A common dilemma most farmers or serious gardeners face is how much to invest when you don't know how long can you sustain it. The talk-of-the-town among people in agriculture community is that a serious farmer who sees the prospects of his products will invest in the necessary resources from the beginning. These could be soil amendments, farm infrastructure, marketing, building relationships with prospective customers and so on. A hobby farmer or someone experimenting on a temporary basis will just throw seeds out of his window on soil and wait for them to sprout. An apartment dweller may be more interested in container gardening with store brought soil, seeds and fertilizers (if any). Since they won't worried about selling their products to make a living, huge investments in capital may not a priority.
There is another league of people that are often unaddressed in the agricultural world. These are farmers who are serious about farming yet also want to first explore it as an economically viable career alternative. Most government grants in farming are not given to someone just experimenting but to someone who has been on the land for more than two years (five years in best case). This also holds true for private investments in farmlands. However, a toddler needs support when he/she is just learning to walk or attempting to balance on his two feet and not when he can run and ride his little tricycle. I believe that if beginning farmers in their first or second year of farming are not supported (worse, are not even eligible for support), the rate of failure increases and so does a disinterest in the field. I can't change or fight government policies so I won't delve further.
Often beginning farmers will just put the basic required resources to start out and will scale up with time (if they do). They may or may not register themselves as a farm. They may also not own a farm or a home. They may not know if they will be living at their current location the next year. A change in family's circumstances or spouse's job may force them to relocate to a different city (or country) down the line. That does not mean they aren't serious about what they are doing. It just means that they may not want to build a fancy barn or buy a rototiller right away for their land. Should such people just be hobby gardeners ? It is difficult to say because farming is more capital intensive that other professions. Even for a season or two, working on a farm requires putting up fences, having proper irrigation systems in place, a basic facility to store and process the produce, among other things. A farmer who is just starting as a gardener will understand what is needed to implement ideas that are financially feasible and scalable in the long term. In farming, time is an important factor that tests a person's resilience from the very beginning. It takes time to build a good soil, it takes time to understand customers and sales channel and it takes time to understand what works for your plants and what doesn't. This time could be in years. Nothing comes cheap. If selling to restaurants isn't on the cards the first year (because half of chefs won't return your call and other half will ask what are you good at), then direct marketing within the community should be the way to go. This is just one way to test an idea without dwindling a bank account. Testing ideas also requires some initial spending. Expenses easily add up when testing more than one idea at a time. And when financial support from any institution or government body is not on the cards, the going for a common man gets tough. After all, why should someone support you when you can't demonstrate the seriousness of your idea and prove a market demand.
In today's economy, people can't think of being in the same place at all time with same people. The same applies for farmers. People move and along with them, their careers. An agricultural enterprise that works in one location can work in other location too (and probably in better ways). Trials and errors should not be taken as a sign of frivolous endeavors. Investors, governments and everybody else who champions for sustainable agriculture, should turn their skepticism to some level of trust when it comes to supporting fledgling farmers who are taking a SERIOUS yet small steps in starting their careers in a not-so-glamorous yet extremely fulfilling career alternative.
Best Always
Krati
There is another league of people that are often unaddressed in the agricultural world. These are farmers who are serious about farming yet also want to first explore it as an economically viable career alternative. Most government grants in farming are not given to someone just experimenting but to someone who has been on the land for more than two years (five years in best case). This also holds true for private investments in farmlands. However, a toddler needs support when he/she is just learning to walk or attempting to balance on his two feet and not when he can run and ride his little tricycle. I believe that if beginning farmers in their first or second year of farming are not supported (worse, are not even eligible for support), the rate of failure increases and so does a disinterest in the field. I can't change or fight government policies so I won't delve further.
Often beginning farmers will just put the basic required resources to start out and will scale up with time (if they do). They may or may not register themselves as a farm. They may also not own a farm or a home. They may not know if they will be living at their current location the next year. A change in family's circumstances or spouse's job may force them to relocate to a different city (or country) down the line. That does not mean they aren't serious about what they are doing. It just means that they may not want to build a fancy barn or buy a rototiller right away for their land. Should such people just be hobby gardeners ? It is difficult to say because farming is more capital intensive that other professions. Even for a season or two, working on a farm requires putting up fences, having proper irrigation systems in place, a basic facility to store and process the produce, among other things. A farmer who is just starting as a gardener will understand what is needed to implement ideas that are financially feasible and scalable in the long term. In farming, time is an important factor that tests a person's resilience from the very beginning. It takes time to build a good soil, it takes time to understand customers and sales channel and it takes time to understand what works for your plants and what doesn't. This time could be in years. Nothing comes cheap. If selling to restaurants isn't on the cards the first year (because half of chefs won't return your call and other half will ask what are you good at), then direct marketing within the community should be the way to go. This is just one way to test an idea without dwindling a bank account. Testing ideas also requires some initial spending. Expenses easily add up when testing more than one idea at a time. And when financial support from any institution or government body is not on the cards, the going for a common man gets tough. After all, why should someone support you when you can't demonstrate the seriousness of your idea and prove a market demand.
In today's economy, people can't think of being in the same place at all time with same people. The same applies for farmers. People move and along with them, their careers. An agricultural enterprise that works in one location can work in other location too (and probably in better ways). Trials and errors should not be taken as a sign of frivolous endeavors. Investors, governments and everybody else who champions for sustainable agriculture, should turn their skepticism to some level of trust when it comes to supporting fledgling farmers who are taking a SERIOUS yet small steps in starting their careers in a not-so-glamorous yet extremely fulfilling career alternative.
Best Always
Krati
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment