You might know how to buy a farm debt-free with as little as $10,000 in savings. But what if you don’t have any savings at all?
How do you get into farming when land is so expensive?
It’s easier than you might think. Let’s take a look.
Where to start
You’ve taken some courses or have enough farm experience to know that you want to be a farmer. Perhaps you’ve done some wwoofing. Great.
If you’re going to be a successful farmer, you’ll to need to be hungry to eat up all the material you can find on modern sustainable agriculture. I’m talking about articles like this and reading a book a week.
“I can’t” does not exist in your vocabulary
You’re also going to need a can-do attitude because you will face challenges. You will make mistakes. There will be times when it seems all hope is lost. You must keep going.
You can’t have success without failure. So fail early, fail fast and fail often. Learn from it. "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again", as the song goes.
This will be easier if you’re still young and flexible.
You’re going to need a bucket load of self-discipline too. It is nice to fantasize about being your own boss, but that means you’re going to have to kick your own ass.
It’ll be easier if there’s no plan B, if you have something to lose. Your chances of success are much higher when your own investment is on the line.
Trim the fat
But you won’t need any money in the bank.
There isn’t a person reading this article that doesn’t have something they can’t sacrifice to pursue their dreams. This should be pretty easy in today’s age of consumerism. Sell or downgrade your car, sell your smartphone, your ipod, auction off designer clothes on ebay (but keep your laptop, you’ll need it later).
Do odd jobs to scrape a few extra bucks together. Trim all the fat, all the excess in your current lifestyle.
Trust me, you’ll feel much better for it.
In 2007 I sold everything, from my car to my phone, and went ultra-low budget travelling round the world for 5 years.
It’s not about money, it’s how badly do you want it? All that stuff is just slowing you down anyways. If you dream big, you can’t afford to keep it.
Get rid of it.
Start small, start now!
Ok. You’re living lean, you’re head is bursting with ideas from all the farming books you’ve been reading, you’ve got a few hundred to a few thousand tucked away under your mattress.
You’re chomping at the bit. Now you need some real honest-to-god hands-on experience.
Parents got a backyard? Permablitz it.
Does the old lady next door have a garden that looks like a jungle? Make her a deal she can’t refuse.
Are there any flat rooftops in your area? Be creative.
You have a lot going for you. But you need to start somewhere. Anywhere. Don’t dilly-dally.
Do it now!
Mistakes are great!
Everybody has a learning curve to go through. When you start small, you are free to make mistakes without the whole world watching you. Small mistakes are cheap mistakes, valuable mistakes.
Did you just loose $300 of young fruit trees to predators or drought? No worries, you probably just learned more than on a $1000 course in horticulture.
Good. Be happy.
After all, it wasn’t a $30,000 mistake and you don’t have mortgage payments to worry about.
When you start small, you grow organically and learn as you go. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will get to where you want to go. It’s much better than complaining at the start that the journey is too long, or zooming to the final destination by artificial means with zero experience and huge debts.
Think for yourself
Oh, and be prepared to ignore all the people who tell you can’t along the way. Be a contrarian. In the finance world, it’s the contrarian that’s selling when the whole world is buying and buying when the everybody’s selling like mad.
Guess who ends up with all the money? The guy who went against the crowd.
It’s not easy, but with practice, you’ll get used to it. I personally start getting nervous when too many people start agreeing with me, but that’s another story.
Farming 2.0
By now, you’re well on your way. You’re lean, agile, gaining valuable experience and knowledge every day.
You’re probably already gardening in most backyards on your block. Maybe you’re running chicken tractors, keeping bees, or you’ve come to an arrangement with a neighbour to tend and pick fruit off their neglected trees? You’re probably having a great time and bringing the community closer together too!
So what, if you don’t own a hundred acres?
In my books, you are a farmer, a steward of the land. Keep at it.
Maybe one day you’ll outgrow your little urban farm and move into the country side. If not, who cares if you’re having fun! If you do move, great! You’ll be taking your experience and customers with you.
I’d rather start up on 1 acre with a 100 customers than on a 100 acres with 1 customer.
Let your customers buy your farm. Unlike banks, you can pay them with food.
