From October 12th to October 29th, there is a 3-part online workshop available for free on Keys to Profitability in the Market Garden.
Hosted by the Market Gardener Institute, bio-intensive farming expert, Jean-Martin Fortier shares the following principles on how to make your farm profitable as a market gardening business.
1. Set goals
Goals are objectives that you specifically set to achieve by implementing strategies. Setting goals aligns focus and translates dreams into actionable items for your farm to succeed. Set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time management) goals and concrete targets to accomplish over a period of time.
2. Track and measure the right things
- Weekly Sales – Review all numbers after a full year by sales outlet such as community-support agriculture, farmer’s market, restaurant. This is critical knowledge to make informed decisions about farm management.
- Sales by crop – Measure the selling of your biggest cash crop, the most planted crop, most popular and most lucrative crop.
- Field profitability – Do not measure the cost of production per crop but rather the profitability in space and time. For example, use the field profit measure formula: Sales / bed length (unit of measure) / time in the field (occupying space in field)
3. 80/20 rule applied to customers
Based on the pareto principle: 80% revenue comes from 20% of your customers. Connect with your best customers by engaging, asking questions and welcoming feedback to learn how to serve them better and increase sales.
4. Don’t compete on price, do the opposite
You have all heard the saying ‘quality over quantity’. For small scale farming, the value proposition is selling high quality vegetables at price. Avoid bargaining, and instead, compete on the quality of your product and customer experience.
5. Diversify your revenue streams
Consider having more than one sales outlet such as a brand or store, to allow more flexibility and adaptability. The more ways to make connections with target customers, the more captive and likely they are to spend more money on your products and increase sales.
6. Invest to save time and money
Create investments that pay off such as tools, equipment and knowledge.
You can still gain access to the 3-part online workshop here until October 29th.
About Jean-Martin (JM) Fortier
Jean-Martin Fortier is an organic farmer, educator and entrepreneur. He is international recognized as an expert in the field of bio-intensive farming.
He’s been farming on his own small acreage for 15 years, aiming to educate people understand and believe why and how small-scale ecological farms can change the world.
Fortier is the author of The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming which offers a story of starting a farm with proven low-tech, human-scale, biointensive farming methods.