plants . Harford if you have friends living off pigs and poultry they should be on TV
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There's absolutely no reason you can't do it. Think carefully about what you're going to produce, get good at it, then work hard marketing it for a few years and you should be getting there. One thing's for sure it won't happen overnight.
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...... but very unlikely with any stock .... stick to plants . Harford if you have friends living off pigs and poultry they should be on TV
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Their success is very much down to the way they market themselves and their produce. Their place is rented so they have to pay a hefty amount in rent each month but they still mange to do it and employ 4 part time staff. However, it is a pretty intensive use of the land, if it were mine I wouldn't be happy about using it this way so maybe its more of a short term strategy but its working for them.
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I'd be intrigued to know if it's possible without intensive or illegal methods, or without a large nest egg (i.e you are not making a living off your land if you are spending your savings / inheritance etc).
Also, what is a living? If you are retired, own your house, and have low over heads, then your day to day spendings could be covered, but it's a bit different if you want raise a family, pay a mortgage etc.
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I have friends who make a fair living on a couple of acres. They grow the most amazing fruit and veg and have a tiny farm shop. They also bake bread and cakes to order and sell preserves. It took a while to build up customers but have a steady stream now.
They don't have a mortgage though which makes a difference.
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One of the most guaranteed ways.. assuming two lucky factors of location and arguing the planning rules.. is a quasi garden centre. Essentially buying in seedlings and grwoing on pus buying in ready to sel dutch plants and accessories. A 4 acre plot with an acre under glass...
Where i used to live in south london many of the small-holdings had gone that very route.
(annoyingly the local authroity dumped on my plans to incorporate one into a combo vet clinic and wildlife rescue and sanctuary with pet store. And I had some basic plans drawn up by a architect whch included energy conserving modular buldings well before that became fashionable)
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Just building a shop on it isn't really making a living from the land is it. We have 8.5 acres and breed pigs in order to sell the pork direct through our local markets. to give an idea our business has looked something like this. Year 1, quite a substantial loss. Year 2 a small loss close to breaking even. Year 3 a moderate profit, Year 4 should give a reasonable wage. We live in a coastal/rural area where there isn't a lot of money about and trade is quite seasonal dependant on tourism. If we lived in or near an affluent area I would say we would have been into decent money a lot quicker.
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Just building a shop on it isn't really making a living from the land is it. We have 8.5 acres and breed pigs in order to sell the pork direct through our local markets........
I'd have to guess at the math for that. But to keep enough pigs for a half decent salary over and above costs and repayments almost certainly means buying in feed with only 8.5 acres - which isn't much different to buying in weaners or plants to grow on and sell. Or indeed buying in diesel and toilet paper ;D
There'd be nowt wrong with the ambition to make big bucks with a garden centre-like enterprise and you can grow or grow on stock to keep everyone happy.
I'm past the age of wanting to work that hard but I'd love to have the investment cash to grow british breadfruit, specialist mango and sapodilla - so they actual ripen on the tree. And tissue culture propagation of arboreal orchids...... But that's daydreaming and a lottery win.
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Just building a shop on it isn't really making a living from the land is it. We have 8.5 acres and breed pigs in order to sell the pork direct through our local markets........
I'd have to guess at the math for that. But to keep enough pigs for a half decent salary over and above costs and repayments almost certainly means buying in feed with only 8.5 acres - which isn't much different to buying in weaners or plants to grow on and sell. Or indeed buying in diesel and toilet paper ;D
So we're not allowed to buy in feed now. That moves the goalposts a bit. Of course we buy in feed it's our biggest expense by far. Not many farms can be self sufficient in feed and bedding no matter how big they are. Everyone has to buy goods or services to keep their business running.
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unfortunately think I already know the answer but I live on a 6.5 acre smallholding which we have just been raising sheep, pigs & chickens for our freezer and a large veg plot.
BUT I would love to be able to make a small income from the land if at all possible and I wondered if anyone on here was managing to do this?
I have considered raising table ducks or geese (although geese in large quantity would be too noisy).
Would love to hear any of your success stories.
Thanks x
Have you got sloping ground and a natural stream going through the upper part ??
A couple of friends made sensible money growing things like water cress & other edible water plants using the streams flow & herbs that like wet feet by growing the herbs in peat blocks with diverted stream water keeping them wet footed .
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I just about make money on our six acre farm. Our main bit is the community farm aspect, where we have around twenty families paying between £35 and £65 a month for veg, eggs, meat etc. from the farm and they also help out twice a month. That pays all the bills, then my wage then mainly comes from the extras that I can fit in on top.
I don't want to do anything one thing intensively - its the variety that makes it fun! So the plan is to build up lots of little earners that bring in maybe £1000 a year or so in profit each and aim to stagger them through the year,
We do 'hatching in schools' in spring which we are starting to be fully booked with regulars now, so the marketing is much less work. I also do a small egg round that I've struggled to expand without going too intensive on the chickens. I then move on to selling half pigs through summer and autumn. In the winter we have Christmas geese and turkeys to bring in some cash when nothing else does! I'm also working hard this year on building up educational talks/visits as this is a nice way to bring in a little bit of cash throughout the year.
One thing I have noticed - if you are selling to other businesses, then specialising makes sense, if you sell direct to consumers then diversity can be much easier in some respects. Once you have gone through the hard work of getting a customer, you want to sell them as much as possible! If I can get a new customer for a half-a-pig, then I can almost guarantee that they will come back later in the year for a goose at Christmas and then maybe join an egg round the following year or pick up a bit of our spare goat meat etc. .
Finally, I've found out over time what I enjoy doing - the community and educational bits - and so have been expanding those. It seems easier to make the business work if you're passionate about it - so what bits of what you currently have do you enjoy most?
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You could maybe research an american idea called SPIN farming the concept is growing things in small areas eg your front garden then selling direct to the public at your front gate. Some of the ideas are a bit wacky hut the idea is to utilise what space you have to produce what people want. A few ideas show that with a few acres you can produce quality food to sell to niche markets. One of the ideas is micro greens which are sold to local restaurants at high prices. Obviously you would have to research your market. I doubt if this would work in my area - ne aberdeenshire... but the principal should if you can find a niche.Anyway, spin farming has a facebook page so maybe check them out.
Hope this helps