For those doubting the prices; the broilers are the same price as certified organic here in france (though yours I assume are not certified) . The 'total products' make sense, but it is your gross margin which is key! Thank you so much for your videos and for sharing such personal information. So very useful to have someone show a real farm and not just waffle on about herb spirals etc.Thanks!
Hello Richard. I accidentally came across your video. I was really impressed that you shared this information. I am an ecologist but over the years have worked on farms and at a certain point would inspect farms, advise farmer and inspect livestock markets . I have always believed that conservation (being greener) and agriculture should be working together. We live in the French Pyrenees and have a few acres of land, including forest. I will be using some of this land for a rewilding experiment and the rest is for growing trees and other plants that can bring in an income to us and our charity. Thank you for helping to support my theories due to your open video, very much appreciated.
Found out one "meter" is 3.2808399 feet, and one "hectare" (had a heck of a time figuring out the spelling, lol) contains about 2.47 acres. I'm learning so I can understand what you're teaching us. Great info. Thanks!
@@regenerativeagriculture you have not included the free labor though, which is not at situation other farms have (having interns). So it is the question if it would be viable if even the minum wage and the other wage related costs would have to be paid.
@@xyzsame4081the interns get fed, so that balances things a bit, plus I think they pay towards their learning whilst at Ridgedale. In other words it's a separate enterprise. Probably what Richard meant when he said they were working towards other revenue streams etc
Very impressive. One qualification. Only feasible for areas where you have a readily available local market where you can realise more or less Retail prices. Most Urban dwellers don't realize larger commercial farmers are lucky to receive 1/5 the Retail Price. You use all the correct techniques. No tillage or should I say minimum tillage. Now very prevalent in all nations with advanced Agriculture. In Australia minimum till has been used for up to 40 years in many areas with the result our marginal (lack of rain) soils are improving. Herbicides tough are essential in this process. No real problem with todays safer and safer Herbicides. No residue problems. The next step for large scale producers is Perma-culture. In effect your ultimate goal. As our Independent Plant breeders come up with suitable plant species where none are available. With luck we will be eating what was once considered weeds. The last thing Corporations like Monsanto want to see of course.
Loving your reporting from the farm. Thanks for pioneering and maintaining the clarity and commitment to your holistic context it takes to pull off the regenerative ag enterprise model. Rock on.
This is wonderful. Too few people appreciate that ideas must be economically sustaining, as well as ecologically sustaining. Otherwise, the movement will never catch on. Hoping farmers and ag researchers can figure out how to get it down to 3 years to profitability!!
@@LincolnLog hhahahahaHAHAHAHHA That's amazing. I emplore you (not actually you but people who are indeed curious about small farm ecomomics) to do more research into people like Diego Footer, Curtis Stone, JM Fortier, Joel Salatin etc. Love you brother, but saying working at mcdonalds is a more enjoyable lifestyle than small scale agriculture is hilarious on its face at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.
Winter micro greens, if you have an indoor space, can be very profitable. I pay 7.99 Canadian about $5 us at the grocery store. Is now grow my own for a few $ per flat.
I'm looking forwards to seeing how your experiments go with ducks, geese and rabbits. We have had ducks in our back garden this year in the uk along with our bantams. Our eggs are just for us and the ducks are for the freezer but when we can scale up more we are looking to sell duck eggs as well as chicken eggs and also ducks for food. We've seen that duck breast is the most lucrative way of selling them rather than whole duck. So far the ducks have kept slugs down to an absolute minimum and we are down to about 8-10 ducks now. The chickens are now also taking smaller slugs. Most of our food growing is on 2 allotments and an area of a field but do have a raised bed, greenhouse and polytunnel at home and I use the polytunnel as a nursery until things are all planted out then I can get things planted in there. Often I get some slug issues even in there but so far this is almost zero this year due to the ducks. At the field our friends who we rent a field for our horses, the one for growing is free, have free range chickens and they keep pests down quite well and I'll let them in on each bed as and when they are empty to scratch and so on.
Maybe I missed it in the beginning, but where does all that startup investment cost come from? Loans or inheritance or savings from previous career? That's a lot of startup investment money!
I believe it's very sustainable, especially if you have monies to invest 1st 3 to 5 years. Then you should make a good living. No BIG house, NEW truck, or mortgage allowed. Learn to be thankful and content. Can't go wrong like that.
Thanks so much for sharing your numbers. As someone interested in getting involved with regenerative agriculture but no hands-on experience, it is a challenge to figure out the scale of operation that is feasible. For instance I was surprised to find that 1500 m2 of vegetable market gardening is that labour intensive - would you be able to break that down into bed preparation & planting / harvest & post harvest / marketing? I'd also be keen to hear your forecasts for the perennial and tree crop production as I would expect that investment to pay off significantly in the later years. Lastly the regenerative aspect of your operation is remarkable just from your photos and videos alone. Bravo to you.
He has unpaid students so his numbers do not apply to other farms because he can scale up his output (and also have other lucrative steams of income, like speeches, courses, youtube video production, editing. - w/o more costs. Imagine he would have to pay someone in Sweden (minimum wage and wage related contributions). He can sell at the relatively high prices for organic food (becauset the Swedes have good wages, and also a lot of industry and the government funnels money into the remote areas. Thinking of it: I assume he also might also get some grants or subsidies. O.K. with international audiences he does not have to include it in the caculation. would have been good form to mention it though. Before others get the idea they could have earned it all within 5 years. A couple that would do it all alone would need 10 years minimum (which is not bad if you pay off 100k), and both of them would work long hours. Plus: I am not sure he included the costs for a vehicle. At least a part has to be counted as biz expenditure. So he gets the advantage of disposable income of the general population but does not cover the other side of the equation. costs of Labor. 5 years is extremely fast, even if he only made the absolutely necessary investment. If he had relied on his labor and that of his wife they would not be so far ahead. He also does not factor in the revenue he has from youtube, books, speeches and courses.
Gabe Brown says he isn't the top producer in his county - but he's the wealthiest one. It's from keeping all the money from poisons, fuel and expensive machines.
Richard my question is based on the graph you provide. which I'm really appreciative of you providing by the way. at 20 bucks an hour for workers, it seems like your market garden loses you money? 3000 hours at 20 bucks an hour is 60 thousand dollars your enterprise profit is 55k which I could see doing market garden for other reasons than just profit but I was just curious for your take on that. Thanks Joseph
joe pradzynski I don’t know how income taxes and insurance work over there, but in the USA if you employed someone for $20/hour it’s actually going to cost your company a minimum of $30 per hour. $40/hour if you provide benefits.
Thanks Richard, good work - did I miss something or did you not mention income/expenses from your educational programs? Cheers, Darren J. Doherty, Regrarians Ltd.
Hi Darren - No, I make no mention of that. I made this specifically to look at the level of productions required to make the sort of pay-off mentioned. It focuses on the income from our 3 main enterprises, not any of the current 'side line' enterprises mentioned.
Thanks Richard, so your 'side line' enterprises won't contribute to the paying off of the farm? Of course there's nothing wrong with that - good luck to you however you get the debt done. So I gather that you were isolating the ag enterprises to indicate that for your project you could 'make this small farm work' off its own bat? Thanks again and all the best, Darren
Hi Richard, to my understanding your courses also contribute largely to the work input on the farm or am I wrong? Considering that the teaching enterprise is also based on your land and the infrastructure on-site I think it falls under the general category of agriturism / agricultural education, which usually is considered an integral part of agricultural businesses. One thing which didn't open up to me in the video was, how it is possible for you to run educational courses and work full-time on the farm yourself especially during season. Assuming that you hold courses every summer these work hours must be projections and not actual recorded hours? Most conventional direct sales farmers I know spend the entire season on producing and harvesting and when not working on the farm they're selling. Thanks for the videos, I really enjoy watching them! Kaius Ag science student from Helsinki
@@WeAreDownstairs Richard has people working for free (students of his courses most likely) that frees up a lot of the time,and he can get a lot of the projects to upgrade the farm done fast and increase output, w/o having higher costs. There are plenty of repetitive, simple and manual chores to do on a farm or in the nursery or preparing the produce for the market. Normally either the farmer's family would have to do them or they would have to pay a help. (I think in the rich European countries most smaller farmers do not pay a help, too expensive. The overal good wages mean people can afford the organic produce and market prices. But that also means certain costs for labor. In Sweden that means at least minimum wage (not sure if they have one, but the offer would have to be adequate) and the wage related contributions (healthcare, retirement etc, unemployment funds). I guess the volunteers / students are motivated, they are likely all legal adults with a driving licence, speak English, so they can also run errands for him or help him with video production. And if shown how to turn the compost, feed the chicken, or to plant certain seedlings they can work on their own for 30 minutes or 1 hour. Then come back for the next simple task.
Just found your channel Richard .. really useful stuff and wish you all the success in the world. You clearly know what you are doing and we can all benefit from your generosity. Now I'm off to watch all your other videos and get even more inspired! Best wishes TRG.
Interesting. I'd like to see the full set of accounts though, you seem to have only given the highlights. Not doubting, I just like to see the all the income and expenses in black and white.
Is there an online forum for connecting new market gardeners with people that have organic land for sale or rent? We have 10 acres (3 which are organic) in Eastern Iowa (potential to expand to 60 acres with a creek). It has four-lane highway access/frontage road that is centrally located for three cities and plenty of smaller towns. 30 minutes from the Mississippi river. Underground spring, craftsman farmhouse, finished double garage with apartment, and three barns with paddocks.
I live in Canada and it's illegal here to detain more than 100 chickens per year, except if you buy a "quota", which is a right to produce chicken per square meter. The current price is 1175 per square meter. So there's no way, we could do something like that in Canada, which is sad considering the profit you make.
In Ontario anyone can raise 300 broilers and 100 laying hens without quota. There's also a non quota program where you can raise 600-3000 but you have to apply, qualify and follow their regulations.
isn't feeding birds with bugs that grow in $hit from cows illegal? I heard that you could get serious parasites from eating birds who ate bugs that feed on animal waste. Just a question, no hate intended, I loved the video.
no way, the opposite is true. The birds actually cut down on parasites. Different species have very different parasites, and moving a second animal over the land helps break the lifecycle of most parasites.
thank you very much! very insightful. maybe you can answer one question for me: i don't get the step from revenue to enterprise profit. what do you substract from the revenue?
I like you videos. Curios, what are "farm currency ridge dollar" (I think I heard that right?). Is this a private bartering setup? Is the purpose related to taxes. Thanks, John
He did not mention his income from teaching or youtube ad revenue or books. And he definitely did not mention the wages he does not have to pay or employment related taxes and contributions for the unpaid students. (which has to do with the fact tha he has positioned himself or he would not bet unapaid work). One can assume the folks coming are motivated, some will have practical skills while other at least can be immediately productive with repetitive and manual tasks. There are plenty such tasks on a farm. Sure he has to supervise them telling them what to do (I guess his wife can help), but on the other hand plenty of volunteers working long days add tremendous value. I saw one video where he mentions problems resulting from sticking to a schedule and pushing to finish a project , also to "motivate" the unpaid workforce (maybe they wanted more educational content than being used to spread compost). Not all seedlings grew well, some were stalled (I think they applied mulch / compost unevenly). There seems to be a stress factor overseeing all the rookies. On the other hand a bed not growing (he can buy fresh plants if need be - also from outside in order to not lose time of the short season) and letting the unpaid workforce plant afresh is of little consequence when you consider how much he gets for free. Once an expert has decided which work has to be done in what way there is a lot manual repetitive work. Planting, weeding, digging, cleaning stables, making compost. It is not like people need 3 weeks to learn how to turn compost, feed the chickens, or plant a certain crop once someone has shown them the how-to. Which bed, which depth, is it delicate, how much pressure to firm the soil and how much water to not drown the seedlings. 10 minutes oversight while they are working and they can do it on their own. And save him hours of work. Or working in the nursery. Which is also labor intense.
But can you really convince enough people to pay $20 per broiler chicken when they are a 3rd the price at the grocery store. I think our local colony goes around selling them for $6 a bird and they are about the size of a small turkey.
Hi Richard! do you have any sketch or more pictures of the pastured egg mobile? I will like to know how to build it. Thanks in advance. Regards from Argentina and congratulation for your farm project!
It definitely will, not only because of the ecosystem and land improvement but also because of efficiencies that are discovered. My guess for his projections, he is just being conservative and not using anything like that... it will be a pleasant surprise.
10 acres in Sweden so far north so that you only have a few hours of sun in the winter. Wow. I live in Canada and wondered about the payback on a farm. Not sure how far you are from the coast do not know if you are colder than Canada. Great video keep up the good work👍👍👍
Factor in that he gets a lot of unpaid labor. And subsidies from the Swedish government. So if you plan the same you have to make to w/o the fast acceleration and the leverage of free labor. I assume he might also have a marketing advantage, because of his youtube presence (not sure if that was relevant in the first years). but for his model it is important to sell w/o middle man, and having a name is extremely helpful.
Question - I see yours and Joel Salitin stagger the chicken tractors in the fields. what is the reason for that ? Why not just in a long row ? Why staggered ?
I'm interested in the answer, too. I'm wondering if it's too avoid blocking sunshine or something like that, from each other ? Or beacsue it's the way it works best for how they use their electric fence situation &/or personal accessibility to the pens ?
It's based on harvest. The tractor in front of the line is harvested that week. One tractor a week. It's basically succession planting with chickens LOL
Yes - with uapaid labor of his students. I find it strange that he does not mention that, it would be interesting how many hours of labor he gets. There are lots of manual chores on a farm so these people are immediately productive.
Sean Kandel if you get things going I'd love to follow your progress! We just purchased 5 acres as well in North Florida and are looking to start a mini farm.
Greetings. I'm intrigued with your "Ridgecash" coupons. Can you elucidate? I'm working on a project in US to generate cooperative investment in permaculture projects like yours, via cash flow management savings, and individual retirement account investments based on duplicable, sustainable, profitable, small, local farming enterprises. The idea would be to provide a type of crowdfunding to multiple projects based on a provable, duplicable system like yours. I'm speculating that Ridgecash could be incorporated into the idea. Please expand onhow you use it. Or IM me. Thanks. Great video.... Emphasizing the importance of FINANCIAL sustainability as well as crops.
We gross around $25 a chicken. Sweden is a very expensive country to live and eat in, and our birds are cheaper than organic birds in the supermarket here. We raise them to about 2.2kg, although that obviously varies. We feed organic food, of course this makes up the majority of their diet
22770 dolars for polytunnel, greenhouse, covers, fleece etc?? For that money changed in swedish crowns you can not built one 50m altan, dont lie this people plss and you know what im talking about
I think you're mistaken dude. I've talked endlessly about securing free resources, sourcing things from the right place, etc. I don't know what you mean by 'altan' to be honest. We must try to do things low cost by being creative, and I've been demonstrating this strongly since we began...
4500 birds producing an Annual Revenue of 90k !? :O Who in the world, pays 20bucks for a broiler??? Here in Spain you"ll get 5Bucks at most, and that is by producing and selling directly to the customer by yourself! And believe me, the land cost is eather the same or even more expensive! I'm not shure if I am impressed by how you convince people to pay such a price for a broiler, or to think that this whole sceme is a Scam. And believe me, this whole plan of sales is a way above the the budget that people have for their food worldwide, in 90-95% of the existing countries! So please tell me, who is buyng those broilers because otherwise the whole plan smells like a scam!
I take it you haven't been to Sweden? Our birds are cheaper than organic broilers in the supermarket here. Sweden is very expensive place to eat and live in general.
I saw the kid in the pic. such a good life for kids. I got 3 and we're doing some of this. I'm doing ethnobotanicals, tea and coffee where it's not supposed to be grown. trying out a new business model.
I feel its rather surprising that your suggesting a broiler is selling for a 1.25 a pound... most broilers are 3 to 5 pounds depending on length of life... That's pretty impressive if spain is selling their meat for 1.25 a pound in canada our non organic cafo chicken is 3 dollars a pound on the cheap end... so raising pastured poultry doesn't seem unreasonable at 5 bucks a pound.
all this work you're seeing is Joe salatin idea here in the USA that idea where you see them doing all this is the same idea he came out with started out here brother we're the ones who know about Agraculture in the USA that 💡 was American born
Salatin often mentions the great influences of European agriculture to his farming philosophy. He has helped people re discover what our ancestors already knew. The great advances that he brought were the application of electric fencing and pressure supplied water. Those two modern inventions make everything else practical for people on a small scale (or any scale). His concepts are truly revolutionary in the fact that they can be applied to any size farm in any environment that will support agriculture. If I had to cope with such a short growing season as these guys I would be pulling my hair out but they seem to be doing fine.
For those doubting the prices; the broilers are the same price as certified organic here in france (though yours I assume are not certified) . The 'total products' make sense, but it is your gross margin which is key! Thank you so much for your videos and for sharing such personal information. So very useful to have someone show a real farm and not just waffle on about herb spirals etc.Thanks!
And for Canada, that's a pretty similar price (at least in northern BC where I am) to a non-organic bird from a local butcher.
Hello Richard. I accidentally came across your video. I was really impressed that you shared this information. I am an ecologist but over the years have worked on farms and at a certain point would inspect farms, advise farmer and inspect livestock markets . I have always believed that conservation (being greener) and agriculture should be working together. We live in the French Pyrenees and have a few acres of land, including forest. I will be using some of this land for a rewilding experiment and the rest is for growing trees and other plants that can bring in an income to us and our charity. Thank you for helping to support my theories due to your open video, very much appreciated.
Found out one "meter" is 3.2808399 feet, and one "hectare" (had a heck of a time figuring out the spelling, lol) contains about 2.47 acres. I'm learning so I can understand what you're teaching us. Great info. Thanks!
Annie Gaddis a hectare is 10000 square meters.
Thanks for sharing. Good and helpful stuff! Wishing you all the best for this season and the youtube channel. Hope to visit some time.
Thanks, you're welcome to visit if you find time over the summer. Would be great to meet and talk!
@@regenerativeagriculture you have not included the free labor though, which is not at situation other farms have (having interns). So it is the question if it would be viable if even the minum wage and the other wage related costs would have to be paid.
@@xyzsame4081 Nobody works for free in the end..
@@xyzsame4081the interns get fed, so that balances things a bit, plus I think they pay towards their learning whilst at Ridgedale. In other words it's a separate enterprise. Probably what Richard meant when he said they were working towards other revenue streams etc
Excellent video! Thanks for talking about the numbers. Lots of people have videos about small farms but do not talk about the economics. THANK YOU.
Richard!
We missing your energy here in the far south.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Amazing stuff you got going on, inspirational model at its best. Wish you all best in upcoming season, cheers from Croatia! )
Very impressive.
One qualification.
Only feasible for areas where you have a readily available local market where you can realise more or less Retail prices.
Most Urban dwellers don't realize larger commercial farmers are lucky to receive 1/5 the Retail Price.
You use all the correct techniques. No tillage or should I say minimum tillage.
Now very prevalent in all nations with advanced Agriculture.
In Australia minimum till has been used for up to 40 years in many areas with the result our marginal (lack of rain) soils are improving.
Herbicides tough are essential in this process. No real problem with todays safer and safer Herbicides. No residue problems.
The next step for large scale producers is Perma-culture. In effect your ultimate goal.
As our Independent Plant breeders come up with suitable plant species where none are available. With luck we will be eating what was once considered weeds.
The last thing Corporations like Monsanto want to see of course.
Loving your reporting from the farm. Thanks for pioneering and maintaining the clarity and commitment to your holistic context it takes to pull off the regenerative ag enterprise model. Rock on.
This is wonderful. Too few people appreciate that ideas must be economically sustaining, as well as ecologically sustaining. Otherwise, the movement will never catch on. Hoping farmers and ag researchers can figure out how to get it down to 3 years to profitability!!
Also, how we're you able to develop a market to presell 4500 broilers in your first season?
@@LincolnLog lmao jesus christ are you getting paid by the CIA or not yet?
@@LincolnLog hhahahahaHAHAHAHHA That's amazing. I emplore you (not actually you but people who are indeed curious about small farm ecomomics) to do more research into people like Diego Footer, Curtis Stone, JM Fortier, Joel Salatin etc. Love you brother, but saying working at mcdonalds is a more enjoyable lifestyle than small scale agriculture is hilarious on its face at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.
I see why you haven't been hired yet. Your gaslighting game needs some work
@@LincolnLog THERE you go!! That's better gaslighting! A little contrived, but you'll get there.
@@willieclark2256 who are you to make that judgement for someone else?
Winter micro greens, if you have an indoor space, can be very profitable. I pay 7.99 Canadian about $5 us at the grocery store. Is now grow my own for a few $ per flat.
I'm looking forwards to seeing how your experiments go with ducks, geese and rabbits. We have had ducks in our back garden this year in the uk along with our bantams. Our eggs are just for us and the ducks are for the freezer but when we can scale up more we are looking to sell duck eggs as well as chicken eggs and also ducks for food. We've seen that duck breast is the most lucrative way of selling them rather than whole duck. So far the ducks have kept slugs down to an absolute minimum and we are down to about 8-10 ducks now. The chickens are now also taking smaller slugs. Most of our food growing is on 2 allotments and an area of a field but do have a raised bed, greenhouse and polytunnel at home and I use the polytunnel as a nursery until things are all planted out then I can get things planted in there. Often I get some slug issues even in there but so far this is almost zero this year due to the ducks. At the field our friends who we rent a field for our horses, the one for growing is free, have free range chickens and they keep pests down quite well and I'll let them in on each bed as and when they are empty to scratch and so on.
Very helpful to see the breakdown of income/expenses.
we cant wait to also start.
I'd be interested in seeing more of your irrigation system in a later video. Love your work. Thanks!
you rock. I learn so much from you. Thank you. If I could ever come there. We will.
Maybe I missed it in the beginning, but where does all that startup investment cost come from? Loans or inheritance or savings from previous career? That's a lot of startup investment money!
You are very smart, organized. and genourous to share this information. Thanks you I learned a lot.
I believe it's very sustainable, especially if you have monies to invest 1st 3 to 5 years.
Then you should make a good living. No BIG house, NEW truck, or mortgage allowed. Learn to be thankful and content. Can't go wrong like that.
Thanks so much for sharing your numbers. As someone interested in getting involved with regenerative agriculture but no hands-on experience, it is a challenge to figure out the scale of operation that is feasible. For instance I was surprised to find that 1500 m2 of vegetable market gardening is that labour intensive - would you be able to break that down into bed preparation & planting / harvest & post harvest / marketing?
I'd also be keen to hear your forecasts for the perennial and tree crop production as I would expect that investment to pay off significantly in the later years.
Lastly the regenerative aspect of your operation is remarkable just from your photos and videos alone. Bravo to you.
He has unpaid students so his numbers do not apply to other farms because he can scale up his output (and also have other lucrative steams of income, like speeches, courses, youtube video production, editing. - w/o more costs.
Imagine he would have to pay someone in Sweden (minimum wage and wage related contributions).
He can sell at the relatively high prices for organic food (becauset the Swedes have good wages, and also a lot of industry and the government funnels money into the remote areas. Thinking of it: I assume he also might also get some grants or subsidies. O.K. with international audiences he does not have to include it in the caculation. would have been good form to mention it though.
Before others get the idea they could have earned it all within 5 years. A couple that would do it all alone would need 10 years minimum (which is not bad if you pay off 100k), and both of them would work long hours. Plus: I am not sure he included the costs for a vehicle. At least a part has to be counted as biz expenditure.
So he gets the advantage of disposable income of the general population but does not cover the other side of the equation. costs of Labor. 5 years is extremely fast, even if he only made the absolutely necessary investment.
If he had relied on his labor and that of his wife they would not be so far ahead.
He also does not factor in the revenue he has from youtube, books, speeches and courses.
@@xyzsame4081 Troll
Gabe Brown says he isn't the top producer in his county - but he's the wealthiest one. It's from keeping all the money from poisons, fuel and expensive machines.
You make it seem possible for all of us. Wow. We have subscribed to you. We are Jim and Rhenda with Heartiness Approach Channel.
What makes you run your layers once per year per space and layers 4+/- times per year per space (seems like that's what the math says anyway)
Can't wait to follow you channel over the summer, thanks for sharing the numbers!
Richard my question is based on the graph you provide. which I'm really appreciative of you providing by the way. at 20 bucks an hour for workers, it seems like your market garden loses you money? 3000 hours at 20 bucks an hour is 60 thousand dollars your enterprise profit is 55k which I could see doing market garden for other reasons than just profit but I was just curious for your take on that. Thanks
Joseph
joe pradzynski I don’t know how income taxes and insurance work over there, but in the USA if you employed someone for $20/hour it’s actually going to cost your company a minimum of $30 per hour. $40/hour if you provide benefits.
Thanks Richard, good work - did I miss something or did you not mention income/expenses from your educational programs? Cheers, Darren J. Doherty, Regrarians Ltd.
Hi Darren - No, I make no mention of that. I made this specifically to look at the level of productions required to make the sort of pay-off mentioned. It focuses on the income from our 3 main enterprises, not any of the current 'side line' enterprises mentioned.
Thanks Richard, so your 'side line' enterprises won't contribute to the paying off of the farm? Of course there's nothing wrong with that - good luck to you however you get the debt done. So I gather that you were isolating the ag enterprises to indicate that for your project you could 'make this small farm work' off its own bat? Thanks again and all the best, Darren
Hi Richard, to my understanding your courses also contribute largely to the work input on the farm or am I wrong? Considering that the teaching enterprise is also based on your land and the infrastructure on-site I think it falls under the general category of agriturism / agricultural education, which usually is considered an integral part of agricultural businesses.
One thing which didn't open up to me in the video was, how it is possible for you to run educational courses and work full-time on the farm yourself especially during season. Assuming that you hold courses every summer these work hours must be projections and not actual recorded hours?
Most conventional direct sales farmers I know spend the entire season on producing and harvesting and when not working on the farm they're selling. Thanks for the videos, I really enjoy watching them!
Kaius
Ag science student from Helsinki
@@WeAreDownstairs Richard has people working for free (students of his courses most likely) that frees up a lot of the time,and he can get a lot of the projects to upgrade the farm done fast and increase output, w/o having higher costs. There are plenty of repetitive, simple and manual chores to do on a farm or in the nursery or preparing the produce for the market.
Normally either the farmer's family would have to do them or they would have to pay a help. (I think in the rich European countries most smaller farmers do not pay a help, too expensive. The overal good wages mean people can afford the organic produce and market prices.
But that also means certain costs for labor.
In Sweden that means at least minimum wage (not sure if they have one, but the offer would have to be adequate) and the wage related contributions (healthcare, retirement etc, unemployment funds).
I guess the volunteers / students are motivated, they are likely all legal adults with a driving licence, speak English, so they can also run errands for him or help him with video production.
And if shown how to turn the compost, feed the chicken, or to plant certain seedlings they can work on their own for 30 minutes or 1 hour. Then come back for the next simple task.
@@xyzsame4081 Hehe "Free laber " is never profitble. Richard are explaning in another video
This was an excellent video! Thank you so much for the rundown on costs and the spreadsheet, I will 100% keep this video in mind when I get going.
Just found your channel Richard .. really useful stuff and wish you all the success in the world. You clearly know what you are doing and we can all benefit from your generosity. Now I'm off to watch all your other videos and get even more inspired! Best wishes TRG.
Interesting. I'd like to see the full set of accounts though, you seem to have only given the highlights. Not doubting, I just like to see the all the income and expenses in black and white.
Is there an online forum for connecting new market gardeners with people that have organic land for sale or rent? We have 10 acres (3 which are organic) in Eastern Iowa (potential to expand to 60 acres with a creek). It has four-lane highway access/frontage road that is centrally located for three cities and plenty of smaller towns. 30 minutes from the Mississippi river. Underground spring, craftsman farmhouse, finished double garage with apartment, and three barns with paddocks.
Thank you for sharing this important information listening from Bangs Texas
Thank you for expressing this in dollars
Very informative and interesting. Sounds like you have a very sensible and sound financial plan.Wish you all the best.
I live in Canada and it's illegal here to detain more than 100 chickens per year, except if you buy a "quota", which is a right to produce chicken per square meter. The current price is 1175 per square meter. So there's no way, we could do something like that in Canada, which is sad considering the profit you make.
In Ontario anyone can raise 300 broilers and 100 laying hens without quota. There's also a non quota program where you can raise 600-3000 but you have to apply, qualify and follow their regulations.
isn't feeding birds with bugs that grow in $hit from cows illegal? I heard that you could get serious parasites from eating birds who ate bugs that feed on animal waste. Just a question, no hate intended, I loved the video.
no way, the opposite is true. The birds actually cut down on parasites. Different species have very different parasites, and moving a second animal over the land helps break the lifecycle of most parasites.
@@PeterSedesseso true. My horses didn't need worming when I had pigs, goats and poultry, all free ranging on 4 acres.
Dude, you're the best for sharing your wisdom with us. Think you would be able to profit as much without slaughtering animals?
Very well done. Lots of highly usefull info for those of us getting started. Thank you for sharing.
thank you very much! very insightful. maybe you can answer one question for me: i don't get the step from revenue to enterprise profit. what do you substract from the revenue?
I like you videos. Curios, what are "farm currency ridge dollar" (I think I heard that right?). Is this a private bartering setup? Is the purpose related to taxes.
Thanks, John
Thank you for sharing the facts and figures and inspiration for others to do this. Best wishes to you and your family from New York City.
how much startup funds would you recommend to start a farm
This is definitely one of the videos I will watch again and again. Really helpful information.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
He did not mention his income from teaching or youtube ad revenue or books. And he definitely did not mention the wages he does not have to pay or employment related taxes and contributions for the unpaid students. (which has to do with the fact tha he has positioned himself or he would not bet unapaid work).
One can assume the folks coming are motivated, some will have practical skills while other at least can be immediately productive with repetitive and manual tasks. There are plenty such tasks on a farm.
Sure he has to supervise them telling them what to do (I guess his wife can help), but on the other hand plenty of volunteers working long days add tremendous value.
I saw one video where he mentions problems resulting from sticking to a schedule and pushing to finish a project , also to "motivate" the unpaid workforce (maybe they wanted more educational content than being used to spread compost). Not all seedlings grew well, some were stalled (I think they applied mulch / compost unevenly).
There seems to be a stress factor overseeing all the rookies. On the other hand a bed not growing (he can buy fresh plants if need be - also from outside in order to not lose time of the short season) and letting the unpaid workforce plant afresh is of little consequence when you consider how much he gets for free.
Once an expert has decided which work has to be done in what way there is a lot manual repetitive work. Planting, weeding, digging, cleaning stables, making compost. It is not like people need 3 weeks to learn how to turn compost, feed the chickens, or plant a certain crop once someone has shown them the how-to. Which bed, which depth, is it delicate, how much pressure to firm the soil and how much water to not drown the seedlings. 10 minutes oversight while they are working and they can do it on their own. And save him hours of work.
Or working in the nursery. Which is also labor intense.
@@xyzsame4081you do realise this video was 6 years old at the time of your comment?
But can you really convince enough people to pay $20 per broiler chicken when they are a 3rd the price at the grocery store. I think our local colony goes around selling them for $6 a bird and they are about the size of a small turkey.
Hi Richard! do you have any sketch or more pictures of the pastured egg mobile? I will like to know how to build it. Thanks in advance. Regards from Argentina and congratulation for your farm project!
But isnt your output steadily rising as the ecosystem pendles itself in?
It definitely will, not only because of the ecosystem and land improvement but also because of efficiencies that are discovered. My guess for his projections, he is just being conservative and not using anything like that... it will be a pleasant surprise.
10 acres in Sweden so far north so that you only have a few hours of sun in the winter. Wow. I live in Canada and wondered about the payback on a farm. Not sure how far you are from the coast do not know if you are colder than Canada. Great video keep up the good work👍👍👍
Factor in that he gets a lot of unpaid labor. And subsidies from the Swedish government. So if you plan the same you have to make to w/o the fast acceleration and the leverage of free labor. I assume he might also have a marketing advantage, because of his youtube presence (not sure if that was relevant in the first years).
but for his model it is important to sell w/o middle man, and having a name is extremely helpful.
I always wanted a hobby farm with 10 yr leases for workers or something like that to live in exchange.
Question - I see yours and Joel Salitin stagger the chicken tractors in the fields. what is the reason for that ? Why not just in a long row ? Why staggered ?
I'm interested in the answer, too. I'm wondering if it's too avoid blocking sunshine or something like that, from each other ? Or beacsue it's the way it works best for how they use their electric fence situation &/or personal accessibility to the pens ?
It's based on harvest. The tractor in front of the line is harvested that week. One tractor a week. It's basically succession planting with chickens LOL
really love these videos. please continue to produce this content. thanks!
Excellent breakdown. Thank you for sharing the numbers. It is Inspiring to me to hear that a regenerative ag enterprise can have a 5 year payoff!
Yes - with uapaid labor of his students. I find it strange that he does not mention that, it would be interesting how many hours of labor he gets. There are lots of manual chores on a farm so these people are immediately productive.
Do you think you could pull off a profitable small farm with 5-acres of land?? I`m in Florida and was looking into it. Good Luck!
Sean Kandel if you get things going I'd love to follow your progress! We just purchased 5 acres as well in North Florida and are looking to start a mini farm.
That’s going to depend on your overhead.
@@amandasmith3454 hello .north Florida one acer land price how much.pls reply
Great info, thank you! One thing I'm wondering is where you can find a farm for only 100K? Here in the Netherlands that seems impossible.
Move to the middle of no where and there's a big difference in price
what computer program did you use to layout your farm?
Greetings. I'm intrigued with your "Ridgecash" coupons. Can you elucidate? I'm working on a project in US to generate cooperative investment in permaculture projects like yours, via cash flow management savings, and individual retirement account investments based on duplicable, sustainable, profitable, small, local farming enterprises. The idea would be to provide a type of crowdfunding to multiple projects based on a provable, duplicable system like yours. I'm speculating that Ridgecash could be incorporated into the idea. Please expand onhow you use it. Or IM me. Thanks. Great video.... Emphasizing the importance of FINANCIAL sustainability as well as crops.
Excellent modelling, and very useful information. Thank you
durn buddy,you don,t have time to scratch your head, i realy enjoyed your vedio , grate job., an god bless.
Very aesthetic and clean. Well done
Thanks for sharing the number. It is helpful when planning.
Great video! Thank you for sharing this information with us.
Brilliant! Well presented. Thank you.
How are you grossing $20 a broiler chicken? What kind of weights are you getting and are you providing any supplemental feed?
We gross around $25 a chicken. Sweden is a very expensive country to live and eat in, and our birds are cheaper than organic birds in the supermarket here. We raise them to about 2.2kg, although that obviously varies. We feed organic food, of course this makes up the majority of their diet
Dang! Can I ship you 10,000 broilers a year? :)
Great information - would you be able to share plans for the broiler sheds etc?
Best
Thanks for your info..very helpful.
Thank you for sharing-this is inspiring... from Missouri
3 or 4 hectares? jeezuz how much land did you folks snap up
Amazing video thanks Rich
where / what tree house?
INSTANT sub. great work!
22770 dolars for polytunnel, greenhouse, covers, fleece etc?? For that money changed in swedish crowns you can not built one 50m altan, dont lie this people plss and you know what im talking about
I think you're mistaken dude. I've talked endlessly about securing free resources, sourcing things from the right place, etc. I don't know what you mean by 'altan' to be honest. We must try to do things low cost by being creative, and I've been demonstrating this strongly since we began...
This was very informative. Thank you!
Biochar alone could do that under a year!
You bought a farm in Sweden for 100k? Where?
He showed it in another video. it is very far north and far away from any large cities.
Great video! Thank you 😉 😊.
hello, how big is your farm? I have 9 ha land and thinking about something like your fantastic farm.
His was 10 ha but he says that most of their production takes place on 4 ha
@@jenspetersen5865yes because at least half of it is forestry
Great information!
Great stuff!
halfway there
I'm I late, what did I miss?
Great content. Salute!
Fabulous info.
love this video
Richard,China farmers run their farm in past two thousand years,it can profitable.
Awesome
funny to hear 10 hectares farm is a small farm, no offend intended.
4500 birds producing an Annual Revenue of 90k !? :O Who in the world, pays 20bucks for a broiler??? Here in Spain you"ll get 5Bucks at most, and that is by producing and selling directly to the customer by yourself! And believe me, the land cost is eather the same or even more expensive! I'm not shure if I am impressed by how you convince people to pay such a price for a broiler, or to think that this whole sceme is a Scam. And believe me, this whole plan of sales is a way above the the budget that people have for their food worldwide, in 90-95% of the existing countries! So please tell me, who is buyng those broilers because otherwise the whole plan smells like a scam!
I take it you haven't been to Sweden? Our birds are cheaper than organic broilers in the supermarket here. Sweden is very expensive place to eat and live in general.
I saw the kid in the pic.
such a good life for kids. I got 3 and we're doing some of this. I'm doing ethnobotanicals, tea and coffee where it's not supposed to be grown. trying out a new business model.
I feel its rather surprising that your suggesting a broiler is selling for a 1.25 a pound... most broilers are 3 to 5 pounds depending on length of life... That's pretty impressive if spain is selling their meat for 1.25 a pound in canada our non organic cafo chicken is 3 dollars a pound on the cheap end... so raising pastured poultry doesn't seem unreasonable at 5 bucks a pound.
$20 PER BIRD, MORE THAN HERE IN USA...
Your accent has managed to make market gardens sound sinister af
all this work you're seeing is Joe salatin idea here in the USA that idea where you see them doing all this is the same idea he came out with started out here brother we're the ones who know about Agraculture in the USA that 💡 was American born
He mentioned Salatin.
Salatin often mentions the great influences of European agriculture to his farming philosophy. He has helped people re discover what our ancestors already knew. The great advances that he brought were the application of electric fencing and pressure supplied water. Those two modern inventions make everything else practical for people on a small scale (or any scale). His concepts are truly revolutionary in the fact that they can be applied to any size farm in any environment that will support agriculture. If I had to cope with such a short growing season as these guys I would be pulling my hair out but they seem to be doing fine.