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As the owner of the property, he would have the mortgage, so for a sharecropping deal on his land to to pay his mortgage, he would essentially be leasing it to someone else who farms it. That would typically be 1/3rd for the landowner and 2/3rds going to whoever farms his place through the sharecropping arrangement. That 1/3rd probably won't cover his mortgage. The scale typically tips in favor of the sharecropper doing the work from what I have seen because they control the numbers and the sales and distribute the 1/3rd. They should be fair, but, in reality, that is probably not the case.
As the owner of the property, he would have the mortgage, so for a sharecropping deal on his land to to pay his mortgage, he would essentially be leasing it to someone else who farms it. That would typically be 1/3rd for the landowner and 2/3rds going to whoever farms his place through the sharecropping arrangement. That 1/3rd probably won't cover his mortgage. The scale typically tips in favor of the sharecropper doing the work from what I have seen because they control the numbers and the sales and distribute the 1/3rd. They should be fair, but, in reality, that is probably not the case.
A sharecropper is not the owner of the land.
Someone owns land, usually with no mortgage. They are to allow you to share-crop. You grow a crop and you sell what you produce, then you pay the owner 1/3 of your gross receipt.
If there is a market, buy used hay equipment and.......round bale.....the hay. 70 acres ( 60% of farm "....is way too much labor intensive/time consuming to make small square bales .
If there is a market from cattlemen needing round bales and if there is a good market for firewood, those two are your best options for being able to handle the work load and maximize income.
Many times renting it out barely covers the taxes ( much less paying the mortgage )
It's not possible. You can't run a farm business with enough dedication to be profitable enough to pay bills by yourself with an outside job. People can do it with with a partner that at least keeps an eye on things while you're gone--- but the thing about farming for profit; not only do you have all the chores, the maintenance, the planning, the government wants their piece on any money coming in too via permits, inspections and regulation.
Either the farm is your job, or the other place is your job and the farm is your home.
You're also breaking the cardinal rule of hobby farming- "start small, learn what works". There is a long window of experimenting not only with what enterprises work for your talents and preferences, but what works on your land! Count on the full time job income while you test some ideas out. When they are starting to look like they may be viable, then you can scale back your town job hours.
Here are some ideas to get you started on possibilities. These are moneymakers (aka 'mortgage lifters') that have worked for other people I know in different places and allowed them to give up their day jobs eventually. Your location matters. If "rural lifestyle" is a common thing where you live, your farm to table products will have a lot of competition with what people can grow themselves or buy at the farmers market from the other hungry farmers who also desperately want to give up the desk job. Your best customers for actual products are educated city dwellers. (Educated because they will understand, appreciate, and be able to afford a premium all natural product.)
-Goats for meat, milk, soaps and lotions, cheese, milkshares, and animal sales.
This is high effort, heavy workload but pretty rewarding on the spirit. It's most profitable where backyard goats are not common, or with a heavy latin or middle eastern ethnic population.
Goats are milked at minimum once (but better twice) per day. You can plan your breedings around times of year to better accommodate a seasonal outside job. Goats can be tough on fences, but goat milk is a specialty product and meat is pretty lucrative. Selling breeding or show stock is a nice cash crop of babies every year when you put care into your breeding program. This works on smaller acreage as well.
-Breeding rare, critical or show poultry. There are a number of critically endangered heritage breeds of extremely desirable chickens that can easily be promoted and sold to people who want them. All you need is a set of seperate breeding pens secure from predators, a couple decent incubators, some good foundation stock to breed, a brooder setup and the internet to get the word out.
You can start small with brinseas or hovabators and move up to a couple thousand dollar cabinet incubator when you're making money to pay for it. You can sell fertile eggs on trading sites, poultry forums, or even ebay. You can sell chicks and birds locally, or ship babies via post with NPIP certification. This is how Metzer Farms got started with his ducks.
-Balut. Do you have a large traditional southeast population within delivery distance? Balut are cooked and salted half incubated duck eggs, and are very popular as a luxury food in the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam etc. It's not my cup of tea to be sure, but there's insane money in it. You need ducks (preferably white ones) that lay very heavily, and a large incubation setup.
-U-Pick farms. These work best if you're in day trip distance from a large metro, and have soil that grows berries well, or you were very lucky and found a property that already had an orchard.
-Pasture pork. Start simple and sell the finished pasture raised pigs to other people as the live animal, learn the process while you fill a freezer with your own porker the first few times, then add the certified on site amenities when you're ready.
-"all natural" farm CSA. I live near a guy who really has this organic without being official organic scam locked up tight for the city slickers. Every year, his "members" buy into a purchase plan for his CSA. He uses this money to cover all of his front of season planting costs. He runs bees for honey, chickens for eggs, and every plant-able thing for a table he can get to grow.
When weekly harvests begin, his members pick up their share, and pay AGAIN to do so. The catch is that everything he uses to fertilize or feed his animals HAS to be all natural (like manure fertilizer) or a certified organic product (like chicken feed). PM me if you want to see his website for his business model. Again, he relies on the educated and moneyed urban customer, so if you're deep in the back country-- forget it.
-Machine shop, or any other specialized trade that is always needed and potentially hard to find.
-AI technician. This is a short program offered through vet colleges, or through a semen company like Select Sires. The equipment is about a 2 thousand dollar investment, but you can set your own hours inseminating backyard milk cows, goats, show horses, and even dairies. A lot of serious breeders want premium genetics in their herd they cant get any other way, and a lot of people who keep family cows neither need, nor want a bad tempered bull around just to freshen their cow. $50-100 is a reasonable cost for a call, plus cost of straws.
-Luffa Gourds for farmers market and boutique shops. Grow the squash, harvest, dry it, peel it, sell it for 5$ a pop. You need your Saturdays free from your outside job to do farmers markets.
-All natural Holiday turkeys or lambs.
I hope these gave you some ideas to get started. I recommend subscribing to a couple of good farming magazines for ideas, how to's and trends. Mother Earth News is a favorite of mine and it's only $10 for the year. FROM SCRATCH - The Magazine for the Modern Homesteader is a free online only magazine.
Read, read, read. The more information you have, the better your plans can be.
Aeronautic Engineers say that is is impossible for a bee to fly. The wings are too small, the body is too large. Fortunately the bee brain is too large, a bee can not attend university to learn the truth. Since bees to not know they can't fly, they fly anyway.
Many farmers are doing it. While you know better than they do, your best option is to shush. If farmers hear you talking like this, they may get educated, and suddenly lose their ability to farm.
Aeronautic Engineers say that is is impossible for a bee to fly. The wings are too small, the body is too large. Fortunately the bee brain is too large, a bee can not attend university to learn the truth. Since bees to not know they can't fly, they fly anyway.
Many farmers are doing it. While you know better than they do, your best option is to shush. If farmers hear you talking like this, they may get educated, and suddenly lose their ability to farm.
*eyeroll* Ok. I'll pass that on to the hundreds of people I've already met who nearly killed themselves trying to do it all by themselves. There is such a thing as harming people with too much optimism.
Feel free to ignore the rest of the post I spent an hour on with things that have worked for other people. 500-700 (conservative guess) is kind of a chunk to earn right out of the gate, especially if someone is new to farming entirely. I could see it if you've got a deep agricultural background and already have a lot of practical knowledge.
I think the movie "The Egg and I" would be pretty illustrative here. Almost 70 years old and that struggle is still real.
Last edited by dusky_beauty; 03-27-2015 at 02:34 PM..
It's not possible. You can't run a farm business with enough dedication to be profitable enough to pay bills by yourself with an outside job. People can do it with with a partner that at least keeps an eye on things while you're gone--- but the thing about farming for profit; not only do you have all the chores, the maintenance, the planning, the government wants their piece on any money coming in too via permits, inspections and regulation.
Either the farm is your job, or the other place is your job and the farm is your home.
You're also breaking the cardinal rule of hobby farming- "start small, learn what works". There is a long window of experimenting not only with what enterprises work for your talents and preferences, but what works on your land! Count on the full time job income while you test some ideas out. When they are starting to look like they may be viable, then you can scale back your town job hours.
Here are some ideas to get you started on possibilities. These are moneymakers (aka 'mortgage lifters') that have worked for other people I know in different places and allowed them to give up their day jobs eventually. Your location matters. If "rural lifestyle" is a common thing where you live, your farm to table products will have a lot of competition with what people can grow themselves or buy at the farmers market from the other hungry farmers who also desperately want to give up the desk job. Your best customers for actual products are educated city dwellers. (Educated because they will understand, appreciate, and be able to afford a premium all natural product.)
-Goats for meat, milk, soaps and lotions, cheese, milkshares, and animal sales.
This is high effort, heavy workload but pretty rewarding on the spirit. It's most profitable where backyard goats are not common, or with a heavy latin or middle eastern ethnic population.
Goats are milked at minimum once (but better twice) per day. You can plan your breedings around times of year to better accommodate a seasonal outside job. Goats can be tough on fences, but goat milk is a specialty product and meat is pretty lucrative. Selling breeding or show stock is a nice cash crop of babies every year when you put care into your breeding program. This works on smaller acreage as well.
-Breeding rare, critical or show poultry. There are a number of critically endangered heritage breeds of extremely desirable chickens that can easily be promoted and sold to people who want them. All you need is a set of seperate breeding pens secure from predators, a couple decent incubators, some good foundation stock to breed, a brooder setup and the internet to get the word out.
You can start small with brinseas or hovabators and move up to a couple thousand dollar cabinet incubator when you're making money to pay for it. You can sell fertile eggs on trading sites, poultry forums, or even ebay. You can sell chicks and birds locally, or ship babies via post with NPIP certification. This is how Metzer Farms got started with his ducks.
-Balut. Do you have a large traditional southeast population within delivery distance? Balut are cooked and salted half incubated duck eggs, and are very popular as a luxury food in the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam etc. It's not my cup of tea to be sure, but there's insane money in it. You need ducks (preferably white ones) that lay very heavily, and a large incubation setup.
-U-Pick farms. These work best if you're in day trip distance from a large metro, and have soil that grows berries well, or you were very lucky and found a property that already had an orchard.
-Pasture pork. Start simple and sell the finished pasture raised pigs to other people as the live animal, learn the process while you fill a freezer with your own porker the first few times, then add the certified on site amenities when you're ready.
-"all natural" farm CSA. I live near a guy who really has this organic without being official organic scam locked up tight for the city slickers. Every year, his "members" buy into a purchase plan for his CSA. He uses this money to cover all of his front of season planting costs. He runs bees for honey, chickens for eggs, and every plant-able thing for a table he can get to grow.
When weekly harvests begin, his members pick up their share, and pay AGAIN to do so. The catch is that everything he uses to fertilize or feed his animals HAS to be all natural (like manure fertilizer) or a certified organic product (like chicken feed). PM me if you want to see his website for his business model. Again, he relies on the educated and moneyed urban customer, so if you're deep in the back country-- forget it.
-Machine shop, or any other specialized trade that is always needed and potentially hard to find.
-AI technician. This is a short program offered through vet colleges, or through a semen company like Select Sires. The equipment is about a 2 thousand dollar investment, but you can set your own hours inseminating backyard milk cows, goats, show horses, and even dairies. A lot of serious breeders want premium genetics in their herd they cant get any other way, and a lot of people who keep family cows neither need, nor want a bad tempered bull around just to freshen their cow. $50-100 is a reasonable cost for a call, plus cost of straws.
-Luffa Gourds for farmers market and boutique shops. Grow the squash, harvest, dry it, peel it, sell it for 5$ a pop. You need your Saturdays free from your outside job to do farmers markets.
-All natural Holiday turkeys or lambs.
I hope these gave you some ideas to get started. I recommend subscribing to a couple of good farming magazines for ideas, how to's and trends. Mother Earth News is a favorite of mine and it's only $10 for the year. FROM SCRATCH - The Magazine for the Modern Homesteader is a free online only magazine.
Read, read, read. The more information you have, the better your plans can be.
....."AI technician "..........." $50-$100 is a reasonable charge per call "
Get real !
On the dairy farm where I lived, the AI technician got $10 per arm service.
You need to check tax laws for farming too. I think you can completely write off your food purchases if you live on the farm as you need to live on the premises. It's nice tax perk.
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