still one day would love to make a living off a small farm, going to start small.
not really sure where to start anymore though lol. everything seems so tempting (gone from wanting rabbits to pigs to goats to cows and then back to rabbits and repeat lol).
Glad to see you're still following and moving forward!
If you want to try aquaponics experiments, you should! But that's a pretty challenging practice to turn into profitable business right out of the gate. You like the ideas of animals, and to be sure, they can be made into a profitable business, too, but it's harder to dial that in - especially on a small scale.
How would you feel about starting SIMPLE and just doing veggie market gardening to build your business? You can use proceeds from that to fund the development of more complicated, higher-tech farming.
The trick to easier profitability, as others have mentioned, is DIRECT selling. Don't even consider trying to play in the wholesale world. Direct marketing of animal products is a high-dollar enterprise, but it's MUCH more work to direct-market pork than it is to direct-market herbs and veggies.
The question is how much money do you want to earn? You CAN'T jump into making $250k/yr without getting into deep debt and probably getting in way over your head. But would $25k/yr suffice? You could probably get there (or more!) in 2-3 seasons and have a high profit margin just by sticking with veggies. You can always expand and diversify later! The real trick is actually getting started, and you're much more likely to succeed if you start small.
I know a farmer in Arkansas that did 100% no-till, chemical-free farming on the equivalent of 1/2 acre (in sixty 4'x100' permanent beds). He was using only hand tools (not counting a lawn mower) and had only two part time helpers. Tending the farm took 60 man-hours per week on average - i.e. three people five hours per shift, three shifts per week. He was generating about $80k/yr in sales at a profit margin of about 70%. So that's $56k/yr (USD) of profit, before taxes.
If you have the land and the water/electrical infrastructure, the only big things that you're lacking are a high tunnel (you've already noted those winter crops are where you can make a big profit), seed starting facility and washing/packing facility. He was using high-tunnel facilities that probably required $5,000 USD capital. His only other major expenses (besides paying his workers and utilities) were seed, straw (in HUGE amounts, this was the mulch he used), and rabbit manure.
Everything he produced was direct sold to restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets. I don't think he even bothered with CSAs.
The only tools that touched the soil were a rake and the occasional digging fork for harvesting root crops. He did no tilling/cultivating, used no fertilizers, prepared no compost. By the end he didn't rotate crops and he didn't even use green manures. Each year his soil accumulated more organic matter and nutrients. Since he was commercial once in a great while he had to use organic pesticides; but this was a very rare thing.
That's the kind of farming practice I'm trying to adopt on our homestead. You can start as small as you want. But this efficient farming REQUIRES doing everything by hand. So you can only be as large as you have hands to do the work.
If you spend some time at your local farmers markets you can pickup on where folks in your area are successfully direct-selling crops. If you find a farmer you really resonate with, maybe volunteer to work one day a week in exchange for them teaching you?
If you want to know more about my friend's farm, you can read more (in eye-jarring colors
) on the farm's website:
http://www.foundationfarm.com/
Good luck!!
