March Musings

It's taken me most the past year, but I'm finally seriously looking into income streams. Fresh veggies and fruits are a given. But what else? Adam and my neighbor, Matt, are also looking for income, and while the garden produce is helping them, they realize that we nee to diversify. 

Potted seedlings. We're cleaning up the mini greenhouses and sowing seeds again now that the dead of winter is past. Adam aims to devote several of the mini greenhouses to potted veggies and herbs that he can take to the farmers market for selling. He has been talking with folks around town and they seem interested in both veggies and herbs. 

Green coffee beans ready for home roasting. I haven't the foggiest idea if there is any demand for this, but Adam plans to test the market. 

Eggs. I don't see an egg business happening this year. The flock is aging, plus the farm now has a wwoofer to feed. But if there happens to be extra eggs, then they'll go to the market. 

Lamb. I will have two older lambs ready for slaughter. Plus a ram that can go for ground mutton. With the new lambs arriving, it's time to process the older sheep that are not needed. Plus any excess lambs will be ready for selling for meat in 6 months. I've gotten 4 male lambs so far this season and surely don't need more rams in the flock. One is now sold, but that leaves 3 extra ram lambs. 

Goat milk. Not this year, but maybe next year. Pet owners are interested in buying small amounts of goat milk. So Adam might consider selling the excess. 

Compost. Adam is getting serious about making compost. Within a few months he should be selling his first batch. I consider my own compost to be too valuable to sell for now. 

Garden labels. A friend jokingly suggested marketing my bright yellow garden sticks that I use for labels. My own sticks are rather crude and rough, but I could make some better made ones for resale. So a passing joke might be a marketing idea. 

Young chickens and ducks. "S" made the suggestion to sell young birds. Both chickens and ducks. Well, with a little effort, we could get a few of the hens sitting on eggs right now. Ducks....I would need to buy a few since I'm down to one female. It's something to consider. 

Garden seeds. Since I'm producing a fair amount of my own garden seed, it looks like I could be getting excess. Is there a market for garden seed in this area? 

Veggies. This is a given. Fresh chemical-free veggies are sellable. Now the trick will be to produce a steady supply rather than our rollercoaster excess that we've been doing so far. 

Adam is also looking into some day work, things like handyman style jobs. This isn't something that the farm will benefit from, but Adam needs income other than just the farm for now. Eventually he hopes to just live off the farm production. But in the meantime he is looking to pick up a few hours work here and there. Matt has been picking up some day work to supplement his house painting efforts. But he also wants to focus on growing pumpkins and beets. He does fairly well with those two crops. 

Developing income streams is challenging in a poor rural area. I'm not complaining and I surely am not interested in moving to where the better markets are (Honolulu area, Kahului area, etc). Nor am I interested at this point in developing an internet presence to sell stuff. That is possibly a future project, but not for now. For right now, all involved are just looking to get comfortable with growing more food and related farm production. I think that's a worthy goal for now. 

November Crops for Income

"J" asked me to give her some hints as to what I'm growing for resale. This is an easy question of answer! 

Right this very month the list includes....

...snap peas

...snow peas

...green beans 

...potatoes

...onions

...leeks

...assorted herbs (parsley, sage, mints, dill, rosemary, cilantro) 

...sweet potatoes

...pipinolas

...tangerines

...limes

...lilikoi

Later this month other crops will be ready in addition to those listed above...

...chard

...lettuce

...bok choy

...radishes

...lemons 

...pineapples (just a few late ripening ones) 

And the following month will add...

...carrots

...beets

...turmeric

...kale

...yacon

...green coffee beans--- for home roasting

Hit and miss, I'm getting pumpkins, bananas, and papayas. I had macnuts, but the excess is now gone. 

By far my best resale crops have been green beans, peas, potatoes, and onions/leeks. But just about everything sells in small amounts. 

Gourd Craft

The community garden volunteers are a talented lot. Many recently took gourds and crafted them into absolutely beautiful and interesting items. Everything was done by hand and used a special internal dying technique. 

Gourd craft could be a valuable skill for a self reliant homestead. What farm wife couldn't use a nice bowl or container. Gourds also can be used for drums, lamp shades, utility items, and for decoration. Historically they have been used for food and water storage. Wow, grow-your-own, how appropriate. 

Gourd craft could be used as a supplement to farm income. Targeting the right markets, there is a demand for certain types of gourd-craft. I just wouldn't expect to be able to support my farm on  just gourds. Diversify, diversify, diversify. 

Have I tried carving a gourd yet? No. I do plan to eventually. But I've been watching these artists turning their green "pumpkins" into art pieces and it interests me. So some day....

I give these people a lot of credit. They all have good ideas. I fear that I might be awefully utilitarian by contrast. 

Growing gourds here is not simple. By "here", I mean on my farm. I battle mildew, squash borer, pickleworm moth. Sometimes it's too wet for good gourds. Other times the wind damages the surface of the gourds. But when luck goes my way, the farm indeed can produce nice gourds. Aaahh, just one more crop that a homestead farm can produce. They all don't have to be food items (although some gourd types are indeed edible). 

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)

I've been asked numerous times over the years about setting up my farm as a CSA. While it is tempting to have a steady income from the farm, a CSA just doesn't suit me. In fact, CSAs haven't been all that successful in my area. Why? The primary reason is the difficulty to maintain variety from week to week. In the tropics it is far too easy for a disease or pest to wipe out a crop. Zap, all gone! Thus a CSA farmer seems to be faced with a choice-- grow an abundance of extra crops so that if one or two get wiped out, you can still offer a variety. Or two, take the risk and hope that you don't get hit and lose crops. If you do, then you lose variety resulting in a loss of subscribers. 

If I would opt for the first (grow extra), then I would have a dilemma. What to do with that extra if it isn't needed for the CSA. One could pack it into the CSA boxes anyway, essentially giving it away for free but also conditioning your customers to expect more (and possibly later on even demand it!) Or hustle to find buyers via stores and restaurants. Or spend a day set up at a farmers market and hopefully sell it. But that's a day tied up where I could be doing something else that was needed to get done. De

So if I can't sell my excess, what else? I could attempt to give it away, possibly via the seniors community center.  Most care homes in my area would require me to be a registered supplier, so simply dropping off boxes of free fresh veggies wouldn't work. Churches might take some, maybe, but I was told by two churches that they couldn't handle perishable foods. Then I could just give it away to people, but I would surely end up with surly customers who were paying for the same stuff. Like most commercial farmers, I could just dig it back into the soil. Personally I couldn't bring myself to bury edible food. Lastly, I could feed it to my livestock. I suppose that would be the route I would take. That, and giving some away to my friends. 

Basically here are my reasons for not operating a CSA: 

... Tried to a schedule. I'd have deadlines to get things picked, cleaned, packed, and distributed. Now that I'm "retired" I shy away from deadlines. 

... Stress of having to maintain production. 

... Tied to pick up times or deliveries. 

... Couldn't take a week off to relax whenever I felt I needed it. 

... Have to deal with unhappy customers and complaints. Learned long ago that no matter what you do you can't keep everybody happy. Example ...I hear people complain that thy get too much greens, while someone else bitches that they don't get enough greens. 

... Too much CSA food goes wasted. That would irk me to death. I hear of CSA customers wasting food all the time. It goes into the trash. I know that's once they pay for it, it's their food. But CSAs are incredibly food wasteful. 

... Having to instruct people how to eat the foods they pick up. That's a complaint I hear from CSA operators. Subscribers want recipes. Many have never seen a turnip, rutabaga, kohlrabi, or daikon and haven't the foggiest idea what I do with it. In this day and age, just google it! But apparently that's not what happens. Customers want the CSA operator to teach them how to eat food. 

How Much Income is Needed from the Farm?

A blog follower emailed me and asked, "How much income does a homestead farm have to make in order to support a family?" I see this sort of a question being asked on many of the homesteading, family farm, and permaculture style websites/blogs. I find it difficult to answer because of so many variables and definitions. I think this is an individualistic thing.

What do you consider income? Would you count things that the farm produces for you that you would otherwise have to buy, such as food, firewood, manures, etc? Or do you mean the cash you brought in from sales? Or perhaps net profit? On my homestead farm, when I talk about needing a certain income, I'm referring to net profit. And I don't count the fact that the farm, in one way or another, produces 90% of our food. Or that the farming effort supplies other material goods for us. Our farm is pretty well self supporting at this stage, meaning that it brings in enough cash to pay for its cash expenses. But in order to support hubby and I, it needs to generate a net profit. This is something that I'm still working on.

Family, what's your definition? A young couple just starting out who hasn't yet accumulated a supply of material goods (tools, household items, clothes, vehicles, etc)? A family consisting of young children? A retired, childless couple? Depending upon who the family is, the amount of income they need can greatly vary, wouldn't you agree? We have already accumulated our necessary material goods. So we now think in terms of maintenance, repairs, and replacements. We have no children to support, no future education expenses to be concerned about. We've already done our world traveling and vacations requiring expense. So our family consists of two homebodies who aren't very need oriented.

And how about lifestyle? How much cash would the family need to maintain their desired lifestyle. Gosh, 20 years ago hubby and I needed $75,000-$85,000 a year to live. Yikes! Now we could do fine on $15,000-$20,000, not including medical (which is an outrageous $12,000 a year for basic). You can see, our lifestyle has really changed. By the way, back in the days of $80,000  per year income, we didn't have to pay our own medical insurance premiums. It was a job perk. Now we have no choice but to pay through the nose if we want medical insurance. 

Some people need to make more money than they need to get by. They have a set idea of saving  certain amount each month or year. Thus their farm would need to make more money than the non-fiscally oriented family. Some people can't bear the thought of living a life where they are just getting by. Society pressures us to have savings, IRAs, stock portfolios, pensions. I know people who have extreme anxiety over their savings, fearful that they don't have enough. For these type people, maybe escaping to the countryside and farm life may not be a good idea. Small farming is seldom that profitable. 

Location of your farm would have a big bearing on your expense needs. Some regions are far cheaper to live in than others. Surprisingly, I find my area of Hawaii to be rather affordable, except for that dang medical insurance. But buying a farm  here is not affordable a compared with other regions of the country. 

Outside income is another consideration. In our case, we will be drawing social security benefits eventually. Some people I've talked with have pensions, alimony, royalties,interest, etc bringing money in. Yet others have non-farm income via part time jobs, sales of crafts or services. Any outside income takes the pressure off  what the farm must produce. 

I'm sure there are other angles to consider. As I've said, this is a highly individual thing.

It may surprise you, but hubby and I have different ideas about "getting by". I'm more of a pioneer type, willing to improvise, make do, or do without. Hubby is an urban type who likes his creature comforts and his toys. Therefore our family homestead farm has to produce enough to make hubby satisfied, far more than it would have to produce to please me alone.