Many of you know I am working on book for young, beginning, and future farmers, so I have been doing a lot of research and reading lately. (which I enjoy) A cornerstone of my thesis is that I recommend that farmers diversify their farm operations into multiple ag ventures to create redundant revenue streams and smooth the operational risk inherent to raising one or two crops.  I often get requests for ideas or suggestions of businesses that farmers should start as a compliment to their current operation.  This question is always difficult to answer because everyone’s farm is different.  For that matter, everyone’s skill sets are different to.  The bottom line is, I don’t have a simple answer, and what works for one person, can’t work for everyone or the value would be lost.  Finding that “right” opportunity for your on-farm start-up will require more than just knowledge of the market, your area, and your farm.  It will require some creativity, a willingness to learn something new, and some sheer let’s-try-it guts! 

I like to support independent writers, just like I support independent growers.  While doing my research, I stumbled on a few small “how-to” books/guides that I thought I might share with you.   These ideas for agribusiness ventures are as non-traditional as it gets folks!  -Happy Learning.

Farm Business Ideas, and How-To’s

Start Your Own Tree Farm
Reason to Try: Why not? You have the land, its good for your land, and it’s a low labor crop that millions of dollars are spent on annually. Why not get a piece of the action in your local area. Click Here to Learn How To

Practical Beekeeping For Beginners
Reason to Try: Just Google the term “loosing bees.” The more bees you have, the better your crops will do.  Plus you can turn a nice profit on the side from the honey and the wax. Click Here to Learn How To

Retraining a Track Horse to be Leisure Horse
Reason to Try:  If you’ve got the land and barn space, why not help these amazing animals get a second chance at a good life.  You could find ways to help people own (and board?) their own thoroughbred. Click Here to Learn How To

Other Reads

Growing Your Herb Business  

 Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business

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The USDA made their first official projections for 2009 crops, most of which are still unplanted.  (and we are having another wet spring) The government's forecast suggested that food makers will experience relatively high crop prices at least into next year. They expect the season-average price of corn to trade around $4.10 a bushel, with a +/- $.40 spread per bushel.  Although that price is way less than last June, it‘s only $.10 less than the record season-average price for the 2007 crop.  Additionally, the USDA expects the season-average price of the 2009 soybean crop to fluctuate around $9.45 a bushel, +/- $1.00, with a spread that is just 4 percent less last fall’s price at harvest.

Originally the government had predicted a 5.5% rise in the Consumer Price Index for food this year, but now some non-USDA ag economists are calling for less. (Possibly in the 4 to 4.5% range) This is relatively good news for consumers, but keep in mind that food prices in 2005 and 2006 only climbed 2.4%.

Somehow I have the feeling that we will see more of the blame game we did last year.  Hopefully this year we can convince people that the farmers and ethanol aren’t the ones to blame. Here’s the proof.

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I rarely jump on a news story du jour, but I really think something has to be said here.  This morning I woke up to the following message in my email from my Wall Street Journal news alert service:
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News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal
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Sponsored by NASDAQ OMX
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The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry, including at companies that did not receive federal bailout money.

The initiative, which is in its early stages, is part of an ambitious and likely controversial effort to broadly address the way financial companies pay employees and executives.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124215896684211987.html#mod=djemalertNEWS
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Really? I mean, REALLY?...
This country is not just at the edge of a slippery slope pointed towards Socialism, we are actually sliding down as we speak.  “ broadly address the way financial companies pay employees and executives.”  This is the worst idea I have ever heard.  (and an idea that should never, ever, come from the White House of the United States of America)

 Yes, there are some overpaid bank executives and Wall Street players, but there are also a lot of extremely smart, uniquely qualified, trustworthy investment professionals that earn every penny of their high paying salaries.  (just like higher earning farmers who take on more risk, are smarter, and execute better than the farmer next door) These high earners are usually the men and women that are ultimately in control of your financial future. They run your mutual funds, trade your commodities, manage your wife’s/son’s pension or retirement fund, and grease the wheels of commerce so that companies we all rely on can keep growing while providing jobs to other Americans. (ex: John Deere)They provide the liquidity, capital, and structure necessary to bring new technologies to market like alternative and renewable fuels and better means of processing and distributing the products we grow.  If we start limiting the money these real professionals can make, they will leave to do their own things, and we will end up with half-wit, no-talents at the helm.  (You know that really slow cousin of yours that can’t ever seem to get anything right?  Well imagine him running YOUR FARM!)

America needs the top talent, in any industry, to be able to earn whatever the market will bear.  This is capitalism at its core, and it creates competition which is always good for the end customer. 

One more thing to think about; if Washington decides that Wall Street makes too much, they can also decide that farmers like YOU make too much.  –Even if it’s not true.  Don’t believe me?  Think about how we were all getting blamed for high food prices last year? Couldn’t it be argued that providing cheap food for all Americans is in America’s best interest, so maybe the government should regulate how much money farmers make?  (I bet a lot of Americans would be flat shocked to hear what the average net worth of a US famer is and have a look at your yearend balance sheet.)

Yes, a few bad apples on Wall Street made a huge mess.  So did some bad Apples in the beltway who encouraged the exact same mess.  Come on America, stop being a sucker!  Don’t fall for the, lets blame the rich guy argument.  It’s stupid and it’s dangerous.  Vladimir Lenin used to call people who would believe this type of rhetoric “useful idiots.”

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The Pontifical Academy of Sciences will be holding a study week in May (2009) to hear what the scientific community has to say about GMO crops and food and whether they pose a threat to human health or not.

According to the Catholic News Service, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy's chancellor, suggested that arguments put forth by corporations in favor of genetic modification are not trustworthy because “they (corporations) are looking to make money."

The majority of the 41 speakers slated to attend the event support GMO crops including at least 4 who have ties to Monsanto.  To date, the Catholic Church has never taken an official position on genetically modified foods and Bishop Sanchez emphasized that what comes out of this gathering "will not be part of the church's magisterium."  However, this is not the first time the academy has discussed whether genetic modification should play a role in promoting food security. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican co-hosted a conference on modified foods in 2004 that many considered biased in favor of GMO technology.  At that time the academy showed its support for the potential of modified foods when it released a statement that praised the important contributions such foods could make in fighting hunger.  Now the Pontifical Academy academy members want to take a second look at the safety of genetic modification.

A front-page article in the May 1, 2009 edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano suggested that the Vatican's somewhat neutral position has meant that supporters and opposition of GMO foods have been "lobbying diligently to recruit the Vatican onto their respective sides.  Because of the sheer size and importance of the battle, the Vatican newspaper said that the issue of genetically modified organisms should be "faced without dogmatism and with common sense and responsibility, not with a barrage of mutual excommunications or, worse, lobbying disguised as a religious war."

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