Community Farm income

Hello! I am a board member at Taproot Community Farm in Iron River, MI. We are about 1 year old and have 20 some acres of land in city limits that we are trying to rehab, grow vegetables on and raise some animals on with and for the local community. We’re dreamers and have a ton of ideas but so far are limited by time and money. We have the idea of our main source of income being a large compost operation modeled after another local community farm, but the problem with that is that we

1. Need money to finish a driveway to the compost site
2. Need a system to collect the community’s compostables
3. Need to build a compost pile and let it compost
4. Actually need to sell the compost to generate income…

So, that all being said, i think we are at least a couple years away from making a penny off of compost. Donations are nice but cannot keep us alive. We need grants. But the reason Im posting this is to get other income ideas from you all.

The land seems like it would be good goat or sheep habitat, but I dont see how that would make us any money as I dont see much or a market for their milk or meat. Maybe Im wrong but it would take some talking with the community to feel that out. But chickens seem like an obvious one to me. Everyone wants eggs and meat chicken and thats a relatively quick turn around. We can’t legally sell butchered chickens, but there are work-arounds…

Here’s my ideas so far:

Establish a laying flock and sell eggs (need money for birds, feed and coops/fencing first though)

Take unwanted roosters and offer a chicken butchering class where people pay to come to the class, learn how to butcher a chicken and take one home. Not technically buying butchered chickens, they’re buying entry to the class so its legal.

Have a sign up sheet where people can essentially buy meat birds and front the money for feed, we raise them at the farm, people pay to come to the butcher event and get to take home the butchered birds that they essentially paid for ahead of time. (Still need money for chicken tractors or fencing)

The land used to be a mining village with houses and cow pastures, but all the houses have been relocated and its just overgrown, collapsed foundations, buried fencing and meadows of golden rod, tansy and a variety of other perennials. And hornets… Its mostly open with a few small clusters of trees, so arial predators will be a concern for chickens. And uneven ground will be tricky to fence in against predators.

We also need water on site before we can do any of this… there is city water there, we just need to hook up to it.

Any opinions, ideas, critiques or suggestions?

Several years ago, I read about a place around the Twin Cities, MN where Hmong (mostly) customers come, buy a live chicken, and then all on their own with no input from the business -- slaughter, pluck, gut, whatever, over on the side of the property by the wash station that just "happens" to be there ready to use. An approach like that might help, but I don't really know the legal situation.

This sounds like your organization has a lot of projects and little money.

Fund raisers might help get some income to finish those projects.

In the fall, pumpkins are a great fund raiser.

Set up a farmers market or road side stand to sell vegetables and other items. Members could donate items to sell until gardens are producing enough to sell.

Have a bingo Night, an Auction,bake Sale, a cook-off are some other great fund raisers.

In the organization I have been a part of the Auctions have generated the most money.  Members donate the items to be auctioned.

I have also be involved with candy or cookie sales and car washes.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Several years ago, I read about a place around the Twin Cities, MN where Hmong (mostly) customers come, buy a live chicken, and then all on their own with no input from the business -- slaughter, pluck, gut, whatever, over on the side of the property by the wash station that just "happens" to be there ready to use. An approach like that might help, but I don't really know the legal situation.

I think technically that would be legal here. I know the state health inspector personally and she basically said theres a bunch of grey areas and she’s on our side, so if we’re unsure, just go for it. But she made it clear we cant sell the butchered chickens directly.

If we did what you mentioned here, the problem would be buying all the feed to raise the chickens. Unless we can raise them with minimal feed, assuming that just means they will grow way slower. I dont know though, their genetics are very accustomed to commercial feed for their entire 2 month lifespan…

Anne Miller wrote:This sounds like your organization has a lot of projects and little money.

Fund raisers might help get some income to finish those projects.

In the fall, pumpkins are a great fund raiser.

Set up a farmers market or road side stand to sell vegetables and other items. Members could donate items to sell until gardens are producing enough to sell.

Have a bingo Night, an Auction,bake Sale, a cook-off are some other great fund raisers.

In the organization I have been a part of the Auctions have generated the most money.  Members donate the items to be auctioned.

I have also be involved with candy or cookie sales and car washes.

We do need fund raising ideas, and that will help. And we plan to do a pumpkin patch this fall.

As for selling produce… i dont think that will be enough to pay for much of anything. I mean, just finishing the driveway will cost thousands. Maybe selling veggies could raise enough money to buy chicken coop supplies and then by selling eggs we could raise enough to pay for feed, but it really would be scraping by. We probably need a significant grant to get some infrastructure in place before much else happens.

I think I would go door to door in this community with the 20 acres. I would ask the community what would benefit them (since that seems to be the purpose) and what they would be willing to pay for (since it is not a charity). You can also ask for volunteer labor.

If the grant money comes though, and helps you reach some goal not helpful for the community, the usefulness will die unless there are more grants. Sounds like it could be a purposelessness source of stress if so.

On a microcosm level, we wanted to have more egg laying hens. We talked to about 10 neighbors and 4 wanted the eggs regularly. That pays for the feed and benefits both parties.

If we did not ask our neighbors, we'd have a bunch of hens, a high feed cost and no outlet for the eggs.

I think folks would be very receptive to a knock on the door in the context of what you are trying to accomplish.

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:This sounds like your organization has a lot of projects and little money.

Fund raisers might help get some income to finish those projects.

Set up a farmers market or road side stand to sell vegetables and other items. Members could donate items to sell until gardens are producing enough to sell.

As for selling produce… i dont think that will be enough to pay for much of anything.

Our farmers market here has a lot more than produce.  As I suggested, member's would donate items to sell at the farmers market or road side stand.

Breads and other baked goods, salsas, jellies and pickles, microgreens and sprouts, and even meats products like jerky.

What about custom made jewelry or pottery?  Things that member's can donate.

I think this is a great organization/project for you Brody!  It might take some time but y'all can get things going and yes, grants are amazing and helpful, so someone on the board should be looking for viable ones.

I heartily second the idea to go around and ask people what they might like, and how much they would buy it for.

I will mention that under normal circumstances, eggs are not a money maker. You can make money with them, but it is rarely very much. Most farms I know sell eggs to get people in the door to buy other things with a higher profit margin. In this climate, you might be able to do both.

How about a community garden space as part of it? It would take much to till up some plots, add some compost on top and let people rent them. You probably wouldn't make tons, but it gets the word out and gets people on the property on a regular basis to tend to their plot.

Berries have a pretty fast turn around time. I didn't catch what zone you are in, but could you plant strawberries, blackberries, or raspberries? Those will often produce a little the first year, but a decent crop the second. So you would not have to wait as long as some perennials for a harvest. And berries always sell pretty good around here.

Since you mentioned goats or sheep as one thought that ran by... I would check out some info from The Shepherdess. She has a youtube channel with all kinds of good information on sheep... but also on business. She came from a marketing background and became a farmer. I just came across a new video of hers that seems to fit in with your questions.

She answers 3 questions in the video. What to do before starting? How much land do you need? What mistakes do people often make? Spoiler alert... Make a plan, not very much, and diving in without a plan or not being bale to shift to a new plan.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I think I would go door to door in this community with the 20 acres. I would ask the community what would benefit them (since that seems to be the purpose) and what they would be willing to pay for (since it is not a charity). You can also ask for volunteer labor.

If the grant money comes though, and helps you reach some goal not helpful for the community, the usefulness will die unless there are more grants. Sounds like it could be a purposelessness source of stress if so.

On a microcosm level, we wanted to have more egg laying hens. We talked to about 10 neighbors and 4 wanted the eggs regularly. That pays for the feed and benefits both parties.

If we did not ask our neighbors, we'd have a bunch of hens, a high feed cost and no outlet for the eggs.

I think folks would be very receptive to a knock on the door in the context of what you are trying to accomplish.

Theres around 5,000 people in this community so knocking on doors seems like a hard thing to do. I mean, where would we start? We have public board meetings, a website, facebook page, a board member who is a bartender (always networking) and a board member who is a barista (always networking). We already know the community wants quality vegetables, eggs, chickens, compost, learning opportunities and opportunities for hands on involvement.

We just dont have city water hookup, dont have any sort of on site bathroom, no office space or building for storage (just a carport), and our driveway is very minimal and needs a lot of work (money). If we got a significant grant, we could hook up to city water, build chicken coops and install fencing, build an office, build an outhouse and finish our driveway. Maybe even buy a farm truck to plow and haul compsotables from people’s houses to our pile.

Anne Miller wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:This sounds like your organization has a lot of projects and little money.

Fund raisers might help get some income to finish those projects.

Set up a farmers market or road side stand to sell vegetables and other items. Members could donate items to sell until gardens are producing enough to sell.

As for selling produce… i dont think that will be enough to pay for much of anything.

Our farmers market here has a lot more than produce.  As I suggested, member's would donate items to sell at the farmers market or road side stand.

Breads and other baked goods, salsas, jellies and pickles, microgreens and sprouts, and even meats products like jerky.

What about custom made jewelry or pottery?  Things that member's can donate.

One of our members is pretty crafty and does have things that would sell. She just also works and homeschools 2 kids on top of being our clerk/accountant. So she doesnt have time to make the things that we could sell…

I do like the microgreens idea though. That could be super cheap and easy and possibly generate at least a little income.

Its such a double edged sword, because any time our members put towards making goods to sell takes away from the time they could be applying for grants or doing hands on work at the farm. We need another member or two but its all volunteer work and it seems like theres 2 kinds of people around here: ones that do everything possible, are already volunteering elsewhere and flirting with overwhelm and burnout and people that literally do nothing.

Matt McSpadden wrote:I heartily second the idea to go around and ask people what they might like, and how much they would buy it for.

I will mention that under normal circumstances, eggs are not a money maker. You can make money with them, but it is rarely very much. Most farms I know sell eggs to get people in the door to buy other things with a higher profit margin. In this climate, you might be able to do both.

How about a community garden space as part of it? It would take much to till up some plots, add some compost on top and let people rent them. You probably wouldn't make tons, but it gets the word out and gets people on the property on a regular basis to tend to their plot.

Berries have a pretty fast turn around time. I didn't catch what zone you are in, but could you plant strawberries, blackberries, or raspberries? Those will often produce a little the first year, but a decent crop the second. So you would not have to wait as long as some perennials for a harvest. And berries always sell pretty good around here.

Since you mentioned goats or sheep as one thought that ran by... I would check out some info from The Shepherdess. She has a youtube channel with all kinds of good information on sheep... but also on business. She came from a marketing background and became a farmer. I just came across a new video of hers that seems to fit in with your questions.

She answers 3 questions in the video. What to do before starting? How much land do you need? What mistakes do people often make? Spoiler alert... Make a plan, not very much, and diving in without a plan or not being bale to shift to a new plan.

Correct me if Im wrong, but the only reason eggs arent a money maker is because of feed costs right? Seems to me that if feed is minimized with foraging and maybe buying bulk grains and fermenting them, then there would be way more of a profit margin than buying bagged commercial feed pellets like I do with my own chickens.

As for community garden, we are planning that. I think we have an event scheduled for this summer to build garden beds.

We are near the zone 3/4 border. If I remember right, we planted blackberries, raspberries, apples, plums, asparagus and grapes (among a lot of nut trees) last year. Maybe strawberries too but I dont think so. But it was a ridiculous amount of planting done sort of haphazardly. A lot of things arent fenced in and we have significant deer pressure. And theres no water on site so things even surviving will be a miracle. And theres no weed control. We do have a pile of woodchips to use for mulch and plans to get a bunch more stuff planted. I think its going to be a real survival of the fittest situation… I do feel we’re trying to run before we can walk and plan to bring that concern up next board meeting.

Ill check out that video later, thanks!