Setting up a farm

businessdit

Hi all,

I am a student, finishing my business degree later this year specialising in marketing, I have a part time job working about 16hrs over the weekend, each weekend.

To be honest I have never wanted an ordinary 39hrs a week desk job, and have always loved the outdoors. Also I am a very hard worker, and have been known to work 60+hrs a week where the work is available to me. Also I am quite entrepreneurial, having set up a hobby business whilst in college.

So we have about 40 acres of land, sitting there, pretty shrubby land, but not the worst land, there are a lot of farmers where i live, and whilst i have no real experience of farming, i was thinking of buying a few sheep or starting something farm related.

I know farming is a hard life, but i think i would find it rewarding, also given my marketing experience, would people here think that this could be viable from business point of view? If anyone has farming experience and know how farmers make money, can you let me know?

Mods: For the record I am also posting a similar post in the farming forum as i think that audience would also have good feedback for me. Hope this is ok!

YouProduce

Farming is extremely viable these days, especially if you are not overly dependant upon commodities. Food prices are hitting the rough and there is a natural correlation between the price of food and the price of oil, which means they are going to stay that way. Food prices have been deflating for 30 years and they are about to go up for the next thirty years.

Reducing input costs means learning about bio-deverse methods of keeping the land fertile, rather than using cheap fertilizers.

The reason farm families aren't doing well now is that they are afraid to try new things, not because farming is somehow unviable due to low cost-base countries. You need to break convention to keep your input costs down so learn about permaculture, you'll surprised by what you'll learn.

I suggest you consider using social commerce and social media to sell direct to consumers or restaurants. Farm-to-fork and agri-tourism are growing massively. This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff either, the Financial Times has occasional features on this movement & Seán Gallagher is also saying that this is where the opportunities are, among many others. www.youproduce.ie

Also, myself and two other young entrepreneurs are setting up Bizminds.org, a young entrepreneurs network. You should come along to our first meeting and follow us on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Bizminds/163584193681060

Best of luck:)

Mr.Boots

Great idea, stick with conventional farming and you wont make a bob but if you think outside the box a bit you will do well.
An interesting item i saw on american tv i think was a guy with a small farm grown various plants for the dried flower market, he was drying them, dying them packaging ect.