What crops are high $ yields?

David Livingston wrote:Asparagrass goes for 9euro a kilo here organic
David

Yeah, I meant 3 euros selling it un washed, un packaged. Just picked and dropped off all dirty. Once you get to the supermarket it's more like 6-8-9 euros depending...
William

In Canada I'm told cauliflower is going for about $9 a head (1-1.5#) in recent past. I've successfully gotten cauliflower here but it's not a high yield for the return...

in the local store last month
a bundle of 6 green onions (scallions) was $1.99
I weighed them at 1/4 lb

$8.00/lb !

I'll just throw this out there...for what it's worth...

I think if you are planning on making money from farming, perhaps the last thing you want to do is create a business around what value your product has in terms of weight.

I understand that people are used to measuring things in terms of it's value per kilogram, pound, ounce, or whatever, but if one bases their business around that (in the current market) your ideal product will seem far out of balance in the worldview of the consumer, who also bases some of their decisions around weight.

For instance, I recently bought comfrey roots. 5 euros for about 4 roots plus a little bit of shipping. It seemed like a good value to me but if I was to actually measure what I was paying in terms of grams or ounces, I probably would have been angry at myself for buying that.

I have personally had a customer who did a quick evaluation of my product in terms of weight and decided I was not even in the ballpark... Needless to say we don't deal with that person anymore. Fortunately for us there are others who do not use the same logical analysis.

Transferring your business strategy toward things that are not sold by weight or toward other units of measure is a solid business move in my opinion, especially when dealing with nature's products or services. It isn't a good idea to sell ecosystems short since they are of immeasurable value.
William

Closing in on my 10K post mark!!! YAY! A personal acomplishment.

Should't the price be compared to the amount of work and necessary surface? If you have a large farm, you can plant what needs little job and easy crop even if it does not sell expensive. If you have a small surface, you need to produce what will surely need more work but with high rentability per square meter. And adding value by transofrming is also much more worth it. You would sell fruits or marmelade from your fruits, accordingly.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:Should't the price be compared to the amount of work and necessary surface? If you have a large farm, you can plant what needs little job and easy crop even if it does not sell expensive. If you have a small surface, you need to produce what will surely need more work but with high rentability per square meter. And adding value by transofrming is also much more worth it. You would sell fruits or marmelade from your fruits, accordingly.

Absolutely.

Part of the problem, here in Maine at least, is the high cost of property taxes. For instance I raise sheep, but that takes pasture and hay because we cannot winter graze here. That means a lot of acreage that must either be owned with resulting property taxes being paid out on, or leasing land from others which has its own costs and sets of problems. All this effects the bottom line.

For awhile, people found out that they could take an acre or two, grow veggie crops and sell it at farmers markets. Their cost was low for buying such small farms, as well as getting the most dollar per acre from their varied veggie crops, until the trend became commonplace. They saturated the market. Every town has a farmers market here, and so now it is almost impossible for a new farmer to join one. If they do, they are told what to raise because the others in the farmers market do not want competition.

The only real answer is to match the crop with the farm so that a farmer does not have to spend a lot of money on trying to get things to grow that are in a lackluster environment. Why do I have sheep? Not because we have always had them, but because New England has the best pastures in the world. A lambs life cycle is 90% on pasture so why not use what I have and make a go of it? Does lamb pay high prices? No. Should everyone get into sheep? No. Match the commodity to the farm for the least amount of expenses.

And "absolutely" should be the answer to this question: "Should taxes be paid according to what the land is used for?"

Result here, I pay zero taxes. And I am not going to complain I cannot build anything and not even get a winterhouse of whatever size....

For me, living here in the USA, I cannot complain about paying property taxes. It is without question the basis of how this society is funded.

It can be frustrating because 75% of my property taxes are derived for the school system, and because we are so rural, the school system hires the vast majority of those employed here. So whenever the budget comes up for approval, having 60% of the population work there, it gets voted right in no matter how silly the figures are. I say that because with so many people moving away, we have 1/3 less students, yet the budget has risen 30% in 10 years time. It should be dropping, not going up! But I do my civic duty and vote, so I do what I can...I do my part.

But as frustrating as all that is, I have no problems paying my taxes morally. When I retired; failing to calculate in the rising cost of them which was so acutely, was the one big mistake I made. Now the question for me at least is not whether I should, or should not be paying property taxes, it is how can I make my land help pay for itself?

For years and years, that has been by growing wood. It was simple; let wood grow, selective cut it, and pay the property taxes on what little was cut. Today though with so many paper mills gone, the value of the woodlot has diminished so much that what it is growing every year on a per acres basis, is the same as what the property taxes are. That makes no sense, so now I am converting it over to raise sheep. The cost of conversion is high; land clearing is, but when I am done, 5 lambs grazing per acre, at $100 profit per lamb, every year will vastly exceed the cost of property taxes. But even then, 102 lambs must be sent to slaughter just to pay the property taxes. That does not include profit or household expenses.

So it is obvious, it takes a very sharp pencil to farm.

I find it just ...incredible, to say it and stay cool, that taxes have to lead to business and that it is not possible to keep land alone and quiet!
Taxes should be proportionate to the income derived from it.

You say that you have no moral problem in paying, but when regarding the fact that you have to cut a piece of forest and convert the land, I feel sad.

I'd be very interested to hear of more people who are currently making a profit (big or small) in any way off of the land, especially from vegan resources! It seems more consumers have become interested in natural and organic within the last five years, and I have seen many recipes online, but ones I've tried have been lackluster, and also often include many ingredients that have to be internationally shipped.

Anyone using ALL local and finding success?!

Bob Anders wrote:
No I do not put wood in the dehydrator.  I use the wood to start a small fire at the air intake tube.  

Bob, this post is from quite a few years ago. Are you still around? If so, please let me know because I have a couple of questions. Thank you!

Lanie Veazey wrote:I'd be very interested to hear of more people who are currently making a profit (big or small) in any way off of the land, especially from vegan resources! It seems more consumers have become interested in natural and organic within the last five years, and I have seen many recipes online, but ones I've tried have been lackluster, and also often include many ingredients that have to be internationally shipped.

Anyone using ALL local and finding success?!

I do. We're a small market garden 1/2 acre under vegetables and sell off the gate. Making a profit is pretty easy, making a living is hard. We are not vegan but we do not have farm animals at the moment and do not use any manure so the garden is in effect vegan. Which ingredients are you thinking of replacing? Living in a very cool climate almost all vegan/vegetarian food is imported from the other side of the world (we cannot grow soy or lentils or most beans)

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An oldie but still a great thread!
I’m just starting to consider farmers market, so down the road a bit! I wonder if finding someone with a roadside stand to sell at would be better as all the markets here are the same ole same ole. (And the garbage flea market crap seeping into them)

Someone up thread mentioned the need for "crops" plural. I'd like to emphasize that. Hubby has pretty much focused on eggs (Chicken and Duck) and a meat chickens. Luckily, we can meet the minimal limit for farm taxes from just our eggs, because Bird Flu has shut down the meat chicken side of the business for 2 years now.

I'll also emphasize again that keeping track of the time different income streams take is really important. The meat chickens are time consuming, but only for 8 week! The egg business is year round with no breaks so even if on a daily basis it's a little less work, when you look at the big picture, we need to find ways to stream line how we're doing it.