How To Start a Hobby Farm

If you love the great outdoors and enjoy caring for animals and gardening, then perhaps it’s time to consider starting a hobby farm. This might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but if you follow these tips and tricks, you might just end up with some nice, fresh food that you can enjoy and sell.

Determine Your Scope

Your first step is to determine the scope of your hobby farm. This will largely depend on your space and the amount of time you have to devote to your venture. You might simply start with a large garden and grow a vegetables for your family’s use, but you could also incorporate some chickens, pigs or goats into your plan. If you’re very ambitious, you may even want to cultivate a small field or two. Just be sure you know what you can handle, and be realistic about it. Don’t get in over your head.

Find a Property

Starting a hobby farm might also involve finding a property in the country. You can’t very well have a large garden or keep chickens in the midst of a city. Hire a real estate agent to help you look for a piece of land that fits the scope of your project. You may decide to live on your hobby farm, or you could remain where you are and drive out to your farm to work. Stay within a reasonable budget, but make sure you have enough land to fulfill your farming goals.

Create a Business Plan

Even though you may intend to only grow a few things for your family, you might be surprised by how much you produce. If so, your hobby farm can quickly turn into a business. While you may not ever become an agribusiness guru like industry leader Stefan Soloviev, you should still create a business plan to guide you in your endeavor. It can be very simple, just a description of your farm and its scope, a list of your products, a few marketing strategies, and a budget.

Market Your Products

As your farm grows, you’ll probably want to start selling some of your produce. Word of mouth will likely do the trick at first. Let friends and relatives know that you have some extras available on a first-come-first-served basis, and charge a small fee. As your farm grows, though, you may want to advertise a bit, on social media perhaps or in the newspaper, so that others can enjoy the fruits of your hard work, too.

A hobby farm can be a satisfying endeavor, and it can be profitable. So start in, and enjoy!