Start Your Farm

If you have been dreaming of starting your own farm or are wanting to imagine the possibilities and practicalities of delving into starting your own farm, large or small, then Start Your Farm is for you. You can even have years of farming under your belt like myself but are looking for some new ideas or inspiration.

It is daunting when you are just starting off on a new venture or project, and starting too large at the forefront can really hinder success or your own feelings of success. When talking with people interested in getting into farming or a new livestock breed I always caution starting off small, because you can sink yourself into something too soon and find that it wasn't a success, or that you didn't really like how the experience went.

I know the feeling of jumping into something whole hog and realizing it just didn't work out like you thought it would, and if you stated our strong in something and it soon fails your expectations that can really change your outlook and motivation.

I jumped into meat chickens with ordering two 50 chick batches and by the end of the season, I felt through processing them all out and the family quickly tired of many meals off chickens. The price break at the time of the chicks didn't balance out the time of so many birds, nor the lack of long-term freezer space for them wither meaning we ate 2-3 meals a week involving chicken. Which sounds great but at the time that was the primary meat source for a while, which became unappealing to the household masses. Meaning I ate a lot of chicken for a while. This is kind of why I still have turkey in the freezer from December of last year when a few turkey buyers fell through and we had 3 forty pound tom turkeys throughout the holidays.

In Start Your Farm, the chapters are lined out very well from questioning why one might want to become a farmer to how to make a profitable farm. I know that many of us get into farming to escape the "rat race" and work for ourselves, but the failure rate of farming is increasing and for those of us choosing to farm for our livelihood, we need to make good solid decisions in farm economics. I think the authors really delve into the importance of profitability while also stressing that sustainability is also a vital component of not only your farm but also for the environment.

At the end of each chapter, there are review questions that give the reader some introspective thinking time about the concepts that they just read. These questions are really valuable questions to consider for yourself and your growing farm because they are questions that come up and can also prepare you for what you're embarking on.

Start Your Farm is a great book filled with valuable information for the new farmer, and also for the veteran. The concepts in the book are fresh and engaging. Start Your Farm is worth reading once and coming back, again and again, to think about the questions and topics raised within its chapters.

If there are opportunities to receive a hard copy of the final book for review and to share with my local farming community meetings, let me know. This was a great resource and will be a great resource for farmers of every kind and of every age.