Small scale farming?

[Phoenix]

I was looking up Chinese medicine the other day, and was amazed by how expensive some of the herbs involved are. For instance, look up how much a Ginseng root costs. Damn pricey stuff.

This is just 250g of the root:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Top...2647304167.html?spm=2114.40010208.4.16.kcJYNe

So as any business-minded man should do, I immediately thought "what would it take to be on the other side of that transaction". Turns out there are quite a few people who do profitably farm these kind of things, even with small amounts of land.

I always figured farming was a thousands-of-hectares kind of concern, but given the price of some of these herbs it seems feasible to do it on a smaller scale to supplement your income.

I found this interesting site just about this topic: https://www.profitableplants.com/

Also, yes, these are legal plants :lol:

Anyone considered or done some of this?

 

[roberto]

I was looking up Chinese medicine the other day, and was amazed by how expensive some of the herbs involved are. For instance, look up how much a Ginseng root costs. Damn pricey stuff.

This is just 250g of the root:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Top...2647304167.html?spm=2114.40010208.4.16.kcJYNe

So as any business-minded man should do, I immediately thought "what would it take to be on the other side of that transaction". Turns out there are quite a few people who do profitably farm these kind of things, even with small amounts of land.

I always figured farming was a thousands-of-hectares kind of concern, but given the price of some of these herbs it seems feasible to do it on a smaller scale to supplement your income.

I found this interesting site just about this topic: https://www.profitableplants.com/

Also, yes, these are legal plants :lol:

Anyone considered or done some of this?

The main thing to consider is that it's a lot more work than people think. I know a few family nurseries- they make modest income and keep family members employed. But if they sold the land for housing they could retire.

I suspect the people behind that site make more money from eBooks than actual plants.

In agriculture, the middle man routinely makes double what the farmer would.

 

[Hypno]

would probably be a good thing in older age when you have more time.

I agree with roberto that is probalby less passive than it appears.

 

[debeguiled]

Phoenix,

Your instincts are correct. Search terms are "garden" "profit" "permaculture" and then type in how many acres you are talking about. You can even type in fractions of an acre, like, "1/3 acre" at the end of the string of search terms, and you will find someone out there who is making a good living doing it. There are even people making a living from growing things on land that isn't theirs, in cities, in poor neighborhoods, in all sorts of climates.


It probably won't come from something fancy like ginseng or growing your own shiitake mushrooms. Instead you will have to research what is needed in your community and by places like restaurants. Here is a video of a guy making money growing microgreens for restaurants. I have seen several other videos of people doing the same, and this is a niche that can be filled that no one knows about.



Or here is one I found with another dude who makes 80 K a year on half an acre:



Now, this is the internet, so hype warnings are in effect, as well as hippie mystical optimism warnings.

Still, if you boned up on permaculture as well as profit, which a lot of the hippies don't care about, and also checked out the different systems to see how much work it would be, and figured out what was possible for your climate, which is where you should start, this kind of thing is doable.

A lot of this stuff you can set up dead cheap, like DIY green houses for example, and you can grow stuff year round there without worrying about pests, and I would imagine that after some trial and error, you could make it work without breaking your back.

I have done some volunteering at a community garden, and it was a really peaceful and enriching experience, at times kind of Eden-like, so in a way the work, if you set it up right, could be kind of like therapy.

This last video I include just for inspiration. If you can ignore the annoying personality of the dude who turned his Phoenix (heh) garden into a kind of paradise, this video is an amazing example of someone who learned a bit, even in an unlikely climate, and made something edible and spiritual at the same time:



Permaculture is the absolute shit for designing gardens, and if you want to see what it can do on a vast scale, check this out:

 

[ms224]

Low scale high profit farming? LOLZ

There used to be a 24 hour grow store in Denver. Had a huge sign next to the highway.

When I was in university I used to buy bacon and stuff from a guy about 30 (at the time) who bought a pig farm.
He was a pretty interesting person to talk to, he had pictures of his animals and stuff too. Bacon was excellent but a little pricey.
This was before the hipster OMG BACON IS LIFE! craze. No Iberian ham unfortunately.

I think he just wanted to live away from the city with his wife and kid in peace.

 

[Alpharius]

If you set up a small scale indoor operation that used vertical farming, hydroponic, and aquaponic methods, you might eventually get a return on investment.

Sitting 2 feet from my three hydroponic tanks right now, I'll tell you this right away - your initial investment will be significant, and you'll need to be on top of your game constantly. Hope you paid attention in your high school chemistry class, because you're going to need it.

 

[Leonard D Neubache]

Be aware of the state/fed rules and regs.

Small scale farming has been in the crosshair of megacorps for decades and there are some pretty tricky and obscure laws governing it in some locations.

 

[da_zeb]

Rather than farming to earn an income, consider farming in order to reduce your cost of living. My mom has always been an avid gardener. When we were growing up we were nearly self-sufficient in everything except meat, dairy and baking products. I'd estimate that we had about a third of an acre under cultivation. We had everything - kiwi fruits, apricots, corn, hazel nuts, raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, peas, eggs etc etc. Of course a farming lifestyle isn't conducive to travelling overseas for extended periods of time, and if you intend to go beyond growing basic vegetables that ripen in one season then you'll need to be settled as it will take several years for many fruit trees or bushes to mature to a stage where they will produce decent crops.

 

[roberto]

Rather than farming to earn an income, consider farming in order to reduce your cost of living. My mom has always been an avid gardener. When we were growing up we were nearly self-sufficient in everything except meat, dairy and baking products. I'd estimate that we had about a third of an acre under cultivation. We had everything - kiwi fruits, apricots, corn, hazel nuts, raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, peas, eggs etc etc. Of course a farming lifestyle isn't conducive to travelling overseas for extended periods of time, and if you intend to go beyond growing basic vegetables that ripen in one season then you'll need to be settled as it will take several years for many fruit trees or bushes to mature to a stage where they will produce decent crops.

Respectfully disagree. There are indeed many benefits to growing your own, but saving money isn't one of them.

Food in this country (Britain) is so cheap that it represents a laughably small proportion of the average family income. The economies of scale in farming are massive.

I can buy 20kg of potatoes from the farm down the road for a fiver. 30 eggs from another farm two miles away are £6. Add in a selection of veg and a cheap cut of meat for £9 and you have a weeks worth of (monotonous) food for two hours work assuming an average wage of £10 an hour.

 

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

I have done hydroponics as a hobby. You don't save money, but you have the convenience of fresh produce in your house. The tomatoes I grew were far better than anything I bought in the store.
Generally, hydroponic crops give you much higher yields. I don't have a yard so I setup a system on my roof (flat roof).

Time and money was too short last season, so my system was idled. I need to make some changes to it correct a couple of design flaws.

 

[roberto]

I have done hydroponics as a hobby. You don't save money, but you have the convenience of fresh produce in your house. The tomatoes I grew were far better than anything I bought in the store.
Generally, hydroponic crops give you much higher yields. I don't have a yard so I setup a system on my roof (flat roof).

Time and money was too short last season, so my system was idled. I need to make some changes to it correct a couple of design flaws.

Hydroponics and indoor farming fascinate me. A combined hydroponics/aquaculture setup is on my bucket list.

 

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

Hydroponics and indoor farming fascinate me. A combined hydroponics/aquaculture setup is on my bucket list.

I took some inspiration from this guy, who build a basic system (see below vids). The problem with outdoor systems though is heat. The roots need to stay cool or all your crops will die from pythium (pythium likes the low oxygen environment in a warm nutrient solution). One of my design flaws is getting the insulation right. I am still picking up too much heat during the hot weather.






Below is what the tomatoes looked like after about two months. I didn't properly prune and train the vines, so they kind of went everywhere.

 

[roberto]

^ If it were me I'd consider adding a cooling system. If the insulation works then great, but the purpose of hydroponics to me is controlling every variable. A heat exchanger of some sort along with a thermostat would be cheap and easy, and could be supplemented with a heating element in colder months to keep it optimum.

How do warm water aquaponics setups get around this? I presume the bio filter takes care of it? Could this be an alternative solution?

 

[SnowHugger]

Be aware of the state/fed rules and regs.

Small scale farming has been in the crosshair of megacorps for decades and there are some pretty tricky and obscure laws governing it in some locations.

Agreed. I'm down to try this, but looking at all the regulations for my area, it's putting me off.

Then again, people sell anything on Kijiji and Craigslist. Going to dig deeper into this and report back.

 

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

^ If it were me I'd consider adding a cooling system. If the insulation works then great, but the purpose of hydroponics to me is controlling every variable. A heat exchanger of some sort along with a thermostat would be cheap and easy, and could be supplemented with a heating element in colder months to keep it optimum.

I picked up a used aquarium chiller via Craigslist. It gets overwhelmed during hot weather and the cost of electricity to run it ads up. Until I idled the system, I was converting an old chest freezer into an ice storage / chiller system.


Another major design flaw is I made the drains too small. They get clogged with roots. Live and learn....

 

[911]

This looks interesting, not as clickbaity as it looks:

 

[estraudi]

OP, you mean like a 100ft farm? Maybe all your eggs in one basket isn't where the profit will be but in having multiple avenues of gardening available to you could help offset cost of your other growing interests(hydro/aqua). For instance having ducks or honeybees which can be used to fund your aquaponics/gardening adventure.