Alternative income streams often arise as a business owner learns to spot, or creates, opportunities.Ī diversified block usually works in with the weather or the seasons. Of all the hundreds of small block businesses I’ve seen, the ones that have diversified have endured. That might be going for 40mm water pipes instead of 20mm, or putting up a waratah-and-wire electric fence down one side of a garden, instead of building a permanent one, so you can easily move it. Leave room so you can adapt or expand as easily as possible. You can put a lot of time, effort, and money into setting up infrastructure. What might work for some guy on YouTube or your neighbour, might not work for you.ĭon’t over-commit your time and resources until you’ve gone through a couple of cycles or seasons to see what works and what you may be missing. Every patch of land and its climate is unique. Then, filter out what isn’t relevant to you.ĭo a small trial. Join local clubs, social media networks,and organisations. Learn about your local climate and growing conditions, find your customer base, learn what they want, why, what they consider important. Get out and talk with people: neighbours, growers, gardeners, orchardists, farmers, pet owners, veterinarians, stock agents, potential customers, friends, family.Īctually, don’t talk – listen. Maori macadamia industry tough nut to crack Another grower I know in a similar situation experienced a much higher failure rate thanks to a plague of possums and some ravenous, determined rats. Small-scale market gardener Carl Freeman says he lost around 25 per cent of his crops when he first started. Crops get eaten by pests, damaged by adverse weather, or fail to flourish. Be prepared to fail, especially at the startĪnimals get sick and die. Always be prepared to accommodate the fickleness of nature.Ģ. Put money, resources, or feed aside in the good years because sooner or later, a bad year will come. 5/10 years will be somewhere either side of average.1/10 year, the gods will smile upon you, and everything will flourish.I believe farmers and growers need to farm with a 10-year cycle in mind: The difference isn’t the size of their block or their ability to grow a particular crop.Īn enterprise on a lifestyle block faces the same challenges as any other small business, but it has one extra, unpredictable, uncontrollable factor: Mother Nature. Many people make a good living from a small block of land.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |