Market Farming

["Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>]

John is a member of this list and may want to comment on his publication. But I also want to note that besides his appointment with the University, John is also a market farmer. His publication was also based on the results from other market farmers in Wisconsin, so there is a very strong reality check associated with John's publication. I think most of us on the list could benefit from reading it.

 

Bill Shoemaker, Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
University of Illinois - St Charles Horticulture Research Center
www.nres.uiuc.edu/faculty/directory/shoemaker_wh.html

Lynn - Check out this publication:

Grower to Grower: Creating a livelihood on a fresh market vegetable farm
By John Hendrickson, University of Wisconsin
PDF: http://www.cias.wisc.edu/pdf/grwr2grwr.pdf

I had the same question and this study offers a lot of numbers and insights. It was especially interesting to see how the scale of the farm influenced the farmer's dollars-per-hour. There are also valuable appendices with lists of equipment that might be needed by farms of various sizes and how much they cost then. Check it out. Hope this helps.

Krystle
Salem, OR
http://www.selfmadefarmer.com