Quote:
Originally Posted by BucEyedPea
Hey Buehler445,
Just a thought: I was thinking about you're not being thrilled you had no fresh farmer's markets near you for fresh produce. Since, you're a farmer, have you thought of starting a small vegetable garden? I'm thinking of doing that. I can freeze any excess, give away or if I lived in an appropriate area sell excess on the side of the road, the way I see in some rural communities.
bep
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I have. We had a good sized garden until my daughter was born then we haven't gotten back into it. The problem is I can help get it going, but maintinence falls all on the wife since I'm busy as hell during the season. She's wanting to put some raised beds in town so it's a little easier but we haven't gotten it done yet.
We have some irrigation on a field that isn't enough for field application but should work well enough for a green house or something on a larger scale.
The problem being that vegetable crops are labor intensive and we are trying shooting for efficiency with machinery/labor. It's just me and a hired laborer and my dad, who is slowing down some, and we have to cover 7,000 acres. Labor intensive picking on much more than a garden plot sized really goes against our strategic position. We would either have to break into it on a large enough scale to make it pay a guys salary that I'd have to hire or it would probably take back burner to other field operations. Maybe when my daughter is older, but right now it probably isn't going to happen.
Go for it though. There is a lot of that type of stuff on the market. And given your population density, it could work if you can manage the production. I have no idea what price points would be worth your time. Biggest hurdle I see is if you retail it, you obtain liability. I don't know what the state rules are, but I think in Kansas if you retail it you need to have prepared it in a kitchen that meets commercial standards. You also assume liability if someone would get sick. That's a lot of liability to incur if you're going to gross a couple thousand on the extras.
It's a great theory, but naturally lawyers got involved and took all the efficiency out of the system. If you get something going, I'd be interested to go through some numbers. I think running a decent sized greenhouse out here would be a viable business opportunity but I don't know enough about the industry to make an informed decision.