lavender farming

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
You might make £15k on a quarter acre but it doesn't always follow you can make £60k on an acre. The amount of product that it is possible to sell in your area might be a quarter acres worth, grow an acre and you throw three quarters of it away, you still only get £15k.
There are a lot of different ways to make money out of lavender, not simply selling bunches of flowers. Make soaps, dried products, stick them on bits of stiff paper and sell them as greetings cards, charge people to look around, give guided tours to paying guests, charge photographers, sell honey. The list is very long.
 
You might make £15k on a quarter acre but it doesn't always follow you can make £60k on an acre. The amount of product that it is possible to sell in your area might be a quarter acres worth, grow an acre and you throw three quarters of it away, you still only get £15k.
There are a lot of different ways to make money out of lavender, not simply selling bunches of flowers. Make soaps, dried products, stick them on bits of stiff paper and sell them as greetings cards, charge people to look around, give guided tours to paying guests, charge photographers, sell honey. The list is very long.
what about growing say 100 acres and market them nationaly that's techinacally 6 mil after 5 years of growing the stuff after wastage marketing and fert and all the costs even if its a third or quarter of that profit that hell of a good going isn't it ?
 

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
The costs are the price of the plants, weed control, irrigation and picking costs. You are going to need a very big workforce to pick 1000 acres of lavender and despite what you might read foreign labour is no cheaper than any other labour.
The biggest thing about the whole job is the marketing and that depends on your skill so not something you can put a price on.

It's not as straight forward as £x for costs equals £3x profit the same as it doesn't mean an acre makes 4 times what a quarter acre would.
 

Old Boar

Member
Location
West Wales
And then there is the weather. If the sun does not shine enough, the lavender does not make enough oil to be economical to squish it. It is a gamble....
 
The costs are the price of the plants, weed control, irrigation and picking costs. You are going to need a very big workforce to pick 1000 acres of lavender and despite what you might read foreign labour is no cheaper than any other labour.
The biggest thing about the whole job is the marketing and that depends on your skill so not something you can put a price on.

It's not as straight forward as £x for costs equals £3x profit the same as it doesn't mean an acre makes 4 times what a quarter acre would.
what would you estimate the profit per acre would end up being
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I wonder if someone is selling lavender plants ?:)
There is a farm at Heacham in Norfolk and I have seen large fields in the South of France, like all minority crops, the market is very small, so the risk of flooding is extreme.
You must also remember that lavender is seen by the public as something for. Old ladies, so with an ageing population , you may be on to a winner! Me , I think I will stick to growing. It in the garden. :)
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Lavender needs dry conditions to grow and is fussy about soil types. Normally it comes from the South of France but grows fairly well in Kent on the south facing North Downs.
It is machine harvested but you need expensive kit for processing etc and there is only so much Lavender the world needs!
 

Inky

Member
Location
Essex / G.London
Lavender farm near me opens up to the public. You pay £4.50 and get given scissors and an A4 bag and can cut it yourself, in the height of summer they probably have about 200+ people a day.
 

Morph

Member
Location
Devon
There is a smallholding near Fowey in cornwall that grows lavender etc to sell and put in soaps. chatting with them and thinking like the op rapidly came to the conclusion ,that unless you have a micro climate situation on very free draining soil forget it . Your yields v cost make you a hobby grower at best.
 

Blod

Member
Lavender needs dry conditions to grow and is fussy about soil types. Normally it comes from the South of France but grows fairly well in Kent on the south facing North Downs.
It is machine harvested but you need expensive kit for processing etc and there is only so much Lavender the world needs!
It grows well near Rhayader in Wales http://wyelavender.co.uk/ and I didn't see any particularly expensive looking kit there. :scratchhead: It prefers dry conditions, long hours of sunlight and possibly yields better without extreme heat.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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