Some crops can be grown on shelves, one tray on top of the other. This is especially true if you don’t have much space, though if you have a larger patch of land it becomes less important, and you may decide to consider other benefits that the crop can bring as well.Īlso, you should think of yield more in terms of value rather than weight.įor example, microgreens‘ yield in weight is lower than that of potatoes, but it’s worth a lot more. You want something that will produce high yields for each square foot, meter or acre that you devote to it. So depending on your situation, you may be better suited with slower-growing crops that look after themselves a bit more. However, fast-growing crops often require more attention and time input. Some crops we’ll outline below take as little as two weeks to reach maturity and can be grown every week of the year. The more times per year that you can grow a crop, the better. However, doing the marketing and sales yourself is also more work.īeyond a certain scale it’s difficult to sell all your produce at the highest price in the time you have available alongside the growing.Īs you scale up you’ll likely have to consider selling, at least in part, to wholesalers and receiving a lower price for the trade off in the volume they can buy and the ease it brings. You’ll fetch the highest price if you can sell direct to customers or make value-added products. However, you should also pay close attention to the costs of production, time input and any investments that might be needed. This isn’t the only indicator to consider, but the more a crop sells for, in theory you’ll need to grow less of it to make the same income as growing more of a lower value crop. Some questions you should consider when deciding on a new crop for your small farm include: 1) What is the cash value per pound or kilogram of product? Small farms are often diverse enterprises run by small teams of people, so it’s important what you grow is well suited to your space, market and time input.įor more ideas of what to grow, check out our list of the 21 Best Small Scale Farming Ideas. There are plenty of profitable crops that you could grow on your small farm.ĭeciding which crops are right for your situation will depend on many different factors, besides the obvious ones such as climate and soil. What Will You Grow? Considerations for Small Farms
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