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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] Making money from farming

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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] Making money from farming
  • Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:48:36 -0600

To a comment of Rick's which in part said:

What would you do if you did not have a $300 market for a newcomer, within
say, 100 miles? That is the reality in our area.


HackettShark wrote:

>>>>> Get a life Rick

-------

Although I think I understand your point of not wanting to live in our area
and having contempt for poorer areas ... I still consider it a rather odd
response considering the broad experiences here on this list.

The fact is that most of us have no intentions of moving from the area to go
to the high income markets, such as the yuppie environments mentioned
earlier, in the more upscale areas that will pay much higher prices and have
the higher buyer numbers.

This past summer, some of us reviewed the estimated total income from our
local farmer's market which typically has 10 to 20 marketers at the peak.
Even if only one family took in all the receipts, it would still be
difficult to make a good living (after expenses). I recently found out that
several of the marketers that I assumed did pretty good, admitted that they
averaged $50 to at most $100 per session. As I mentioned, there are some
exceptional cases where they were able to sell close to $300 at times, but
not consistently. And that is only for the well established marketers who
have been there from the beginning.

When you consider that driving to a market, let's say, 100 miles away, even
it only $10/hour labor cost, would still require perhaps a conservative $150
additional overhead for the trip and selling time. So the $300 total sales
really represents something closer to $150 which is doable in our market.

Not counting produce, I have been able to move $140 worth of beef in one
morning. This summer will be the real test since we will have it available
at all markets and the neat thing is that we don't have to worry about
growing some early crops:)

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Direct marketed dairy beef and produce
(also dairy heifers and beef stockers)
Viroqua, WI






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