Any farmers out there?

This isn't exactly what you were asking for as it is smaller scale but is an interesting read that covers lots of different topics from fruits and vegetables to raising chickens etc.

LINK

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Are you going to hold a 9 to 5 while doing this?

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Initially, Yes. Would have to until its obvious that I could make a living just from farming

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gonna take a shite ton of time with a farm that size

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What do you suggest is a good size? Any tips on what crops sell the best and produce the best profit margin?

I'm actually interested in getting into organic fruits and veggies.

Cotton, peanuts and soybeans are all good in Bama. Corn can be good as well considering subsidies and how much we use in this country

I would look into pine timberland. Much less volatile than farming and unless you have long leafs you can cut the timber pretty regularly

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to net $40-$60K/year farming or in cattle, how many acres would you need

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Multi hundreds.

PSA

You will not make money farming unless it is your full time job and you know what you are doing.

You can maybe break even or make beer money with a small operation but farming ain't cheap or easy

ETA and that is not even including purchasing land. You can almost forget it at that point. Talking a 30-40 year time period before you break even on that purchase

Let's say your tomatoes sell for $1.25/lb off your road-side stand. Averaging 20 lbs of tomatoes per plant. For the purposes of simple math, let's say you plant them on a 3'x3' grid, at 4,840 plants/acre. But you won't plant an acre of tomatoes, unless you have 2 helpers helping tend to them all day every day. Let's say you plant 1/10 of an acre, so you have (rounding off here) 500 plants. Let's assume you don't lose any, and you sell 10,000 lbs of tomatoes, and make $12,500. That's working February-July.

You'll need to diversify, and I want to do this one day too. A lot of consumers are beginning to move towards the organic fruit & vegetables, but you will work your arse off truck farming. Everyone on the northshore has a Satsuma tree, so you'll have to move your produce to sell it, all the while tending to your standing crop.

I hope you make it.

Grow a garden

Farming sounds like a great job to some people.............until they actually do it and realize how much work it is.