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Permalink Reply by Kings Crest Farms on June 21, 2012 at 9:25pm

We have the same dream and in a couple of months we are planning on purchasing 102 acres.

My question for you is what have you done so far to prepare for this dream?

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Permalink Reply by RayZorback on July 3, 2012 at 11:05am

WOW! Way to go! That is so exciting!

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay in response.

What are we doing to prepare?? We are just getting starting, but here is what we are actively doing now to prepare for the future:

Financially:

• Getting out of debt. We would like to start the farm debt free. We are almost out of debt.
• Saving $$ and finding practical ways to save more $$! We are attempting to live on far less than we can make in order to prepare for life on the farm. So, we are only buying things on sale, clipping coupons, making things ourselves, etc...
• Buying now for the farm: everything that we buy now (from furniture, to appliance, to kids toys) will be for the farm. If we can't see ourselves using it or still having it when we are on the farm, we wont buy it.
• How much will it cost? We are making lists upon lists of things we will need if we go this or that route. eg: If we raise heritage hogs, what type of fence will we need? Port-a-huts? How much will that cost? This helps us create a future budget for the various items we are considering growing/breeding and should give us an idea of the approximate cost and will include a large cushion for murphy's law. We will also put together an annual budget with some replacement cost built in for the various items. Then, based on market values and crop losses, we will calculate how much we need to grow or breed of ____.
• Raising capital. As soon as we are out of debt, we will earn, raise, and save capital for the land, house, equipment, and first year's planting, breeding, and business expenses - WE HOPE!
• Business Plan: we are also putting together a business plan so that we can get a loan if we need it.

Farm Skills:

• DIY: We are learning what we can and can't do ourselves. Neither one of us grew up on a "farm", so this has multiple parts:
  • Homesteading: We make our own detergents and are learning to make more of our own household items. This also will help us save money in the future. (Plus, I want to know how to make my own beer for pennies on the dollar!)
  • Cooking seasonally: We love to cook and will be challenging ourselves to cook seasonally and can/preserve goods for winter. We see this as practice for farm life.
  • The Community Garden: I've always grown herbs and veggies, but now we are taking more of an active roll with our community garden and are testing several natural, organic, permaculture farm methods and are noting what we are learning an the time of year we are learning these lessons. At the end of the season, we will put together a calendar for next year based on what we learned. We will be managing our plots through the entire year until we get to the farm and we will be taking on more plots every season.
  • Bee Keeping: there is a local bee keeping group in my city. I will be learning how to keep bees with them. (This should help our garden grow and one of the products we want to be our "cash crop" is local honey because there are so many uses and byproducts of the honey and wax). We are even going to try to get a hive at the community garden!
• Reading & Researching! We are reading just about everything we can get our hands on that is farm related and we are researching the plants and animals that we are thinking about growing/breeding. We are collecting everything we can about everything that we have thought about growing and then will figure out what we want to harvest for market and what we will harvest for ourselves to live on.
• Lastly, we are asking other farmers what they would do with 100 acres. We pretty much know what someone would do who wants to farm how we want to farm, but every time we hear someone else talk about what they would do, we learn something new, or hear an interesting twist on something we were already thinking about.

(Yes, I am a nerd.)

Thanks again for the reply.

Congratulations on your dream coming to life!

What did yall do to get ready?? ARE you ready?? I can't wait to hear more of your story. I hope you will be sharing your experiences (good or bad) with Farm-Dreams!

Kings Crest Farms said:

We have the same dream and in a couple of months we are planning on purchasing 102 acres.

My question for you is what have you done so far to prepare for this dream?

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Permalink Reply by Red Roofs on July 3, 2012 at 4:15pm

One thing---if you have 100 acres, and you do not already have several stock ponds....put in at least one deep, large, 1 acre-ish stock pond.  I believe these may also be federally subsidized to reduce the hazards of drought???

It may be that this stock pond, if you are not in a flood zone, would be optimal for raising fish (for market?) (for home use?) (for agrotourism?)(for fertilizer?) (to keep down algae levels?)(to feed the pigs?)(to feed the dogs?)

The stock pond would allow for a ready source of water during the summer months on the margins of what is significant acreage. 

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Permalink Reply by RayZorback on July 3, 2012 at 5:29pm

Stock ponds are a great idea. Especially if we have a large hill/mountain on the property. We could build the ponds in the hills and gravity could do all the pumping work for us. Great idea. I will look into this more.

Pauline Fusco said:

One thing---if you have 100 acres, and you do not already have several stock ponds....put in at least one deep, large, 1 acre-ish stock pond.  I believe these may also be federally subsidized to reduce the hazards of drought???

It may be that this stock pond, if you are not in a flood zone, would be optimal for raising fish (for market?) (for home use?) (for agrotourism?)(for fertilizer?) (to keep down algae levels?)(to feed the pigs?)(to feed the dogs?)

The stock pond would allow for a ready source of water during the summer months on the margins of what is significant acreage. 

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Permalink Reply by Evergreen East Farm on July 6, 2012 at 11:04pm

We started with 65 acres 5 years ago, and I'll offer a few of the pieces of advice I wish I'd had...

Learn how to read a soil map, and purchase property with as much class 1, 2, or 3 soil as possible.  For example, 100 acres of class 1 soil is much more desirable than a 100 acre property with 40 acres of class 1, 40 acres of wetland, and 20 acres of very clayey or sandy land.  You can get the soil maps online, and go to soil data explorer tab, then choose non irrigated capability class for the property your researching.  Once you get the right soil makeup, then determine cost to get into production.  ie...timberland will cost significantly more to get into ag production than neglected pasture.  Also, think time is money...just because timberland can be cleared for a profit...understand that it will take years to go from timberland to significant farm production.

The other piece of advice I would offer is get the soil right fertility wise before making any major plantings.  Multispecies grazing can help put a soil back into shape....think purchased feed for hogs and chickens quickly becomes high quality soil amendment...and during the meantime you can work on your marketing skills by selling chicken and pork.  Don't overlook the fertilizer value of hay consumed by ruminants.  Obtain and/or achieve a balanced and fertile soil that is class 1 or 2, and the options for profitability will multiply. 

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Permalink Reply by Evergreen East Farm on July 6, 2012 at 11:11pm

One more thought...plan on about 5-7 years before any profit.  Infrastructure investments can eat up capital as quick as it is earned.  Additionally, mistakes will be made during the experience gaining phase.  The experiences you are gaining with the garden are extremely valuable, but understand that profitable farming is a whole different ballgame.  Highly recommend volunteering time with successful farms...ask as many questions as you can dream up of the local farmers.  Best to ask the questions while lending a hand...and when you find your place, spend as much time as possible with the local farmers.  We couldn't make it without the help from the other farmers in our county...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Kemp on July 7, 2012 at 10:30pm

My wife and I have the same dream and actually bought our dream farm last year, so I think I may be reasonably qualified to offer some pointers on looking for a farm based on our experiences.

I strongly agree with your attention to financial preparedness. I think one of the biggest mistakes people can make is leaping in as soon as they possibly can, without ensuring they have enough of a financial cushion to survive one of the inevitable setbacks even experienced farmers endure.  

In my experience the hardest part of finding our farm property was dealing with the unexpected but unavoidable compromises that arise from not having an unlimited budget.  For us, buying a farm turned out to be a three or four part purchase, there is the land (size & quality), then the house, the outbuildings and any farm equipment. Each of these has to be considered separately and together and one or two inevitably require some compromise based on your budget.

An easy trap to fall into when starting to look for a farm is to think only of the ideal scenarios for what you would like to have, distance from markets/customers, the number of acres, the type and condition of the farmhouse, the kind of land, water resources, equipment, etc, etc. When we started, I was just as guilty as anyone in this regard, I had all my ideal elements laid out and thought I knew exactly what I wanted, so when we started to look we found that all the properties we could afford only partially met our ideals, because I was focused on the ideals, I wasn’t ready to evaluate anything properly.  Every farm we looked at didn’t meet multiple ideal criteria on my needs list and we passed on them for that reason; a few months into the search (and a couple of frustrated realtors later) I went back and amended our list to the minimums we were willing to settle for in each criteria. For example, how important was the type and condition of the living quarters on the farm, could we settle for a fixer-upper (if so, what could we budget for the fix-up?) What outbuildings would we really need, what were the minimum water needs we could live with and most importantly, what was the minimum quality and number of acres we could reasonably expect to need for the first few years of operation?

This last question can be crucial to your budget, let’s say your plans are like most peoples and you intend to slowly ramp up the size of your operation over a few years, say 50 acres for the first 2 or 3 years, then your plans might require you to expand to 80 after that, then maybe a total of 100 acres in year 5 or 6. If you buy all 100 acres of land upfront, you are going to tie up a sizable amount of money in what is essentially unneeded land for years. If that is your situation, don’t rule out asking if you could buy a smaller section of the farm with an option to buy the remaining sections later. The money you save might help you get your start-up farm business off the ground without debt. If it all works out you can always expand later. Just imagine a small business owner buying two warehouses up-front despite only needing one now, because she intends to double the business in 5 years, you’d call her crazy! I know this is counter to most thinking on the subject, but its worth thinking about if money is tight.   

We finally found a 105 acre farm that met our needs and the owner allowed us to split it into a 45 acre section for us, which included the farmhouse and all the outbuildings. My neighbor (who has become a good friend) decided to buy the remaining 60 acres and I plan to buy them from him in the future. Yes, it will cost me a few thousand more to buy them later, but I was able to keep an extra $100,000 in my pocket for other more pressing needs than extra land I know I won’t need for years.    

Naturally, the closer you get to a good market, the higher the cost for the land. We ended up buying well south of our original desired location, because If we had bought further north, closer to Richmond or Charlottesville (1 ½ hours away) where there is a bigger, better customer base, we would have had to pay a half million dollars more, for the same type and amount of land, so again we had to compromise and bought further out.

We are closer to retirement than most, so for us the last thing we wanted to do was go through the hassle of remotely building, or renovating an old farmhouse; so we placed a higher premium on finding a farm with a nice farmhouse we wouldn’t need to replace or fix up (harder than it sounds, believe me), so we didn’t compromise there and we paid a premium for our fully renovated 18^th century farmhouse.

We won’t need farm equipment for a few years so we also compromised there and dealt with the fact that the prior owner had auctioned it all off before we could work a deal for it.

The property has all the outbuildings we will ever need, and surprisingly all are in pretty good shape, so no compromise needed at all on that front.

Water was a compromise, I wanted a strong river or stock ponds; we ended up with a small spring on the northern edge of the land, a small stream on the western border and no ponds at all (I intend to dam the spring for a stock pond next year)

The land was also a compromise for both size and quality, I’m not really unhappy about the acreage, but the soil is old tobacco land and pretty played out so it needs lots of work, but hopefully my livestock will fix that over time.   

I also had to compromise somewhat with price, our desire not to buy a rundown ramshackle farmhouse increased our expected costs by about a $100K over what I had budgeted, but realistically all the lesser priced properties would have needed $100K to $150K worth of renovations (I wouldn’t have had time to do the work myself) so my original budget was set unrealistically low and fortunately I had the leeway to cover the extra cost.  

I guess my advice in a nutshell would be:  Sit down together and figure out the minimum you would be willing to settle for, for each of your criteria, not just what you’d like to have. That way, you can evaluate each property you view much more logically, especially if like us, you start off looking to spend as little as you can. It will make the process of finding your dream farm less disappointing, easier and hopefully quicker.

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Permalink Reply by MrT on July 24, 2012 at 8:06am

Great discussion. I have heard it said before that you are best to buy a smaller block and expand later, for all the good reasons Steve gave above. However, I just cannot escape the fear that in practice it would be really hard to buy more land next door when you want it. I've heard about people spending their lives waiting for the neighbours to sell land to them without success....so I've always thought it would be better to spend every penny on the rights size block first, and then slowly building a home and infrastructure later. 

Thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by RayZorback on July 26, 2012 at 12:27am

MrT, I agree! I used to be in the real estate industry and I heard stories of lots of folks who "wished" they would have purchased the land next door and now it is a __________ that they hate! So, one of the things I have told my wife to always remind me: when we buy our land, we better buy the view too! Or we can't complain when the high-rises go up!

That directly translates to having enough land. I know how much land we would need for family and close friends if the SHTF, and that is really the basis for the 100 acre plot. I believe it would make a good living and if the S ever HTF, we would be OK.

Steve & Evergreen -- Thanks for the feedback. I'm still looking more in depth to the things you suggested!

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Permalink Reply by Village Wisdom on July 26, 2012 at 9:24am

We were lucky and/or unlucky with purchasing a small piece and then adding the adjacent property. The lucky part is the adjoining property that we wanted in the first place went up for sale. The unlucky part was we didn't buy it when it first came on the market because it was priced so high. But for someone from the city it would have seemed like a really good deal. A "big city" person bought it for the asking price then spent a lot of money improving it. They built a pond and 1/2 mile road -- then abandoned it and put it back on the market. So hurray now we can buy it again. However, now the price is sky high. That's the real unlucky part. We were not willing to let it go again and paid $40,000 more than the original price. I still feel lucky to have it now. Though we will be paying for it for quite a few years to come. You just never know what' coming around the bend.

Another perk is that now we have that beautiful pond and road built that we would never have done for ourselves had we purchased it first. The road goes all the way to the highest part of the property. Once a few trees are cleared we will have "The View".  That is if we ever get the time to do it. It's not a real high priority at the moment as a view does not produce income.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Kemp on July 27, 2012 at 1:09pm

I cannot disagree with a word I read in response to my cash vs land statement. Inveriably it's all based on circumstance. The closer you are to a town, the more competion for land, the more advantagious it is to buy up front. Another major factor is what you plan to buy the property for.  If you intend to homestead or even farmstead then you should be looking at things differently from someone looking to set up a pure farm business and if you add a set of prepper motivations in there too, all bets are off.  Of course the best and simplest answer is "Buy as much as you can afford" but that assumes the buyer has a realistic understanding of the real costs over the first 5 years which appears to be a common mistake. Now there is a secret to getting cheap farmland that farmers know and most of us on this website will never know.........inherit it.

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