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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Hook Family" <guldann AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Making a fortune :)
  • Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 21:53:24 -0400


Alex wrote snipped some
And one of the myths about biointensive (or most small-scale) techniques is
that
they can be expanded to large agricultural scales. We use the simple
formula (like
Adriana pointed out) that if X can be done on a small scale and net Y
dollars, then
if we do 100 X, we can net 100 Y dollars. This ignores the facts that 100X
requires many complications- a multiplied capital cost, labor costs (plus
employee
taxes- FICA, unemployment, workers comp.), higher repair costs,...

I chuckled when I read this. For the first two years of our CSA we had a
fellow working with us. We "bored" the heck out of him because we we so
"timid". He kept saying if we hired a couple people we could double or
triple CSA membership. 100 members, ya da ya da. I said to him right now
we basically have no payroll (one part time teenager). To hire real
employees would add thousands of dollars per season to the expenses, plus
increased cost of supplies. Then we'd have the actual hords to deal with
and chit chat with (I am very available at pickup days). Oh he says one of
the employess could work some of the pickup days, I said but that decreases
the value of the product. So I said to him all that trouble and I believe
the NET income would be the same. I know he didn't believe me, he really
thought bigger was a measure of success. So last year he'd thought he'd
dabble on his own with wholesale tomatoes (something else we said we had no
interest in only retail for us) he fell flat on his face, basically no
harvest and he did not hire any employes (with his money).
We also found out that you can not really depend on others. If you bite of
more than you can chew and your "reliable" help up and leaves you may not be
able to deliver the veggies promised. As we enter our 4th year we feel like
we've learned alot, and it would be nice to grow the business. But we've
got to keep in mind the NET and be able to grow with few employees. We've
had one small school tour to our Maple Sugar House. And in early June we
will have our first school tour, 25 kindergarteners (member kid's class).
$5.00 per kid. Not a ton of money but a beginning to growing the business.
Plus all those kids are going home with cute papers with Green Hill Farm
info all over them ha ha.

Beth





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