Why Small Market Gardens Thrive - Be Careful Expanding

I want to start with what everyone is told.

More land, more tractors, more accounts, more staff means more money.

But like Notorious B.I.G. said, more money, more problems.

Unfortunately, Biggie was right, and the conversation around ag has been wrong all along because the cultural script in America is...

Small farms need to get big.

And it's not crazy because in commodity ag, more land does actually mean more money.

And that's how corn and soy works.

Buy bigger tractors, rent more ground, put more seeds in the ground, sell more.

The problem is when you take that script and bring it into market farming, it's all wrong.

It doesn't work.

Because in market farming, we're talking totally different math here.

And farms that try and live by that are the ones that try and grow their way to profitability by adding acres, by adding beds, and those are the ones that often struggle.

Why? They don't struggle because they're farming wrong.

They often struggle because they're farming in the wrong place on the business curve.

Here's the curve.

On one side, if you're under an acre, sometimes under half an acre, direct sales, high margin per unit.

On the other side, that's 50 acres, 100 acres, wholesale, commodity scale advantage, lower margin margin.

but you're moving a lot of units of very few crops.

And in the middle, 5 acres, 10 acres, mixed vegetables, a farmer's market plus a couple of restaurants, maybe a CSA.

That middle is where farms die.

Before I go any further, it doesn't mean there aren't successful farms in the middle.

There are, but for most people looking to become a market gardener, They will struggle in the middle.

They're better starting at the small side.

There are people doing it in the middle.

And if you're