Book Released! Farms With A Future

I have been alluding to the fact that I was writing a book for some time now. I took a year to travel around the country and meet dozens of creative, innovative, hard-working farmers and ranchers, hoping to learn from their mistakes and successes and find a handful that I could profile in the book (indeed, I covered many of these farms in my blog over the last couple years). I then spent around 6 months turning those interviews and advice gleaned from other agricultural experts into 272 pages of wit, wisdom, and pratical nuts-and-bolts ideas on how a farmer might be able to build a sustainable business. The final result is 15 case studies of these farms built into 13 chapters on different business topics related to farming, such as creative financing, finding & securing land, farm planning, equipment and infrastructure, marketing, human resources, and more. I should point out that this book has been a work of many- each chapter was content reviewed by an outside expert. It's not a memoir, it's not about me nor our farm. I only include a couple small anecdotes of what we did right and wrong.

Some may say that I have "no right" to write a farm business guide because I am not running my own farm at this moment in time. It is true we did decide to sell our farm business, travel for some time, and learn from others (I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to reinvent/refresh their entrepreneurial vigor) . We were looking for inspiration and working models to show us how we could do it better the next time. With the money we earned from selling our previous business, we will be buying our first bit of land this next year and starting something new based on a lot of the ideas we gleaned from others and our new holistic goal for the family, which is, "My family and I will create and support health and wellness while pursuing our passions, caring for our community, and improving our environment." What that next farm business will look like is up in the air. Our business plan will be fleshed out over the winter as we further analyze the market conditions of this region and find the right peice of land, among other considerations. In the meantime, we have bought some dairy bull calves to begin training as oxen and are looking to purchase a couple all-purpose farm dogs such as English Shepherds. We are consulting for other farmers on things such as grant writing, energy conservation, multi-species grazing, and pasture management (which in turns educates us even further). It's so exciting to have this opportunity in our lives.

So of course I would love it if you bought my book, read it thoroughly, maybe even passed it onto a friend or colleague that you think might glean something from it. My goal for this book is to save you a few headaches and provide some ideas and inspiration for you to build a business that works for you, your land, your animals, and your people. We are all in this together....

Comments

[Fitness Wellness Guide]

Its great to hear about this book. I'm really interested to read this book for a better future.

[Rebecca Thistlethwaite]

Scott- wonderful to hear. Let me know what you think of the book's content. If you like the book (any of you!), please post a review on Amazon for me!

[Scott Church]

I'm going to purchase this book RIGHT NOW for our little organization to scour and use for inspiration on these short, dark Pacific Northwest days... Thanks for writing it.