Highly profitable farm-no till.

Hi,
This farm, at singingfrogsfarm.com, is apparently grossing $100,000 per acre, on 3 acres, no till veggie production. Very interesting no till methods, soil O.M. content, low water use,etc. Good interview of the farmer's here: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-05-27/paul-elizabeth-kaiser-sustainable-farming-2-0

Thanks, Carlo, wonderful to see a successful farm.
I've embedded the podcast below and here is a live link to their website... http://singingfrogsfarm.com/Home.html

carlo biagi wrote:This farm {...} is apparently grossing $100,000 per acre, on 3 acres, no till veggie production.

So that works out to $2.29 per square foot. That is approximately the cost of one head of lettuce which is about what a square foot of ground can produce. In maritime Central California, I'd expect to be able to harvest multiple crops per year from the same square foot of space.

How did you come to $2.29 per ft2?

Rose Gardener wrote:How did you come to $2.29 per ft2?

$100,000 per acre
43,460 ft2 per acre

100,000 / 43,460 is 2.29ish

$100,000/43,560, I assume.


Edited to add: Burra beat me to it.

Even so, finding a market for 130,000+ theoretical lettuces is its own thing, and the major accomplishment to my mind.

Roberta Wilkinson wrote:Even so, finding a market for 130,000+ theoretical lettuces is its own thing, and the major accomplishment to my mind.

Yup... I suppose that the profitability of the farm has a lot to do with location: right next to San Fransisco, one of the foodiest cities in the country, and in California, one of the most expensive places to live. And it would require great management: to organize the labor required to plant, pick, and distribute that much produce.

Visited this farm twice now. It is an impressive operation.

I work(volunteer) almost full time at a CSA farm www.AnandaValleyFarm.org and we are trying to emulate Paul & Elizabeth's methods, in a similar climate.

What they have done is very innovative in it's practicality.

Like many smaller market farms they rely on growing many different types of vegetables for a CSA direct to consumer retail pricing.
A lot of work, but a method smaller farms can compete with larger mechanized ones while giving people fresher, healthier food.
Their profitability probable exceeds large farms when looking at profit/acre, profit/capital investment. Profit/man hour is probably less though, but this means they employ more labor and employ less machines.

It´s a shame that in the podcast hardly any detailed discussion goes into the details of their methods and techniques, and their website doesn´t seem to have any comprehensive material on it either. I guess we´ll have to wait for the book...

I really am inspired by the pod cast of Singing Frogs Farm! there is hope for my hard pan problem.