Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >James,would it be more like homestead beef if I were to trade my extra beef
> raised, of course, on surplus grass, for honey or maple syrup or other
> such?  You really seem to be stretching here.
> 

Cathy, the distinction I make, and it is not always a popular one, is that if 
one goes about on a small farm to raise some farm product with the full 
intent of not using it themselves (or all of it themselves) and instead raise 
it 
with the full intention of selling it for cash, that is a business and in my 
parlance it is not a function of a homestead.

Some people on this list (for examples) repair cars for their cash needs, 
others do editing, others write, some have sold houses, I myself work wood 
and 
specifically am a luthier.

When I speak of homesteading I divide in my reckoning what people do as their 
direct use economy including what they do with the invevitable but not always 
intentional surpluses (on the one hand) and what they do as a business (on 
the other hand).  I don't address the two the same way, don't hold that the 
the 
same principles apply.

I know that many don't agree with this taxonomy.  To many just raising farm 
products for your own use is homesteading 'lite' but going into some 
agricultural sideline for cash is the heavy duty homesteading, Real McCoy!

But the way I view it, when one engages in mini-farming as part of one's cash 
income, that's just another job or vocation they have chosen the same as many 
of us have chosen something else.  More power to them, and no mistake.  

This comparison might get muddy, but bear with me.  One of the financial 
guru's, one Dave Ramsey that many here probably know of, used to field calls 
on a 
regular basis where the caller would say to the effect of "I can make 12% on 
this stock but my mortgage is 6%.  I have an extra $50K, doesn't it make more 
sense to buy the stock rather than pay off my mortgage?"  Ramsey's answer is 
"If your mortgage were paid off, would you borrow $50K against your house to 
buy 
stocks?"  The answer is always a resounding "No way!"   But, says Ramsey, 
that's what you'd be doing.

I look at farm produce as a business that way.  If I weren't raising eggs for 
my own consumption, would I set up in a business to raise them for cash or 
would I do something else for cash?  If I didn't have a garden for my own 
food 
supply, would I set up gardening to sell at the farmer's market for my cash 
income?   For me the answers to those questions is a definate 'no'!  (for 
reasons 
I'll mention below).

That is, setting up in a business to sell beef, or eggs, or vegetables must 
stand alone as an enterprise.  I don't view it as "super" homesteading or 
"real" homesteading or "complete" homesteading to earn one's cash from 
farming 
rather than from some other type of work.

A person can well be a homesteader (in my use of the word) and a small farmer 
at the same time.  It makes all the sense in the world that if you are going 
to attempt to pay your cash bills as a small farmer, you would take advantage 
of the direct use aspect of your work and products as well.

------------------------------------

But here is why I have, let me say, a reserved view about that.  A few years 
ago the gardens came into a new level of fertility as a result of fifteen 
years of composting and mulching.  Probably not 50%  of what was grown that 
year 
was eaten, preserved, fed to animals, of given away.  Moreover, by hiving my 
own swarms, I had (through no particular plant to do so) gotten up to 13 bee 
hives.  Ditto too many chickens etc, etc.   

So the following two years we loaded up the vehicle once or twice a week and 
hauled all and sundry to the farmers' market.  We offered vegetables, honey, 
eggs, and bread.  Probably some other stuff, it was  a while ago.  We made 
pretty good there but we earned it.  And a little math showed why:

By coincidence those two years were the record years for the percent of 
income spent on food.  By the reckoning used, the average family was spending 
6.25 
percent of their income on food.  Now suppose you wanted to make the average 
income of those families by selling food to them.  You would have to raise 
all 
the food that 16 families ate in order to have the full income of one of 
those 
families!   Times are a bit harder now than in those particular years.  Last 
year using the same formula families spent 8.75% of their total income on 
food.  Still, to have the average income of those families, you have to 
supply the 
equivalent of  all the food needed by nearly twelve families.

No doubt that this percentage will go up in coming years.  It may even go up 
to the point that the surplus from sustainable homesteading might yield quite 
a bit more of the homesteader's cash income.

Using completely sustainable, no cash methods of raising food, I can probably 
grow enough for three families without it being all that much more work than 
I do for one (my own).  But soon there comes point past which my primitive 
methods become much less "efficient" in terms of producing more and more 
food.  
So if I wanted to feed seven or ten or the whole twelve families, I'd have to 
begin to use machines, purchased fertilizer, maybe even pesticides and such.  
All that costs money that has to be paid for from the sell of farm produce.  
Now I am not only trying to raise the food for twelve or more families, but 
also 
enough to cover my expenses and that can mean twice to three times as much 
total produce.

This is the point at which the model begins to look a lot like an 
agribusiness model to me, that is, cash is required to keep the output higher 
than the 
natural output of the land in order to have even more cash coming in to 
support 
the next round.

Since those summers of the farmer's market (and subsequent summer of produce 
by subscription), I have scaled back my operation to plan on having not more 
than four times what we can use directly.  It doesn't always work out, 
sometimes it ends up being ten times.  But by and large the number of 
animals, fruit 
pantings, and gardens represent about four times what we can reasonably use 
in 
a year.  This allows for some pretty miserable failures (up to 75%) and we 
still have plenty.   Most of the rest will usually be fed to animals or 
composted.  For example, almost all the surplus milk and milk products are 
fed to the 
hogs.  If we get too many hogs out of that deal, they will be sold as meat by 
subscription.  But we don't plan on doing that.

There's quite a bit of cash income from surplus actually.  But it is casual 
income and purely opportunistic.

If you choose to go into food production as a business, then great!  More 
power to you.  But do not take umbrage that in my comments and writing I do 
not 
include that as in integral part of the definition of homesteading.  I will 
always view it as something different with good reasons and experience for 
holding that view.

James