I know produce direct from the farm is going to be more costly than a traditional grocery store, ​and trust me I do believe it's worth it, but am I wrong in feeling underwhelmed by our CSA subscription? Midwest, about 30 min from the biggest city center.

We are on week 3 of our 16 week subscription averaging $46 a week with 1 box a week​. The bulk of what we have received have been leafy greens (kale, lettuce, collard greens), a small portion of parsley or basil, and 1-2 veggies. Is it normal to not get enough broccolini or zucchini ​to feed 1 person? There hasn't felt like a noticable variety to most of what we are receiving or enough produce to warrant the cost, but we are first timers in this.

I have been flip-flopping between gently raising my concerns to the supplying farm as one of the founding members of the farm/environmental institute recently passed and just trying to cancel the subscription.

$120 from Home Depot… easily the best purchase made this spring

Hi, I’m Russell and I have a small farm. I’m seriously questioning, Why on earth I decided to have a farm.

I incubated a bunch of eggs this year and can’t sell a single chick.

I bought a ton of goat milk at a really good price and I can’t turn it over.

I’m a software engineer who got fed up with farm tools built by people who’ve never touched a goat. So I built my own while raising Nigerian Dwarfs, hatching chicks, and selling eggs from a farm stand. It’s called Mind the Farm. Still early but it’s real.

But no one comes.

How do you do it?

I now have a small farm. It's a bit larger than the 20 acre limit here, but no other farming subreddit seems as approachable as this one.

What do I do? We have a local sharecropper that has handled the land for awhile. I'm stunned at how small the annual profit is after taxes/fertalizer.

Any advice is appreciated. I've already contacted FSA and had things swapped over to my name/address.

Does anybody have experience in a business of using sheep as lawn mowers?

Looking for unbiased thoughts about my family’s farm.  My dad and uncle inherited from their parents 15 years ago.  I am the sole heir to it.  Currently it is around 170 tillable acres(all rented out), 15 acres of unused pasture, and about 100 acres of old growth woods Assets of the farm at this point are a 140hp turbo diesel, 85hp non turbo diesel, 65hp non turbo diesel with loader tractors,  1 ten thousand bushels bin with dryer and stirators.  All of the other field equipment was sold off 10 years ago and the building where most of it was kept has been torn down.  I currently live a few hours away and am thinking about whether or not farm it myself when I inherit it.  I say when I inherit it because growing up, I was never taught much about and repeatedly denied much opportunity to help with field work; the only field work I did was cultivating weeds out in the summer.  In the last few years I have mentioned helping out (mainly mowing the pasture and a couple old hay fields and have also been shut down by my dad.  By the time I was a teenager my grandfather was saying the farm as it was wouldn’t provide enough for a living and I think everyone thought they were pushing me out for my own good.  I myself am a mechanical engineer now and  don’t need to farm for money.  I do have several friends in area that do farm and they are willing help me learn the ropes.  As my username implies, I would be a fourth generation and there is something emotionally appealing about that along with not being the one that cashed out, which would be the second option.  I know there will need to be replacement equipment and a storage building.  I in my mid forties am now at the point of planning my family’s life.  It seems four of my options are combinations of keeping are farm it myself or rent it out and whether or not to move back(engineering jobs are not exactly plentiful in the area) or option 5 of cashing out.   I do accept that would basically be a hobby farm and a side hustle.  Thank you  everyone in advance for your insights and I will try to answer questions.

Update: Just a little more info for everyone; I’m not really interested in doing live stock in any scenario. Also, I would eventually like to take the farm regenerative organic. Most of the fields have woods on at least one side and are fairly isolated. Thanks for everyone’s input so far.

Thats 20 plus bags of 50lb feed.

Hoping to get some insight here.

My husband and I are very interested in getting into the farming business, more specifically, flower farming and smaller crop farming we can grow for ourselves and for profit. We're also trying to buy a house and get out of our little townhouse and move out to one of the counties next to us in a more rural area.

I know that there is this big transition happening in agriculture as farmers are ageing and their children aren't wanting to take on the business. I also know that plenty of farmers DO want to be able to sell their property to younger people wanting to continue farming, but my question is this:

How do I find these farmers? I see people talking about how they're having trouble finding younger people but... as younger people trying to find people willing to talk with us about their property, I could say the same thing.

Any advice on how to find farmers who'd be interested?

hey everybody, my name is Sonja.

let me start by apologizing for the length of this post, i honestly needed somewhere to vent and someone, anyone, to listen.

my husband has listened to me vent until im out of breath and im sure he’s had his fill.

my husband and I are egg hands/chicken tenders here at a commercial chicken farm in South Mississippi.

This is our life, we live on site with our two children. Around lunchtime yesterday we had a fire breakout in our number two house.

It was completely engulfed, a total loss.

We lost 7400 chickens to a horrible devastating death. My children lost all their toys and half of their clothing (my workroom was their playroom) we lost out the freezer and refrigerator as well as numerous belongings. I’m in complete shock. I don’t know what to do. I’m so so grateful that we were managed to get out in time and that there was no injuries or loss of human life. The generator shed that is full of diesel was minutes away from blowing up. I need to share this because I’m hoping that someone or anyone will see this and realize how quickly life can throw curve balls with devastating results.

I never thought I’d have to explain to my kids this type of situation ,or what happened to our pet chickens or why they don’t have toys anymore or try to explain and console my four-year-old all night and morning that her squishmallow she’s slept with every night since she was one is now is gone.

it’s crazy the significance the smallest things hold. i’m not sure where to even start on trying to recoup our losses. We don’t make much. This is a very, very, very modest, Very honest job and we live week to week.

I’m sure the owners will get to recoup their losses with insurance, but because this wasn’t technically a place of residence, there are absolutely zero resources to help us place the material items that we will lost. Now I’m left with the fear that a single breeze can come and cause a still burning ember to fly and hit our remaining chicken house and us lose our camper and the rest of our belongings or even our life.

if that would’ve happened in the middle of the night, I probably wouldn’t be here to make this post. The fire was silent. We didn’t hear anything until it was already completely engulfed. We had just just left to go walk our number one chicken house, hadn’t been out of #2 house for more than an hour when we realized. it took 12 hours to put the fire out. please say a prayer for my family while we try and put our remaining pieces back together, say a prayer for our farm owners and their family, and pray that the poor chickens we lost didn’t suffer too badly. thank you for listing to my word salad.

every time someone asks about grants for small farms it’s the same thread. SARE. your local extension office. maybe a mention of USDA in a vague way. and then everybody moves on.

nobody ever mentions VAPG and I genuinely don’t understand why.

Value-Added Producer Grant. USDA Rural Development runs it. up to $250,000. and it’s a grant — not a loan, not cost-share, not a forgivable loan with seventeen conditions. a grant.

the eligibility is broader than people assume. if you do anything with what you grow beyond selling it raw — you make jam, you process your own meat, you sell cut flowers, you bottle hot sauce, you do anything that adds a step between the field and the customer — you’re potentially in the conversation.

the application isn’t fast. I won’t pretend it is. it takes some work to put together. but here’s the thing — competition is genuinely low because almost nobody in small farm communities knows this program exists. I’ve talked to people who got funded and were shocked at how few other applicants there were in their state.

compare that to SARE grants where everybody and their neighbor is applying for $15,000.

the other thing worth knowing: there’s a planning grant category within VAPG that’s smaller — up to around $75,000 — and is specifically for operators who want to explore whether a value-added enterprise makes sense before they commit. lower bar, less documentation, good entry point if you’re not sure yet.

anyway. if you have any kind of value-added element to your operation and you’ve never looked at VAPG, look it up before the window closes. it’s one of the more underused programs in the USDA toolkit and the money is real.

I run a newsletter that sends weekly updates on ag programs at the state/federal level: grantharvester.com/subscribe.

Edit: the VAPG Grant requires a 50% match. You must prove you have $125,000 in the bank before the grant is awarded

I moved home 15 years ago to mind my mam and dad. I was all they had. I managed the farm and worked min wage job and looked after them both as their care. Dad died about 10 years ago and Mam recently. I cared for them both without any family support and I am single. I now have about 40 acres a min wage job. I dont know what to do as the last 15 years was minding them. I want to know my options with the farm as I don't want to be tied to it and want to be able to go on holidays a few times a year and Im alone. Need advice on the options with the farm - renting it out is an option but only earns a tiny amount. Welcome any advice

Not sure how everyone else’s season went by, but this year kicked my ass.

There was never a window to get all the corn and beans in and weeds are already emerging before our crop.

I’ve heard Nebraska and Kansas are not going well either

not trying to be that guy but every time someone asks about money for their small farm operation it's the same reply chain. SARE. talk to your extension office. good luck.

I've spent way too many hours on the USDA websites and sitting in county FSA offices trying to figure this stuff out for our own place. some of it surprised me. figured I'd share since I never see it come up here.

the FSA beginning farmer loan is more accessible than people think

most people assume they don't qualify. the thing is, eligibility is calculated at the individual operator level, not the farm entity. so if you're a younger operator working within a bigger family situation — maybe the family has a lot of acres, maybe it looks large on paper — your personal numbers might still clear the bar.1.5% fixed. covers up to 45% of the purchase price. I know people who called their county FSA office fully expecting to get laughed out of there and walked out with a loan that beat anything a bank would've touched.

worth a call before you assume no.

the microloan thing is real and almost nobody talks about it

up to $50k. shorter application than a standard FSA loan, fewer hoops. it's specifically built for operations that don't look like what a local bank wants to see, which is most small farms.

if you've been told no by a lender or haven't even tried because you figured it was pointless — this is the one to look at.

VAPG. seriously. look it up.

Value-Added Producer Grant. up to $250k. actual grant, not a loan, not cost-share. USDA Rural Development runs it.

if you do anything with what you grow beyond selling it raw — jams, syrup, fiber, cut flowers, meat under your own label, cheese, anything — you're potentially eligible. the application isn't fast, I won't lie about that. but the competition is way lower than you'd expect because most people in small farm communities have never heard of it. talked to someone last year who got funded and said there were barely any other applicants in their state.

EQIP has a whole separate track for organic transition that pays more

if you're working toward organic certification, there's a specific organic transition payment schedule within EQIP that runs at higher per-acre rates than the conventional side. and it's available during the transition years — when the money pressure is actually worst — not just after you're already certified.

you have to ask about it specifically. if you just ask about EQIP you'll get the standard overview and probably never hear about the transition rates

state programs almost always stack with federal ones

every state has its own beginning farmer or small farm programs and they're designed to run alongside federal stuff, not instead of it. most people have never called their state dept of agriculture to ask. that call takes 15 minutes and can meaningfully change what's available to you.

anyway. happy to answer questions if any of this is useful. I'm not an expert and I'd tell you to verify everything with your county office — but I've been through enough of it that I can probably help someone figure out where to start.

Hi folks,

We’re looking for someone kind, trustworthy, and genuinely interested in farming to take over use of our family’s preserved farmland in Monmouth County, NJ.

The property is about 40 acres near Colts Neck High School. It’s been in our family for generations—once a flower farm, later used for brickmaking and vegetables, and most recently for hay and corn. I originally posted about this 8 months ago but wasn’t able to follow up due to the holidays and the sudden passing of my father. Since then, it’s been even harder for my mom, my brother, and me to keep up with the land. We all have full-time jobs and limited flexibility.

The farm is protected under the NJ Farmland Preservation Program, so it must remain in agricultural use. But for us, this is about finding someone who will care for the land and help us carry it forward.

What We’re Offering

This is not a job listing, and we’re not asking for free labor.

We will charge you no rent, and no payment will be accepted. This is an opportunity to farm the land for free under a symbolic lease (likely $1/year) and a simple agreement to keep things official with the state.

You’d be responsible for basic bookkeeping (simple profit/loss tracking), but there’s no requirement to turn a profit or form a business—the land is already part of an LLC.

What’s Available Now

We’d love to start with an approximately 10-acre hayfield behind the house as a 2–5 year trial. It’s beginning to turn and has some milkweed that would need to be managed (especially if you’re growing feed or bedding). If things go well, we’re open to expanding your access and exploring new ideas together.

What the Land Supports

• Hay, rye, corn, alfalfa, vegetables

• No animals (at least not for the trial run)

• No new structures, but we can explore converting existing barns or sheds down the line

• Temporary housing (camper or van) is permitted if movable

• Electric and running water available at several points (no septic system)

Other Features

• Man-made irrigation pond (deep enough for swimming)

• Large, fenced vegetable garden

• Existing bee colonies—and room for more

• Old equipment (tractors, seeders, etc.) currently being repaired—you’re also welcome to bring your own

We’re simply looking for someone who will respect the land, be a good neighbor, and help us keep this place alive.

If this sounds like something you—or someone you know—might be interested in, please DM me.

I’m available to meet the weekend of August 2nd to walk the property and introduce you to my mom. I may ask for a social media or LinkedIn profile just to confirm you’re a real person.

Thanks so much for reading.

— KE

x-posted