"Small is Successful" report

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"Small is Successful" report
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cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 11 3:36 pm Post subject: "Small is Successful" report

The "Small is Successful" report on the Ecological Land Co-operative website makes interesting reading.

It investigates 8 case studies where people have viable "low acreage livelihoods", in most cases without subsidies or grants, often on marginal ground. It found the key component for success was the attitude of the people involved. Nothing we probably don't know already, but nice to have an injection of hope now and again!

Quite a lot of other interesting info on that website for people interested in low impact development.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 11 5:24 pm Post subject:
Thanks Cassy, we've downloaded the PDF to browse through - interesting to see Real Seeds there.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 11 9:34 am Post subject:

Yes, interesting to see Real Seeds and good to know their business is doing well.

Have you read the study on Bridge Farm yet?

"Bridge Farm is a thriving market garden and forest garden run by John and Rachel Harding. Annually it produces �22,000 worth of Soil Association certified organic fruit, and vegetables sold locally. Although the total area of the land is 4.5 acres, the majority of the food is grown on 1.5 acres of which 1 acre is de-voted to vegetable production, with 0.75 acres of raised beds managed entirely by hand. Half an acre is a mature forest garden, comprising 65 different varieties of apple tree, 20 pears, 20 plum, cob nut and filbert trees and a walnut tree. It is probably the largest example of a commercially operative forest garden in the UK."

Great to read positive reports on what can be done on small amounts of land using forest gardening.

Woodburner

Joined: 28 Apr 2006
Posts: 2904
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 10:08 am Post subject:
All very interesting stuff. TY for the link.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 11:00 am Post subject:

cassy wrote:

Have you read the study on Bridge Farm yet?

Just read it. What they've done sounds quite similar to what we plan, i.e. have a forest garden for some plants and vegetable garden for others.

It would be great to meet some of these people and get an honest opinion of how they think things are going. Selling as much produce locally sounds ideal but I'm still a bit unconvinced how easy it is to do currently and, of course, it'll depend on where you are.

It's also interesting to read that even with such a small holding they are still heavily dependant on cheap labour. One of the things that concerns me the most is just when you need to spend time on your holding harvesting you also need to spend time away selling your produce. Obvious really but it doesn't really appeal, we're more the type of people who'd pick and process our produce and would like to get help from others to sell it.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 1:34 pm Post subject:

We're in a similar position. Our location means that the opportunities to sell fresh are very limited and as you say, combined with the necessity for extra labour at critical times, selling fresh produce doesn't seems a sensible way forward for us.

I think the value added approach is the way to go and hopefully some of the more unusual forest garden plants will help to differentiate us from other producers.

Would there be any opportunity for farm gate sales for you?

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18416

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 1:39 pm Post subject:
Interesting link - thanks, cassy !

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 2:28 pm Post subject:

cassy wrote:

Would there be any opportunity for farm gate sales for you?

We've yet to find a property to put up any gates.

Seriously though, we'll be looking for a place probably next year now and that's one of the things we're thinking about. Do you want somewhere quiet or somewhere with a reasonable amount of traffic if you want farm gate sales. If we have much choice we'll go for the quiet option so I doubt we'd be able to sell too much at the gate.

An ideal solution would be to provide a veg box scheme or, perhaps, some local restaurants. However, apart from the exotic but familiar fruits I'm not too sure of the market for some of the more unusual produce.

I think we'll get on with what we want to do personally and see what, if any, opportunities arise.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9000
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 3:09 pm Post subject:
I think it comes down to yes, you can make a living on 10 acres. Depending on keeping the overheads down, buying local and selling local as far as possible.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45723
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 11 3:34 pm Post subject:
Martin at ART ran an organic smallholding before setting up ART, he told me that it devoured all his time and made very little money. I've not read the report but �22k worth of produce isn't going to pay anyone's bills.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 11 8:56 am Post subject:

tahir wrote:

I've not read the report but �22k worth of produce isn't going to pay anyone's bills.

From the report

"Income from agriculture covers house insurance, heating bills, council tax and personal food bills. Additional income for other personal expenses come from the courses and their B&B business."

After business costs, they were left with around �11,000. As they have kept their overheads down, as gz says, it seems �22,000 worth of produce can and does pay their bills.

One of the similarities between all the case studies in the report, was the lack of having to service debt by building the businesses gradually and doing a lot of the work themselves.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 11 12:57 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

Martin at ART ran an organic smallholding before setting up ART, he told me that it devoured all his time and made very little money.

I've not read the report but �22k worth of produce isn't going to pay anyone's bills.

It's worth reading. I guess, if you're working 22 hours a day, you don't have much time to rack up bills.

Some good business plans in there. Some shocking, but some good.

RichardW

Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 8443
Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 11 4:53 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

I've not read the report but �22k worth of produce isn't going to pay anyone's bills.

It would easily pay ours more than twice over. Even the �11k bottom line they make would still give us some spare cash each year compared to what we live on now. With �11k per year we would not need any tax credits ect even though we would be well under the limits.

shadiya

Joined: 02 Feb 2008
Posts: 1285

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 11 9:22 am Post subject:

Blimey Tahir, if you don't think �22,000 will pay any bills

then please can I have a borrow of your petty cash tin?

Haven't had a chance to go through this yet though the description of the largest commercial forest garden is intriguing. I'm not wholly convinced about temperate forest gardening myself, as I just don't think we get enough sun to really do the layers and there is obviously a balance to be drawn between underplanting and airflow but I would be very happy to be proven wrong. That small farms are more efficient/sustainable/productive etc isn't really news, the IAASTD report of 2008 confirmed that and was promptly buried by the countries that commisioned it as it didn't really say what they wanted.

Obviously, I am not saying all small farms etc, it is a generalisation and not one that I'd apply here but I'm working on it.....

Lorrainelovesplants

Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 6521
Location: Dordogne

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 11 9:32 am Post subject:
yes, working every daylight hour on 1 acre probably might make us sucessful.

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