Do you want some creative
ideas for what you can do on your small-scale farm beside the obvious farming
of fruits and vegetables? Now even small-scale farmers can generate more
revenue from basic farming. There are various ways to earn good money in
agriculture.
With the advent of latest
technologies, the farming business on a large and small scale is generating
more profit than ever. Technology has helped the farmers to use small spaces
with maximum utilization. So now, the size of the farm doesn’t matter anymore
to generate a good amount of profit. All that matters is, the input a person
does to take care of the land he owns and use it in the best productive way.
If you own a small land and
looking for farm business tips and ideas, this article is a must-read for you.
Check out this list of 15
creative alternative ways to put your farm to use.
It includes some of the most
profitable crops for small farms, which can become great income sources if you
are looking to generate money from your farm.
However, most can also be done
on a small scale for your own personal use and enjoyment.
1.
Soft Fruit / Fruit Trees
If you intend on using your
small farm for fruit trees, then getting them planted right away should be your
priority.
Fruit trees require a lot of
labor up front and you may not get a harvest for several years. But once your
trees start to produce fruit, you’ll have a relatively passive food source for
the life of the trees.
You just need to do some basic
maintenance and harvesting, and your trees will take care of the rest.
Apples, plums, pears and
peaches make great choices.
If you’re in a warmer climate
with mild winters, you may even be able to grow oranges, lemons or figs.
No matter what variety of
fruit you’re growing, we recommend planting dwarf fruit trees. These have a
maximum height of around 8 feet, which makes them much easier to harvest from.
They also produce fruit faster
than larger trees. If you plant 1-year-old dwarf apple trees, you should
hopefully start to get some fruit the very next year!
Dwarf trees are also easier to
tuck away into corners of your farm that wouldn’t otherwise be usable.
It’s best to choose fruit
trees that will all bloom around the same time to ensure good pollination.
If trees aren’t your thing,
why not try planting some blueberry or raspberry bushes instead?
Example: Wither’s Farm
produces strawberries, blueberries and apples
2.
Herb Growing
You can start an herb farm
from home and run it part-time. Startup costs are quite low as well: about
$2,000.
If you live in a cold climate,
you may want to pay to invest in a greenhouse so that you can grow herbs
year-round.
Herbs fit into many other
ideas on this list we’ve already discussed, such as urban farming or using
hydroponics to grow them.
You can sell your herbs as-is,
or market them in a number of different products including teas, candles, bath
products and aromatherapy essences.
Basil, lavender, chives,
cilantro, chamomile, oregano, parsley, catnip and St John’s wort are all
profitable herbs to grow.
If you’re growing other
vegetables, herbs come with an extra benefit: There are many types of herbs
that keep bugs away.
You can interplant herbs
around your other crops to repel unwanted insects while still attracting
pollinators.
Example: Zack Woods Herb Farm
in Vermont, USA
3.
Beekeeping
Keeping bees will produce
extra products for you, as well as having other indirect benefits like making
your existing crops better pollinated.
Having bees around your
vegetable plants will dramatically increase your yield. In fact, some farmers
will even pay to rent beehives to help pollinate their crops!
A beehive can fit just about
anywhere. You can have just one or two hives as a hobby to start with.
Setting up your beehive
doesn’t cost very much. It’s about $500 to get everything you need including
your bees, clothing and equipment and bee boxes.
Each hive should produce about
$200 worth of honey per year.
But bees offer a lot more than
just honey.
They also provide beeswax that
you can make into candles, soap, lip balm and other products.
Bee pollen, propolis and royal
jelly are other bee products that are often considered superfoods and can fetch
a high price.
As your hives grow and
reproduce, you can even sell bees to other beginner beekeepers who are just
starting their hives, or as replacement stock to beekeepers who lost their
colony to swarming or disease.
Looking after your bees is
very much a part-time job when you’ve only got one or two hives as well.
Expect to spend about half an
hour per week looking after your beehive.
Bees require more time in warm
months when you’re harvesting honey, but are less effort in the winter when the
hive mostly goes dormant.
If you find that bees are
really your passion, you can expand and make it the main focus of your farm and
keep hundreds of hives.
For more information on why we
need bees check out this useful article on Gardeners Path.
Example: Paynes Southdown Bee
Farm based in Sussex, UK
4.
Growing Mushrooms
Mushrooms are a crop that most
people don’t consider when it comes to farming. But there’s a big demand for
them, and often a lack of supply depending on where you’re located.
While growing mushrooms you
can make use of vertical space to get high yields in a small area. A single
room is enough to grow a full-time income’s worth of mushrooms.
Mushrooms also have a quick
growing cycle and you can get many harvests in the same amount of time that it
would take to grow one season of wheat or corn.
That said, it’s good to know
that they are more time and labor intensive than traditional crops like
tomatoes.
5.
Growing Microgreens
Microgreens are the stage a
plant goes through after they’re a sprout, but before they become a baby green
and start to grow into a full-sized vegetable.
They only take a couple of
weeks to grow and they’re packed full of nutrition and flavor.
Like mushrooms, microgreens
are another crop that doesn’t require a ton of room to get started. You can
begin growing microgreens on a small scale with just a couple of trays in your
basement or greenhouse. Then your business can scale up as your confidence and
demand for your product starts to grow.
You can sell them at farmers
markets or direct to customers.
Chefs also love using them both
as a garnish and as an ingredient in their meals.
Microgreens are an excellent
way for small scale farms to grow something in the winter when it can be too
cold to grow many other crops.
6.
Christmas Tree Farming
If you’ve got extra land on
your small farm that you aren’t using, why not plant some firs, pines and
spruces and start your own Christmas tree farm?
You can grow Christmas trees
on land that isn’t practical for growing conventional crops or setting up other
things like pastures or chicken coops.
The big downside to growing
Christmas trees is the amount of time it takes to grow them.
Unlike other crops that only
take a season to grow, you’ll need to wait 8 to 10 years from planting to
harvest of your trees.
Christmas trees still require
some care as well, such as shaping and pruning.
You’ll need to make sure a
single leader is pointing upward and shear each tree every summer once they’ve
reached about 5 feet in height to make sure the branches grow thick and form
the traditional Christmas tree shape.
Overall they don’t require a
tremendous amount of work though. People often prefer to harvest their own
Christmas tree, which further cuts down on your own labor!
There’s also a narrow window
of time that Christmas trees are profitable. People only want them during a
very specific time of the year. So it’s a very seasonal crop.
You can add to your Christmas
tree business by also growing holly, making your own fresh wreaths and much
more.
Example: Elliot Tree Farm, a
family run Christmas tree farm in Ontario, Canada
7.
Market Gardening
A market garden is a
small-scale farming operation. Usually all the work is done by hand with very
little machinery, and crops are sold directly to restaurants and consumers.
A market garden can include
fruits, vegetables, livestock and even flowers.
Starting a market garden is a
great option if you haven’t got hundreds of acres of land. Or if you only want
farming to take up part of your time while you have another part-time job.
Market gardens typically focus
on a wide range of different produce, as opposed to large industrial farms that
normally focus on growing a single crop (which is called monoculture).
It’s a great way for people to
return to a lifestyle that focuses more on living off the land without making
the switch to being fully reliant on farming for an income.
Market gardens have a smaller
startup cost and allow you to focus on filling specific gaps in the market that
commercial farms might not be able to fill.
Example: La Ferme des
Quarter-Temps. A farm run by Jean-Martin Fortier, who is the author of the book
“The Market Gardener.”
8.
Permaculture
Permaculture farming is a
method of agriculture that’s based on sustainability.
It moves away from harmful
commercial agricultural practices like monoculture, annual tilling and other
farming methods that lead to soil erosion, and the use of pesticides.
Permaculture can be defined as
a permanent cultural system that is based on observing nature. It’s all about
working with nature instead of going against it.
Natural principles are
integrated into agricultural processes to create self-sufficient, self-abundant
systems that benefit both humanity and the Earth.
Permaculture is all about
whole systems thinking, and understanding how different parts of the
agricultural process interact with one another.
Permaculture has three main
tenets:
Caring for the earth, because
without the earth humans can’t flourish;
Caring for people;
Making sure people have the
resources they need.
Example: Limestone
Permaculture in New South Wales, Australia
9.
Forest Gardening
A forest garden (or food
forest) is a low-maintenance and sustainable way to produce food in a woodland
ecosystem.
It incorporates many different
types of plants such as nut and fruit trees, herbs, vines, shrubs and perennial
vegetables. It’s companion planting taken to the extreme!
Forest gardening is how our
ancestors would have farmed in prehistoric times before they were able to clear
large, flat areas of land and didn’t yet have access to much in the way of
tools.
It’s a type of agroforestry,
which is integrating the benefits of trees and shrubs with livestock and crops.
This is argued to produce a
more productive, healthy, sustainable, diverse and even more profitable use of
land.
A seven-layer system is
usually at the center of a forest gardening strategy. Forest gardeners use all
different layers of the forest.
Including:
A canopy with mature trees
A low tree layer with fruit
trees and nuts
A shrub layer with berries and
currants
A herbaceous layer with
perennial herbs and vegetables
A rhizosphere layer with roots
and tubers
A ground cover layer with
plants that grow horizontally
And a vertical layer of
climbers and vines.
Example: Robert Hart’s Forest
Garden, an early pioneer of forest gardening
10. Aquaponics
Aquaponics is a combination of
a couple of different farming techniques: Hydroponics, which is growing plants
without the use of soil, and aquaculture, which is growing fish or other
aquatic animals.
Aquaponics combines these two
practices in a symbiotic way.
Fish produce waste, which is converted
into nitrites by bacteria that can be used to feed the plants.
Like most other farming
styles, aquaponics can be adapted to all kinds of different levels of
complexity and sizes.
Aquaponics has a long history
dating back thousands of years to ancient China, where rice paddy fields were
combined with farming fish such as carp and eels.
Some argue the practice may
even go back further to the Aztecs who created farming islands in shallow lake
beds called chinampas.
Modern aquaponic systems
consist of:
A rearing tank where fish are
kept.
A settling basin where uneaten
fish food is captured by filters and removed.
A biofilter where bacteria
that nitrifies the aquatic animal waste can live.
A hydroponics system where
plants are grown.
A sump to pump water around
the whole system.
Example: Aqua Grow Farms is an
aquaponic farm that operates as a food bank, providing about 2,500 servings of
fish and 28,000 servings of greens to families in need each year.
11. Hydroponics
Hydroponics is just
aquaponics, but without the fish or other aquatic creatures!
Instead, hydroponics relies on
adding nutrients to the water to help plants grow.
It’s a soilless growing method
where plants only have their roots in contact with nutrient-rich water. Or they
may be supported in a growing medium such as coconut coir or gravel.
Most hydroponic operations use
chemical fertilizers, although more organic options like manure are also
available.
There are a number of
different hydroponic systems to choose from.
There are static solutions
where plants are grown in containers like tubs or plastic buckets. Water may be
unaerated or only gently aerated.
Then there are continuous flow
systems where the solution constantly flows past the roots, which allows the
plants to better absorb oxygen.
There’s aeroponics where a
plant’s roots are only misted with nutrient solution and not actually submerged
in liquid.
Or ebb and flow systems where
plants are flooded with water and then drained several times per day.
Hydroponics are a good way to
diversify your small scale farming operation and allow you to grow all year
indoors or in a greenhouse. You can grow microgreens in hydroponics as well as
full-sized crops.
Example: GrowUp Urban Farms, a
commercial hydroponics company based in and around London, UK
12. Urban
Farming
You don’t need to live in the
countryside to start a small scale farm of your own!
Urban farming is growing,
processing and distributing food in cities and urban areas.
It can include growing fruits
and vegetables as well as beekeeping and keeping animals like chickens or even
goats.
If you want to start an urban
farm, the first step you’ll need to complete is checking with your city to see
what your municipal by-laws say about different types of agriculture within
your area.In some cities, you may be allowed to convert your whole front garden
into raised beds or raise chickens in your backyards. In others you may be hit
with a hefty fine.
So make sure that whatever
small scale farm ideas you have are legal in your city before you begin.
Urban farming is all about
making the most of the space you have. You can start off using your own garden
to start growing food, and you may eventually expand and start growing on other
plots in your area.
Many homeowners are willing to
allow urban farmers to rip up all the grass in their unused backyard and turn
their property into a productive farm.
Some may want a monetary fee
for renting their property, while others may allow you to use their land in
exchange for a basket of fresh produce each week during your growing season.
Example: One of the most
well-known urban farmers is Curtis Stone who runs Green City Acres and grows
more than $100,000 worth of produce per year on a quarter-acre of land (about
10,000 square feet.)
13. Micro
Dairies
A micro dairy, also known as a
micro creamery, is a small scale dairy farm.
You might want to run one all
on your own, or partner together with other people who want to run a small
dairy farm on a part-time basis while having other jobs as well.
To start a micro dairy, you
will need about four cows and about $15,000 worth of equipment.
You can compete against larger
dairy farms by offering fresh, locally grown milk. You can produce higher
quality organic milk that comes from grass-fed, pasture raised cows without any
antibiotics. That’s a quality of milk that industrial dairy farms simply aren’t
capable of producing.
The key to a successful micro
dairy is scaling up slowly. If you try to expand too fast by buying too many
extra cows or making your line of dairy products too diverse, you run the risk
of collapsing your business.
Having a small-scale dairy
farm can be a tough as your sole business, since a small farmer can’t really
compete on price with large-scale farms that produce milk for $1.50 per liter.
But it can be a great way to
diversify the different products that you offer on your farm, or at least
provide your family and friends with all of your own dairy products.
Example: Long Dream Farm in
California is a micro dairy that produces dairy cheese, butter and yogurt
14. Plant
Nursery
A plant nursery helps with
your own farm by giving you a head-start on the growing season.
You can start your plants in a
greenhouse weeks before the risk of frost has passed and weather is not yet
warm enough to plant them outside.
You can also grow extra
seedlings to sell to other farmers or to home growers with extra space that
you’ve got. People will always want small plants.
Nurseries scale well. You can
start small with almost zero capital and just some seeds, cuttings and soil
that you already have.
Try raising 10 or 20 extra
plants and see if you can sell them on Craigslist or Gumtree.
The main thing you’ll need for
a plant nursery are good propagation skills.
A plant nursery won’t produce
much income if your beds are full of unsprouted seeds or dead cuttings.
It’s best to pick up these
skills by volunteering or working for an existing nursery before starting your
own.
Example: The Agrofestry
Research Trust runs a nursery stocked with a wide range of specialist food crop
trees and shrubs.
15. Corn
Maze
Adding a corn maze to your
farm can be a great value-add.
You’ll lose some potential
crops since you aren’t maximizing all of the land you’ve got available.
But in the fall once your corn
maze is done, you can still harvest the majority of it.
Any lost productivity can be
made up by charging people to visit and enter your maze.
But the real benefit of having
a corn maze is as a marketing tool. It will bring people to visit your farm
throughout the year, and they’ll then often stop to buy some of your other
crops and products.
Example:The Maze Maize, a
popular visitor attraction at Kelham Hall in the UK
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