The idea of homesteading or home farming has become very popular in the past few years. People that have never experienced farm life and may have been raised in the city are purchasing plots of land, building their own houses and trying to become self sufficient. The question is not only if you can obtain the skills to do these things but is it something that you can do cost effectively.
The old saying about the car dealer that advertises cars below cost. They make it up in volume.
This saying is the basis of all business. If you are in business then profit is the biggest concern. Without profit you will soon find yourself bankrupt.
When you are home farming you normally do not take into account all of the factors that a large farmer does account for. This is the reason why so many people find it frustrating when they are trying to raise their own food. This is also the key to having a productive garden or farm that won’t break your budget.
When you start to calculate the cost of a small garden and if you were to apply that same cost to large farming operations you would think that it would never be possible to get a head of lettuce for $1 or a 5lb bag of carrots for $3 at the store but somehow it works out to not only cost that little but you also have to factor that the supermarket marks up product 50% and the wholesaler marks up product to cover their cost and profit and then shipping storage and all the costs of the farmer… the actual cost of a $1 head of iceberg lettuce to grow is probably around 10-15cents.
Paying Yourself Will Become Your Greatest Factor
One thing you really need to keep in mind when you are calculating your costs of production is your own labor. Most people will lie to themselves about the cost of labor. They say that they do these things because they enjoy them so spending many hours managing a garden or raising animals is a benefit and not a cost.
This is simply not true and if you do this you will soon find that it is impossible to attain your goal of raising your own food at a lower cost than you can buy it. Even if you don’t sell your excess food you devalue it for every hour that you spend caring for it.
This one concept will normally mean success or failure because if the grower is not being honest about their own labor then they are likely to not regulate the other costs of production.
If you are a craftsman or professional and you can make $50-$100 per hour and you decide that it would be a fun thing to buy 50 acres of land and live a homesteading lifestyle but you do not pay yourself the hours it takes to maintain your property then you will do so at a loss. Also in many cases you not only have to cover your own costs but you need to sell some of your product to create an income source that can be used to pay bills. Your only option is to hold two jobs, meaning one outside of your homestead, which might be a requirement for most families.
How Can You Reduce The Costs Of Producing Food?
The first thing you have to do is forget about everything you think you know about food production and then concentrate on emulating what farmers do on a larger scale. Scale is always going to be a factor because if you can manage a few hundred tomato plants in the time it takes to manage a few dozen plants then your yield
You would have to look at the cost to you and then find ways to reduce or eliminate those costs.
First might be not buying seed but learning how to harvest your own seed.
Next might be learning how to amend your soil by making your own compost.
Watering is also very expensive so you need to learn to use plastic and organic mulch without harming your plants and drip irrigation.
If you were to raise chickens the initial cost of the birds might come in at $2 per chick after purchase and overnight shipping. For that reason you would probably want to have some chickens that can lay eggs which are fertilized which will repopulate your flock. The initial cost of $2 per bird is as much of a factor as feeding them until they are large enough to harvest. For this reason you would want to learn how to raise your own birds from eggs that your chickens lay.
When you consider tools and machinery you must factor in your labor costs. The cost of a garden bed tiller is easily offset by the number of hours or days it will take for you to do the work manually. Once your garden gets large enough you most likely won’t be able to do the work manually without considerable effort and pain.
Maybe you have a larger property where you will reserve some of it for hay growing. Do you do the work yourself and invest in a miniature bailing machine that can ride behind a small tractor or do you hire someone to bail a few acres of hay for winter. This cost should also be offset by your labor and compared to purchasing hay.
These costs are a large factor in your ability to grow your own food cost effectively but there are many others.
Final Note
Your success in raising food at an affordable price depends on two main things. First is understanding how to raise your products in ways that save you money and second which is more important is keeping track of and calculating your entire cost of production.
Your first few years are likely to be more expensive than you would like however when you are calculating the cost of production long term investments should be divided into the number of years that you expect they will be viable.
For instance a large walk behind garden tiller that lets you process half an acre of garden in a day might cost you $800 or more new and you would expect this piece of equipment to last 10 years so you would calculate the initial cost in your overall expenses but when it comes to calculating this years cost of production you would divide that initial cost $800 by the number of years 10 and your yearly cost would only be $80 towards the cost of food production.
The more honest and detailed you are about your cost of production the easier it will be to find ways to reduce the cost.
Again eventually labor cost will become the largest factor so just like a farmer isn’t constantly working in the field while their crop matures you need to be dedicating yourself to other parts of your duties as a homesteader while your crop grows.
In our other how tos we will cover ways to reduce costs of raising specific products and also how to manage your homestead like a business.