Look around Erie County Report for more than a minute or two and you’ll see articles about TechShop, makerspaces and microfactories, but have you ever heard of micro-farms? If you haven’t, you really need to read this. Micro-farms are starting to take off around the country and they’re tailor made for Erie County. With the number of families struggling to get ahead along with the sizable rural portion of the county, micro-farms offer a real chance to make high profits on a small plot of land.
Jean-Martin Fortier has a 1.5 acre vegetable farm in Quebec and he has been earning a six figure income per acre for almost a decade. Have your attention yet? Even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a farmer, this could make all the difference between just getting by and doing very well. Fortier has written a book, The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming and he travels around giving demos to teach others how to do what he’s done, over 200 so far.
There’s a catch
Before you ask, “what’s the catch?” you might be able to figure it out on your own, it’s hard work. Ask any farmer in Erie County and he’ll tell you farming isn’t easy, but many would-be farmers aren’t afraid of working, they just need a blueprint that gives them a fighting chance to make it all pay off. This might be it.
Any empty lots in the city? Why not turn it into a micro-farm? Of course, zoning regulations might be an issue, but if they are, someone might want to look at individual locations and see if there’s a possibility for an exception, especially in areas suffering from blight.
Think for a few minutes and you can come up with a lot of places all across the county where something like this might work. If you’re well outside the city limits, look around your property and imagine yourself turning out enough produce for a few hundred people.
Doesn’t this sound like a great opportunity? This is just one idea of thousands to consider. We’ll keep looking for more.
Source: Modern Farmer
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