Starting a farm from £10,000

[Dry Rot]

There will be older farmers out there wanting to retire with no family interested who might be interested in a working partnership. There's a good living out there on what others can't be bothered with. Isn't there a Scottish Land Matching Service or something? Saw something on Facebook recently.

I knew a man who started up a skip hire business. He sold anything that went into a skip that had a value, and was last seen buying a large block of forestry which he was steadily converting into log cabins! He had all the machinery to mill the timber and was setting up a large residential cabin to take paying guests....and all started from the contents of a skip and a bit of imagination.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

This thread is all about the slow death of farming in this country. Hardly any farms take on new people any more. Fewer farmer's sons and daughters are taking over. There are virtually no opportunities for new entrants. The councils are selling off their holdings where young keen first time farmers could cut their teeth.

Even with £100,000 to invest in machinery, who is going to be offering the work?.

My advice with your 10 grand is to set up a few mobile chicken sheds where you can sell direct to the public, then start growing a few veg, Christmas trees and pumpkins or whatever.

As Clive says up thread, you will never make any money selling into the corporate food system.

 

[Bald n Grumpy]

This thread is all about the slow death of farming in this country. Hardly any farms take on new people any more. Fewer farmer's sons and daughters are taking over. There are virtually no opportunities for new entrants. The councils are selling off their holdings where young keen first time farmers could cut their teeth.

Even with £100,000 to invest in machinery, who is going to be offering the work?.

My advice with your 10 grand is to set up a few mobile chicken sheds where you can sell direct to the public, then start growing a few veg, Christmas trees and pumpkins or whatever.

As Clive says up thread, you will never make any money selling into the corporate food system.

The problem is that the value of farms has nothing to do with farming at the moment and even if children don't want to continue farming they still expect their inheritance.

 

[egbert]

This thread is all about the slow death of farming in this country. Hardly any farms take on new people any more. Fewer farmer's sons and daughters are taking over. There are virtually no opportunities for new entrants. The councils are selling off their holdings where young keen first time farmers could cut their teeth.

Even with £100,000 to invest in machinery, who is going to be offering the work?.

My advice with your 10 grand is to set up a few mobile chicken sheds where you can sell direct to the public, then start growing a few veg, Christmas trees and pumpkins or whatever.

As Clive says up thread, you will never make any money selling into the corporate food system.

Bad day at the office?

I'm more optimistic today.
I don't know that the OP is going anywhere with his £10k (or 20), but there's tonnes of opportunities for keen young'uns in many places.
It just takes nouse and drive.

The big difference twixt when i were a lad, (and I'm bang on farmer average age apparently), is that complete small farms can't be rented for peanuts.
The residential value has cooked that.

But if yon fella has got somewhere to live, a 'day job', is prepared to graft and understand how to market his wares ...go yer hardest son.

 

[Andrew_Ni]

Fewer farmer's sons and daughters are taking over.

There’s plenty interested but opportunities for expansion are limited and can’t get a full time wage from it. Over here a significant amount of farmers are part time for that reason. I’d love to be at home full time but with land costing £16-18,000 it’s not a viable option. It’ll probably only be a big hobby.

 

[westviewfarm6480]

Having done basically the same myself can you find an old shed or something to rent and a grass field to rent and buy some reared calves say 10? Barley is very cheap so feed them on mixed rolled oats and barley turn them out in the summer and bring them up and sell them the following spring? Buy some store lambs to finish? Or keep the gimmers and run a tup with them the next year. Buy a half decent tractor on finance and go doing anything no one else wants to do. Whats your location?

 

[Danllan]

FFS gents, there is a massive disconnect between land price and productive capacity per acre, and - too make things more difficult - the cost of food for consumers is really low.

People in the UK now spend something like a third of what they used to - in real terms - on food, they are used to it, any government that doesn't ensure this continues will face oblivion.

I remember when a year's wool would see a local fellow, with a flock of hundreds not thousands, have a new car if he wanted - and he employed a shepherd! Those days are gone, there are opportunities still around, that is for certain, but it is in no way as easy now to get on the farming ladder as it was.

See how food prices compare to 30 years ago and you might be surprised - Which? News

Just one food of those we investigated is actually more expensive today

www.which.co.uk

 

[Robt]

Let’s not be too hard on the op. None of us know him or his circumstances.

 

[westviewfarm6480]

Some people on this forum love putting people down and it's usually the same ones saying theres no one young coming into the job. I used to ask start up advice on here under a different name and basically got bullied. I'm sure most of them wouldn't be so bolshy in real life.

Let’s not be too hard on the op. None of us know him or his circumstances.

 

[icanshootwell]

I’ve got £10,000 in savings then getting a start up loan of another £10,000 but waiting for approval from that

In that case get yourself a mini digger for 15 k you would find a half decent one hopefully with trailer.

 

[Rich_ard]

In that case get yourself a mini digger for 15 k you would find a half decent one hopefully with trailer.

What's farming about that?
Sounds like he needs to work out the scheme rules and work out how to claim the money and not pay it back. The go and do whatever he likes.

 

[spin cycle]

norfolk.....there's 'norfolk' and the rapidly expanding 'London on sea'

to me...paddock maintenance is over done and tree surgery very hard work...you could be worn out by 35

my advice is gardening...good rates and high demand (summer) and small fencing plus garden hedge cutting (winter)....providing these services will bring you into contact with ppl who will have small areas of grass they don't know what to do with

 

[Rich_ard]

Some people on this forum love putting people down and it's usually the same ones saying theres no one young coming into the job. I used to ask start up advice on here under a different name and basically got bullied. I'm sure most of them wouldn't be so bolshy in real life.

How did you get on? Have you good advice if you managed to get going. I'd say it's hard but it wouldn't matter what you start with capital wise as you spend too much and wait too long for any return. 20k or 200k both would be spent in a flash if you wanted.

 

[egbert]

Some people on this forum love putting people down and it's usually the same ones saying theres no one young coming into the job. I used to ask start up advice on here under a different name and basically got bullied. I'm sure most of them wouldn't be so bolshy in real life.

You reckon?
In real life I'm a whole lot more....er...'direct'.
I try to keep it deferential here out of courtesy.

Sorry if you've felt bullied, but if the OP is genuine, i would say it's important that he hears some 'real world' experiences and views.

 

[haybob]

Farming sheep is probably the simplest way to get into a form of farming without too much machinery. Sheep can live outside all year with a temporary shelter for lambs. Find a retired farmer who might have a old pasture with a old barn, go out working and gain experience, or find a fit farmer girl with a empire to take on, make sure she doesn't have any brothers either.

 

[PI Stsker]

norfolk.....there's 'norfolk' and the rapidly expanding 'London on sea'

to me...paddock maintenance is over done and tree surgery very hard work...you could be worn out by 35

my advice is gardening...good rates and high demand (summer) and small fencing plus garden hedge cutting (winter)....providing these services will bring you into contact with ppl who will have small areas of grass they don't know what to do with

Agree! Gardners are on 50 odd quid an hour with there tools round here, funny enough similar amount to a tractor + silage trailer. Makes you wonder the £200k you could sink in to a tractor/trailer combo or a van full of hedge trimmers and maybe a tractor mower costing £20k for the lot

 

[Dry Rot]

Asking for a friend.... who has now reached the 'pottering' stage and is thinking of retiring. He has farmed the same 30 acre small holding, all in permanent grass, for several decades and it is stocked with all the basic machinery - two tractors, baler, tedder, small tools, etc.

There are no relatives interested in taking on the farm and the grass is currently let for summer grazing keeping options open. He wonders what these are? Especially, where are all these aspiring farmers we hear about who can't find land? 30 acres isn't much but it's a start for someone.

There is a Land Matching Service who seem to find answering basic questions embarrassing. And apparently they have had only one successful match in the last few years! I suspect my friend is not yet so senile as to enter any form of arrangement without knowing a lot more, especially as it is advertised as "a free service"! What comes free these days?

 

[Rich_ard]

Asking for a friend.... who has now reached the 'pottering' stage and is thinking of retiring. He has farmed the same 30 acre small holding, all in permanent grass, for several decades and it is stocked with all the basic machinery - two tractors, baler, tedder, small tools, etc.

There are no relatives interested in taking on the farm and the grass is currently let for summer grazing keeping options open. He wonders what these are? Especially, where are all these aspiring farmers we hear about who can't find land? 30 acres isn't much but it's a start for someone.

There is a Land Matching Service who seem to find answering basic questions embarrassing. And apparently they have had only one successful match in the last few years! I suspect my friend is not yet so senile as to enter any form of arrangement without knowing a lot more, especially as it is advertised as "a free service"! What comes free these days?

I'd like to see the good in such as the land Matching Service but if you weren't careful it would be a easy way for some chancer to take your farm. If its free you would want to be paying your own solicitor to have it all legit.

 

[renewablejohn]

I'd like to see the good in such as the land Matching Service but if you weren't careful it would be a easy way for some chancer to take your farm. If its free you would want to be paying your own solicitor to have it all legit.

This is the problem. I am in the same boat having just retired and wanting to keep the farm as a going concern rather then letting the rewilding nutters have it. In the old days councils would let out such farms as starter farms for new keen market gardeners but those days have long gone and the councils have sold off the farms. Would welcome such an arrangement as landlord and tenant but thats not in fashion. All I get is speculators offering a partnership knowing full well such an arrangement is an easy way of getting a farm for nothing.

 

[toquark]

20k will get you into sheep easily enough. Until recently we ran 90 odd ewes without any machinery beyond a pickup and float. We had a semi permanent handling system made with recycled pallets and hurdles (second hand). It’s only since we took on the rent of another farm and doubled ewe numbers that we invested in a better handling setup at home.

Don’t expect to draw anything out of it though, every penny and more the farm makes gets ploughed back into the business, 7 years in and I can’t see that changing any time soon, we’ll always be reliant on our day jobs, but our asset base has grown significantly.