plantyhamchuk:

lil-bab-juless:

Does anyone know how to become a farmer?

I’m open to anything please help

The beginnings:

1) Observe: the seasons, the weather, your local climate. What other people are growing nearby, when they grow it. Go to farmer’s markets and see what they are offering. If you live in the US, you can check your state extension service for locally-relevant and scientifically-backed information - most of it free (taxpayer funded).

2) Gather / Scrounge / Dumpster dive / swap / barter: containers, seeds, potting soil, access to water, sunlight. Rent tools or buy yourself a few basic things. 

3) Grow. Observe how things grow. Take pictures and notes. Learn. Kill some plants and figure out how and why. Do it again and again and again. This is a learning process. It takes time.

4) Be social - Talk to people online and in person about what you are growing. Learn and teach and what you have learned.

Medium / hobby farm / homesteading level:

5) Gather education / money. Figure out a way to support yourself.

6) rent or buy land to grow more stuff. Expand what you are growing.

7) grow enough that you can feed your family. preserve, can, ferment, freeze what cannot be used immediately. 

8) own tools and equipment. Learn how to repair them and/or maintain them

9) Be social - get to know neighbors and local community better. barter and swap, so you get your neighbor’s badass fire jelly and they get your badass fermented hot sauce. It’s okay to have specialties.

Advanced capitalist farming:

10) thanks to your education / good job you can pull a bank loan and also talk with your government for farming grants. You have a business plan, a 5 year plan, and a 10 year plan.

11) you buy land, almost as much as you can afford. You know how to grow things well. Your land is located near enough to your market or buyer that you can make the logistics of shipping work.

12) you buy good equipment, that you also learn how to repair and maintain or you know someone you can call if you need to

13) you know what your local market wants and you grow them that. you have a unique brand and a marketing strategy. You know that the hardest part isn’t actually growing or raising or producing, but actually selling those things. You know how to sell. 

14) Be social - You have also networked and made friends with other farmers, who are now your local community. You know your county extension agents or government workers who can help you if there’s an emergency. You know local chefs and restaurants and health food stores to sell stuff too. You know the subscribers to your CSA. You shake a lot of hands and hope that this year you make enough money to invest more in the farm itself, it could use a refrigerated truck. You go to meetings about the best land management practices and keep up with how the latest Farm Bill is going through Congress.

15). What you cannot sell and cannot eat you give to your workers, and if they do not want it, you donate to your community food bank or maybe your compost. You try to pay and house and feed and teach your workers as best you can. You probably don’t have health insurance and vacations only exist in winter. You sleep well at night because you earn an honest living and also because you are fucking exhausted, except when it doesn’t rain / it floods / the harvest fails and then you have insomnia. You realize that farming is just a very expensive way to gamble, because many of the reasons for success or failure are beyond your control. No wonder people sell and get out. Your back or knees probably hurt.

16) You know the real dirty secrets. The large farms are family farms, but they are inherited. The relationships with the banks for the generous bank loans are too. You REALLY hope that people come support your little farm stand / local farmers market / buy CSA shares / visit your pumpkin patch, because you don’t have access to those things. Your family is (eventually) proud of you, and also deeply confused by your life choices.

17) You run a successful business thanks to your own sweat, blood, and tears - years of sacrifice and back-breaking labor. Education and planning. The nightmare that is doing your own accounting. You have a slot at the best farmer’s market around and people in your local community know and respect you. Online, people who have never stepped foot on a farm tell you everything that you are doing “wrong”.  

Support your local farmers! (US-only link)

USDA New Farmers page (US-only link)

SARE - Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (US-only link)

Center for Rural Affairs (US-only link)