Farm Small Farm Smart

Whenever you do something why are you doing it? Are you doing it because that something is pulling you towards it, is it the opposite, are you forcing yourself to do something and pushing yourself towards it. There's a big difference there. And depending on the answer to that question, it mean the difference between doing big things and setting out to do big things, but never really getting anywhere. To further explain this concept I turn to the brilliant personal development specialist Anthony Robbins... "I think you have to have something larger than yourself that you are after because [otherwise] you will let your fear dominate you. But if you have something—your children, your mom, your dad, a friend, a mission—something you want to do that really pulls you [the fear disappears]. Because push never lasts. 'Push' motivation is I'm going to make myself do that. You can do that for a while, but you are eventually going to [regress]. When you are pulled toward something larger than yourself, you'll make the sacrifices; you'll do what's necessary because it's not just about you. I really believe life supports what supports more of life." This is what we are focusing on today. It's a loose conversation based around this idea of push and pull. And finding something that meakes it easy to choose to be great. Something that you feel compelled to do, and you feel off when you aren't doing it. When you hear about someone like Curtis putting in a ton of hours working in the farm, and you think, why does he work so much, you are missing the point, because maybe that thing that you think is work isn't work after all...

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Today is part three in our series focusing on more money, less land, where we are brainstorming ideas to make more money off of your farm without, without adding more land. Over the last few weeks we have focused on a variety of ways to sell more product and produce more product without adding more land. Today we will get into the last primary concept... Raising Prices Specifically how can you do that? What are the different ways that you can change what you are selling to justify a higher price? There's a lot of ideas in here. Some easier to implement than others. Each with has their own costs and benefits. As with the previous episodes, there's a lot in this one.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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Today is two in our series focusing on more money, less land, where we are brainstorming ideas to make more money off of your farm without, without adding more land. Last week we focused on two of the primary concepts that had a lot of ideas under them: If you aren't moving all of your current product, sell it all. Selling all of your current product, but you know there is more demand... Today we will focus on a third primary concept: Change Your Product Profile and Crops It's all about making more just by changing what you grow and when you grow it. There's a lot in here, enjoy it...

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Say you're a vegetable farmer and you want to make more money. How do you do that? How would you do that? If this was an episode of Family Feud one of the top answers on the board would likely be 'grow more products'. And if we took this line of question on iteration further the asking how do you grow more crops? One of the top answers would be 'get more land'. More land means more vegetables can fit in that space. A more vegetables means more to sell. Simple enough right. What if you couldn't get more land? Because it wasn't available or it was too expensive or it would change the dynamic of your farm... what would you do then? You want to make more money... but you can't add land. What are your options... you could raise prices or lower input costs, those would work, but there are a lot of other options available. That's the topic that we are taking on in this multipart series – more money with less land.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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It's currently September 15, 2016 and the end of the regular farming season is near. Along with it is Curtis's tenure at the Kelowna Farmers Market. After 7 seasons at the farmers market, Curtis is moving on. It's part of a larger effort to simplify the farm and match the farm to his lifestyle. At this point in his career Curtis is trying to simplify his farm. Not grow bigger just to be bigger. Instead choosing to grow better becoming more efficient and effective. That means focusing on the market streams that work, the products that sell, and moving to plots located even closer to his homebase. Part of those changes involve dropping things like the farmers market which has done since the beginning of his career. But it's a market stream that requires getting up on Saturday for 8 months of the year and it's a market stream that isn't growing anymore. And It's one of the many changes taking place at Green City Acres, resulting in a farm that will look very different come April 2017. Today we will take a look at the many changes coming to Green City Acres, along with they why behind those changes.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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The last few episodes have focused on stuff. The tools of farming. Today we are talking about the flip side of tools, the opposite of the physical. The mental side of things, in particular hustle.

The best tools and the right stuff without the business sense, hustle, and effort won't mean anything. The tools make the job easier. Just owning them doesn't mean anything. You have to do the work.

And it's that hustle to do the work form preparation to production to sales that can give you the advantage over people who just have the money and the stuff.

As Stephen C Hogan said. "You can't have a million-dollar dream with a minimum-wage work ethic."

Because if you do, where's that going to get you. Left with an unsuccessful business and collection of expensive stuff.

A lot of success isn't quantifiable with a dollar sign, instead being measured in pure blood, sweat, and hard work. And the beauty of it is that none of this costs any thing and can be applied by literally every person on the planet regardless of their particular situation.

Today, we will get into the importance of the hustle, and the areas like sales and preparation, where hustle makes the difference between you and the person who isn't hustling as hard.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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Part three of our series on Small Scale Farming on the Cheap - What's the least you could spend to start a farm? Last week in Episode 23 we started going through the equipment needed, or perceived to be needed, when you start a farm along with the costs and advantages associated with that equipment. Given that this is Part 3 it probably makes more sense to listen to Part 1 and Part 2 first. Last week we left of the talk on equipment wrapping up with the tiller. We'll start today with a little bit of warmup on macro business talking before jumping back into the list discussing hand tools.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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Part two of our series on Small Scale Farming on the Cheap - What's the least you could spend to start a farm?. Last week in episode 22 we covered the base principles costs and equipment associated with farm startup. We established the point that tools are simply one leg on the stool of success. The tools should never hold you back. It's never going to be just the tools that make you successful. Yet, good tools can make job easier. That show focused on the concepts and the ideas behind the why. Today's show focuses on the what. What do you actually need and how much does it costs. This episode is the first of a few digging into that question.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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Farming... is it expensive to start, or not? A lot of people want to get into farming, but they stall out when it comes to the money side of things. The common cause of that stall out is land. Land is expensive to purchase. So most people immediately dismiss the idea of farming because they can't afford land. But people like Greg Judy, Joel Salatin, and us on this show, have shown that you don't need to own land to farm. There's a lot of land available to farm. Land you don't need to own, and land that you can gain access to through options like leasing.. If you can lease land either for free or inexpensively and if you are in a market where you can move product, then the potential upside to small scale farming is pretty attractive given the low start up costs and low infrastructure requirements? How low? Very low compared to other businesses. In his book Curtis gives an initial start-up estimate for a 1/4 acre farm at $7k to $17k. Curtis started his farm with just $7k. That's $7k that buys equipment and infrastructure which is portable and resellable. In good markets, the risk reward of small scale farming is usually favorable because small scale market farming startup costs are very low compared to many business out there. Yet, despite the minimal start up costs, the costs are still prohibitive, or at least perceived to be prohibitive by some people. Given that we'll dig into the farm start up numbers and see where costs can be cut and what costs are just unavoidable. And we'll also bring in some rationale to these numbers discussing why certain items are worth the cost, and why others aren't. Today we'll begin a multi-part series discussing the minimum that you could spend to start a farm, and we will begin with the base principles, what are the things that you need to think about before you spend any money, that's coming up on Season Two Episode 22 of The Urban Farmer.

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Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

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"At too many companies, and in too many hapless careers, the number one imperative is to avoid failure and embarrassment associated therewith at all costs. My take, failure, supported by wildly imaginative hypotheses and incredibly hard work, is something that companies and individuals must embrace. Frankly at all costs. Unless you're stretching... wildly, you're not going to reach that brass ring called hyper success amidst a brawl with no rules." Tom Peters The market and nature of small scale farming is too dynamic. To succeed you have to be dynamic as well. That will mean trying things that don't work, and trying things not knowing if they will work. You're going to have to make assumptions and best guesses. You're going to have to adapt. And that's what today's episode is all about... adapting and switching it up on the fly...

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ