Hi all,
New to the forum and happy to meet you! We purchased a 5-acre nonprofit animal sanctuary in Utah two years ago with ~250 animals on the property. After significant investment in enclosure maintenance, vet care, a market garden with flowers, heirloom tomatoes, etc., and a ton of work from a lot of kind donors and volunteers (and with us paying the
mortgage), I'm proud to say that we have made the sanctuary cash flow positive and likely self-sustaining for the foreseeable future!
In our effort to become fully self-sufficient, the item that we're looking at now is
hay and alfalfa for our larger critters. After a drought in our area last year, hay prices went up 40%...we probably spend at least $16K - $20K / yr. buying alfalfa and grass hay from a rotating list of suppliers at $14 / bale...but the state just apportioned tens of millions aside for
water projects, and there does appear to be relatively inexpensive
land in southern Utah - some with water rights - that perhaps we could cultivate?
The thing I'd like to try and solve is to basically take the money I already know we're going to spend on hay, plus possibly some possible additional up front capital, and see if we can grow our own alfalfa and hay. There are 5-acre and 10-acre, even 20-acre plus and larger plots that we might be able to invest in...and of
course, we have our current property with water rights and could drill a well on it if we could somehow figure out how to grow all the alfalfa and hay we need on 1/2 - 1 acre of our current 5-acres that isn't currently used for the market garden or the animals? Labor we have, equipment would probably need to buy or rent if it's anything larger than a tiller (although our neighbor has a
tractor he helps us with sometimes)...but I think we've got
enough resources for a jumping off point and the need is there for sure.
I'm a business guy...my father-in-law is our executive director with a ton of
gardening and animal
experience, but we've never done a pure farming
project of this scale (our flower / produce market garden is maybe an acre of our property max atm and more of a very large garden than anything super agricultural). Every dollar made from the current produce / flowers from market sales goes back into the nonprofit to take care of rescued and injured farm and exotic animals, and if we can figure out a path to get started using our resources to sustainably grow our own alfalfa / hay...we're already spending the money on the product lol, so that takes care of our biggest expense and perhaps makes a little more to help with more animals. But literally have never truly farmed before, purchased a farm...kind of fell backwards into the animal sanctuary thing, but look at all you ag folks with a bit of awe at how in the heck you got started and want to see if we can join you.
Anyway - I'll post here our progress if nothing else, but if there's anyone here that can help some eager and resourceful but certainly complete newbies out to brainstorm how to grow our own alfalfa and hay on either current property or new property so we can get a workable plan would be much appreciated! First steps...should we buy land - if so, what do we look for (water rights and how much / what type, soil composition, access to roads...?) and how to price it so we can grow what we need or turn a
profit on excess? Or, alternatively, is it possible using new techniques to grow our own alfalfa and hay on a 1/2 acre - 1 acre of our current 5 acres? If so, what types of techniques and what would that look like? What questions
should we have and do we need to
answer to get a fully workable plan? Are there grants or other resources available for new farmers / nonprofit farmers such as us? Land leases or sharecropping that might be a better option than buying our own land?
Man, we are such noobs...anyway, any questions / ideas you have, fire away - we're open
books, clean slates, and it's all for charity at the end of the day! Thanks everyone, and again, nice to meet you!
Nick
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