In 2020, there were 2.2 million farmers in the United States.
If you want to be one of those farmers and start a small farm, there are some steps that you should know first.
Keep reading here to learn more about how to start a small farm.
Educate Yourself
The first step is educating yourself. If you’ve never farmed before, you need to read as many farming books and magazines as you can.
Learn about how to care for plants. Learn about how to care for different animals.
Once you read about it, immerse yourself in the world. Go to other farms and see if you can work there to gain some experience. Ask the farmers as many questions as you can to learn.
Find Your Niche
Next, find your niche. You shouldn’t dive into anything without a plan.
If you want to make this into a business, you’ll need to grow something that doesn’t have a lot of competitors. Do you want to farm animals? Are you more interested in growing a certain type of crop?
You should take your location into consideration as well.
Keep Your Finances Separate
When you start setting up your farm, make sure that your personal and business finances are separate.
Open a new bank account for all transactions for your farm. This might need to act as a business checking account. This will help you keep better records which will really help you during tax season as well.
Find Land
Now that you have your finances set up, you need to find some land and decide whether you should buy it or lease it.
If you buy it, you’ll have complete control and ownership of it. However, it is more of financial risk. This is why man new farmers start out by leasing their land.
When you find land, you may want to check it out to make sure that it’ll fit all of the equipment that you’ll be putting on it.
Start Designing
Next, start designing what you want your farm to look like.
What intrigued you about other farms you visited? If you’re going to have a farm for animals, the layout will look very different than it would for crops.
If you want a little bit of everything, consider the tasks you’ll have to do each day. Does it make sense to have the barn far away from the animals? Now that you have a plan, you can start moving forward with your farm.
Learn More About How to Start a Small Farm
These are only a few things to consider on how to start a small farm, but here are many other factors to consider.
Regardless, make sure that when you’re starting a small farm that you check all the laws and regulations to ensure you’re not missing anything.
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