Make A Big Difference By Starting A Small, Local Farm

The Island Now

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and are looking for a business to start that actually helps people, then you should be thinking of agriculture. Surely, you have heard the phrase “No Farms, No Food” and didn’t pay it much thought. But, now that Covid-19 has shown us how fragile our supply chain is, we need to start focusing on local farms instead of industrial ones.

On Long Island, there may not seem to be many possibilities for this, yet there are many ways that you can start a farm that is profitable and will make life better for the people in your community.

You can look into starting an urban farm in which you have small plots of land scattered around your area, or even go for a small farm on your own land that practices modern farming techniques that have much higher yields than you could have imagined.

In this article, we will take a look at some of your options when it comes to starting a small business in the farming industry.

Find your niche

One of the best ways to make a name for yourself is to specialize in certain types of crops. Find what crops grow well in your area and focus on those with a specialization in just a few. For instance, if you want to grow staple crops like grains and beans then be known as the farmer that always grows consistent quality soy or a heritage wheat that you can’t get at the supermarket.

You shouldn’t grow only one type of crop as you’ll have to make sure that you practice good farming techniques with crop rotation, but you can focus on a small set of certain types of food.

Start small 

It goes without saying that the more land you have the more you can grow and more money you can make. However, you also add to the risk the bigger you start out. In other words, start slowly and plan your growth instead of trying to start out big, you could see a lot of food rotting if you don’t have initial success and that can hurt you in the near future.

Use a small portion of the land you have available and plant what you can make the most money out of at the outset.

Once you have some capital coming in then you can start growing your business alongside your crops.

Add value

A big benefit that small farms have is that they can offer cooked and processed products along with fresh produce. For instance, you can make soups that can be sold frozen or in a store that you have for your produce. Or, baked bread made with your fresh herbs.

There is a big markup on foods to go and can also help you use up produce that doesn’t get sold so you aren’t throwing it away. People are busy and don’t have much time to cook, but they want to eat local produce so this is a win win situation.

 

 

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