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Table of Contents Introduction...... 3 The One-Acre Mini-Farm Plan...... 6 Possible Income from the One-Acre Mini-Farm...... 6 Laying Out the One-Acre Mini-Farm...... 7 Graphic – The One-Acre Mini-Farm...... 9 Managing the One-Acre Mini-Farm...... 10 How to Raise your Piggies...... 11 Pig Profits...... 12 How to Raise Meat Chickens...... 14 Adding Bee Hives to the Mix...... 15 Greenhouse Growing...... 16 Conclusion...... 17 BONUS Section: Marketing your Farm on the Internet...... 18 Resources to build your farm website...... 21 The Complete Start Farming Pack from New Terra Farm...... 24

Hi, I'm Scott Kelland.

My wife Suzie and I bought New Terra Farm in June 2000; we were 'city folk' who wanted to live, and make a living, in the country. We had some farming experience – my parents owned a 20-acre hobby farm when I was a young teenager; they raised pigs, chickens and sheep, as well as growing a large garden. Suzie worked for a time on a dairy farm in rural Quebec. But we basically were beginners at the small farming game.

So when we bought the farm, we had to go through quite a 'learning curve' to make the farm productive. We tried a number of things, with some success, but nothing really 'took off' until we started a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) market garden.

To describe the CSA concept in a nutshell, customers essentially subscribe to your farm, paying in advance to receive fresh produce (and sometimes other farm products) throughout the season.

The CSA concept has a lot of advantages for both the farmer and the consumer. The consumer is guaranteed a supply of fresh, local, natural food, from a known source. Scott in the New Terra Farm CSA garden

As you may have heard, local is 'in' these days; concerns about food miles and food security make selling your produce this way pretty easy (if you have a plan.)

The farmer benefits from an early cash-flow from subscription payments; this can actually let you 'bootstrap' your farm business i.e. launch it with very little cash of your own. Even more importantly, because you meet with your customers before the season starts, you can find out exactly what they would like from your farm. This means you can plan production and estimate income and expenses with some accuracy.

This is very powerful; for example, if you have set a target of having 50 customers, and you know how much of each veggie you plan to bring those customers, you can figure out in advance how big your garden has to be, when you have to start plants, and even if you will need farm workers to help you. And since you know what your income will be, you can budget farm operations to ensure a profit.

This concept worked out very well for us; we are now in our fifth season (in 2010) of operating our CSA.

And, (a nice bonus) along the way we won the Premier's Award for Agri- Food Innovation Excellence for our CSA marketing and management model.

The $5,000 award cheque helped to pay for my new (used) pickup, too.

Scott and Suzie receive Premier's Award

But back to the farming . . .

Our CSA members are also our customer base for other farm products. We raise organic free-range poultry in our Movable Coops, and also pastured pork; we sell all we can raise to customers that already know us.

In fact most of our meats are sold before the season starts, because we take orders even at that initial customer meeting. We have people coming back year after year to buy our pork and chicken, because (they tell us) the taste just can't be beat. And pasture-raised results in leaner, healthier meats, too.

To wrap it up, I decided a couple years ago that my 'mission'

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 4 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio was to grow farmers as well as food. I want to pass on what I have learned in the last 10 years. I want to help others understand that it is possible to have a successful farm, on a small property – even as small as one acre.

And I want to demonstrate that it is possible for just about anyone - with the 'drive' to do it - to have a successful, profitable farm business. That's why I wrote this report, and my books about making a living on a small farm. I hope they inform and inspire you to try the farming game yourself.

Scott Kelland New Terra Farm Merrickville, Ontario The One-Acre Mini-Farm Plan

New Terra Farm is quite a bit larger that an acre, but the 'money-making' aspects of it – the CSA organic market garden, the pastured poultry and pork, my greenhouse, and (this year) the bee hive – all fit in one acre.

Each of these elements work synergistically together. I rotate the pigs and chickens through the garden area to help prepare the soil and maintain garden fertility. The livestock also consume all garden waste, to make sure pests don't linger in rotting veggies. The bees provide pollination for the garden, as well as producing a crop of honey. My greenhouse provides me with early crops, shelters my transplants for the garden, and also lets me grow bedding plants that I sell at a local market (over and above my CSA)

Possible Income from the One-Acre Mini-Farm

So, what can a one-acre farm produce? Here's the plan to make $40,000 from your one acre-farm. I don't think this is the upper limit by the way - you could make a lot more by adding more greenhouse space, or specializing in high-value, in- demand crops. But $40,000 is a good target for the beginning farmer.

With that goal in mind, here's the plan:

The revenue breakdown is as follows:

Sell 30 CSA full shares @ 950 $28,500 Sell 225 chickens $4,000 Sell 4 pigs $2,500 Market stand and bedding plant sales $5,000

Total sales $40,000

Remember these figures are are estimates only, to demonstrate what is possible on a small piece of land. Actual

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 6 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio income will vary, depending on your local market, your farm conditions, and your experience as a grower. But this is achievable; I have personally generated more income from this from my CSA garden, which is still just one acre.

Laying Out the One-Acre Mini-Farm

The basic concept here is to integrate livestock animal production and garden production to produce a lot of food in a small area. This involves quite a bit of planning in both space and time. Here's a little background to make sense of it all. In my other books (“Bootstrap Market Gardening”, “How to Raise Meat Chickens”, “Pigs on Pasture”) I demonstrate how I raise my meat birds and my pigs using portable shelters and movable electromesh fencing. The electromesh fencing comes with step-in posts included; each section is approximately 165' long. I move the pen to fresh ground regularly throughout the growing season.

Chickens in the New Terra Farm Movable Coop

Frequency of movement depends on how many animals in the pen, and how large they are.

The electromesh fencing is very flexible, and can be set up in any shape with a 165-foot perimeter. In other words, your pen could be a 40-foot square, or a 52 x 30 rectangle with equal ease. For the purposes of laying out the one acre mini- farm, we will use the rectangular configuration.

This means our basic “planning block” is 52'x30' = 1560 square feet. Since an acre is about 43,000 square feet, this means you can fit about 27 'blocks' in your mini-farm.

Each block can accommodate six 50-foot long garden rows that are each 5 feet wide including path area. So you have about 27 x 6 = 162 planting beds. By the way, the 50-foot length is chosen to make it easy to run soaker hoses, which usually come in 50-foot lengths.

So given this set-up, we have to manage our production by rotating 'animal blocks' and 'plant blocks' through the available area. The livestock animals can be used to clean up beds after plants are harvested, or can prepare an area for planting (in the season previous.)

We will plan to raise 3 'batches' of meat chickens throughout the season, with 75 birds in each batch. We will also raise 4 pigs, from weaner size to market weight of 220-250 lbs.

50-ft beds in the New Terra Farm garden

Early crops with row cover and mulch

See the next page for a depiction of the the One-Acre Mini- Farm.

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 8 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio Graphic – The One-Acre Mini-Farm Managing the One-Acre Mini-Farm

Management for your farm consists of scheduling both vegetable crop and livestock production to keep things movin' and groovin' in the garden. Remember the 'block' mentioned below is the animal pen (electromesh fencing), in a 52' x 30 configuration (1,560 sq. ft.)

The idea is to keep moving the animal pens to fresh ground regularly, to keep the animals healthy and spread the manure around. Here's some basic planning information:

● A batch of chickens will move over about 4 or 5 'block's, over a period of about 9 or 10 weeks. They will cover about 7000-8000 sq. ft. in total.

● Your batch of pigs will move over about 8 or 10 blocks, over a 20 to 24-week period. They will cover about 12,000 -15,000 sq. ft. in total.

● It's generally easier to let pigs follow chickens in the rotation

● The 'pig-prepared' area should not be planted to a food crop the same season. You can plant the area to a cover crop, though.

So, how would this work in scheduling garden production?

As an example, lets say I get my first batch of chickens on April 1. They spend 3 weeks in the broody box (see the ' How to Raise Meat Chickens' section), then go into the garden area around April 22.

The first 'block' they occupy will be vacated about 2 weeks later; that is, you will move the birds, pen and all, to the next block after about 2 weeks.

Chickens safe behind electromesh fencing

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 10 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio As the birds get bigger, you will move the pen more frequently, for about 4 or 5 moves in total over 9 or 10 weeks.

This means the first crop I plant in the 'path' of the chicken pens must be harvested within about 9 or 10 weeks of April 22, or by around end-June. This is pretty easy to plan for; just put the earliest, fastest-maturing crops in this area e.g. lettuces, spinach, bok coy, radishes, early turnips, carrots, beets, etc.

You will then start your piggies down the same rotation, following the chickens, and move them with about the same frequency.

Three batches of chickens will cover approximately 21,000 to 24,000 sq. ft. or about half your total one-acre farm. So, the following season, start your rotation from the other half of the garden area.

How to Raise your Piggies

If you raise pigs on pasture or in your garden seasonally (strongly recommended), then your set-up requirements will be low. The little piggies need protection from the sun (yes, they will sun-burn if not provided shade), and a dry place to sleep. Just about any rudimentary structure can be used as a 'pigloo'; we have an old home-made truck cap that measures about 5 ft x 8ft that has comfortably accommodated up to 8 pigs. The only requirement is that the structure is movable, as your pigs will be rotating to fresh ground regularly.

We use portable electric mesh fencing to keep our piggies where we want 'em (and out of places we don't.)

A 'pig block' in the garden area

The pen fencing is easily movable by one person in about 10 minutes. The most important thing to know about setting up electric fence is, 'it's all about the ground'! Good grounding makes a good charge on your fence. We use multiple ground rods hooked together to ensure a good ground.

Throughout the season, we will move the piggies, fence and all, about once a week.

You will also need a couple tubs for feed and water for your pigs, and a source for organic hog grower and hog finisher ration.

Once you are set up, day to day care of your pastured piggies is easy. We provide food and fresh water twice a day. Once a week we move the pigs, their 'pigloo' and the electric fence pen to fresh ground. In about 5 months or so, your piggies should reach market weight of 220-250 lbs.

Pig Profits

Here's what you can potentially profit from your piggies; CAUTION: this is an estimate only, and can vary depending on your pasture, the quality of your feed, and even the weather.

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 12 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio A 250-lb live weight pig will typically have a 'hanging weight of about 180 lbs; the 'retail cuts' yielded from that will be about 140-150 lbs, depending on the particular cuts.

Depending on your feed and processing costs at the abattoir, it can cost around $300-$350 to finish and cut and wrap a hog of this size. This means your cost based on hanging weight will be around $1.60 to $2.00 a pound. Note that smoking (hams, bacon, hocks) may cost more on top of that.

I recommend pricing your pork to give yourself a profit in the 60% to 75% range. This will give you a 'cushion' if the pigs don't perform as well a expected. How to Raise Meat Chickens

Here's the plan, step-by-step, to raise your own small commercial flock of meat birds:

Locate a hatchery that serves your area. Your local feed store should be able to help you; they often handle orders for local hatcheries as well. Decide what breed to order.

Decide how many birds to order. If you are following this plan, order 75 mixed chicks; these can be comfortably accommodated in our Movable Coop. Note that there may be a wait time before your birds are delivered; this can be up to 3-4 weeks depending on the hatchery. You will order two more batches at about 1-month intervals, for a total of 225 birds.

Get your supplies. Buy the equipment and supplies you will need right away - heat lamps, feeders, waterers, electric fencing, wood shavings, feed etc. Don't wait for delivery day, as many people may be looking for supplies on that day and the store may sell out.

Build your equipment: you will need broody boxes or a brooding area for the babies, and a Movable Coop of some kind to shelter the birds.

Chicks in our heated broody box

On delivery day, pick up your birds and get them home and into your broody box right away. Put feed (chick starter) and water in the box and set up the heat lamp; keep the broody box at about 95F for the first week.

Continue feeding starter ration for about 4-5 weeks. You can gradually reduce the temperature in the box by about 5 degrees/week until the little birds are fully feathered (3 weeks or so).

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 14 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio Once the birds are feathered out, you can put them on pasture in their Movable Coop, secure behind electric mesh fencing.

Provide feed and water twice-daily, and move the coop and the fencing at least once a week to keep the paddock fresh.

Depending on feed, and how big your want your birds, in somewhere between 10-12 weeks they will be ready to go to the abattoir. Book ahead; some abattoirs have wait times of several weeks, especially during the busy summer months.

Determine the cost to raise your birds by keeping track of your feed costs and the cost of buying day-old chicks, and processing at the abattoir. I usually price my poultry to make a profit of about $8 per bird on average.

Adding Bee Hives to the Mix

Bees are a natural addition to a market garden; they take up almost no space, and help ensure good pollination in the garden.

If you leave a 'wild' strip down the middle of your garden, or plant a strip of clover, the bees will be encouraged to hang around the garden. You can also plant the 'blocks' vacated by the chickens and pigs to a cover crop that will also attract bees.

And, if it turns out you like beekeeping, you can add more hives and create another cash stream for your mini-farm.

Teaching you about looking after a bee hive is beyond the scope of this report. I strongly recommend you find an experienced beekeeper in your area.

I also recommend the following book on beekeeping as being the best I have found:

Beekeeping for Dummies, by Howland Blackiston. Available on-line from Amazon.com or Chapters.ca, or in many bookstores. I generally don't like the 'dummies' series (if I am one, I'm not admitting it to some store clerk) but this book is the exception; it is comprehensive, and a explains more about bees and beekeeping than you ever knew existed.

Greenhouse Growing

Here's how things work in my little (20 ft. x 30 ft.) hoophouse:

Beginning in early spring (first week of March in my area, still lots of snow on the ground) I built raised beds in the hoophouse. The 20-foot width of the hoophouse allowed me to construct 5 beds.

I left about 2 feet between the side walls of the hoophouse and the first beds; this was to provide some distance from the outside cold ad also to allow room for me to grow flats of transplants and bedding plants there later in the season.

I direct-seeded the beds with carrots, beets, turnips, bunching onions, broccoli, and cabbage. I installed row cover as well for an additional layer of protection.

I also started a small-scale backyard nursery to create another income stream for the farm.

You can read my review of the Backyard Nursery System that gave me some great information to get started.

Beds and flats in the greenhouse

Despite some heavy frosts, no plants were lost due to cold. The carrots, beets, turnips and bunching onions stayed in the hoophouse until harvest; the broccoli and cabbage seedlings were transplanted outside in late spring.

I wrote these pages demonstrate some of the possibilities of growing food and growing a sustainable business on a small property. Of course, there are many more possible crops that could be integrated into this plan, to create more income streams.

Tree fruit or vine crops e.g. grapes – could be grown along the fence line; strawberries could be worked into the garden rotation. You could establish a 'perennial' section for asparagus or rhubarb or a planting of blackberries.

Bottom line, the country needs more small local growers; I hope I've encouraged you to consider your own mini-farm.

Best of luck in your own mini-farm endeavours,

Scott Kelland New Terra Farm Merrickville, Ontario BONUS Section: Marketing your Farm on the Internet

This is a fairly large section, because I believe this is an important topic. When I've been asked to participate in panel discussions about how to market small farms, this section is the substance of what I contribute to the discussion.

You've probably heard about the 'farm crisis'; small farms going broke and disappearing, or being eaten up by large agri- businesses. So how do you give your small farm an edge in the competition for consumer food dollars? One important way is to stake out a spot for yourself on the internet.

Now you're first reaction might be 'I don't have a clue how to do that', or 'does that internet stuff really work for small farms'? I'm pretty sure that's what you are thinking because I went through the same thought process myself a few years ago. Here's what I've learned over the years since then.

1 – Using the internet to generate business is like any other skill; it can be learned. The advantage is that you can use the internet itself as a learning tool! You can learn at your own pace, in your own home. If you can find an hour a day, you can learn to create a working website that attracts attention from your prospective customers. And (happy bonus) the tools are now so good that you DON”T need technical skills to be able to do it. If you can use a word processor or send an email, you can build a website that works.

2 – Does the internet work for small farms? Well, you found me, right? And so do about 6,000 other people every month. That's how many unique visitors my website gets every month (for free, by the way). Some of those people become farm customers, some buy my books, and some just want to chat. But the bottom line is, I've got prospective customers coming to me, instead of me chasing them!

This did not happen overnight; it happened over time. I've got about 180 pages of 'content' on my website, but I got there one

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 18 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio page at a time. Lots of 5 a.m. learning and writing sessions were involved; that's the time that works best for me. I've got a buddy that is most productive between 11 p.m. (after his kids are in bed) until about 2 a.m. The point is, nobody can find time, but you can make time for what is important.

Which brings me to my final point before I tell you HOW to get started on the 'Net; this is NOT get-rich-quick, or a one-time- only effort. Just like growing a market garden, you can't work hard for a week or a month, then do nothing for the rest of the season and expect a harvest in the fall.

Farming the internet is just like farming in real life; it takes regular, committed attention to 'grow' a successful website. If you can't commit that attention, don't waste your time and money. But if you can . . . you can build something that will pay you back many times over for your investment.

So, how do you get started? Here's the process in a nutshell (I'll point you at some other resources for more reading if you want to follow up).

1 – You figure out a theme - i.e. the major topic that your website will be about - For example, my theme obviously is about growing and eating great food, and showing other people how to do the same.

Rest assured, there is a structured process and tools available that will help you carry out this all-important step.

2 - You start creating content around that theme. Content is articles, stories, and information that you think will be of interest to the folks you want to attract to your site. How do these people find you? They find you because you have structured your content to be easily found by search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) by using tags and keywords that describe your content.

Again, this is a step-by-step process that can be learned by just about anyone. There are also keyword tools that will help you figure this stuff out; see the last page of this section for resources.

3 – Your free content 'pre-sells' your visitors on your products. This means that, if you do a good job of writing interesting and informative content, the visitors to your wensite will be pre-disposed to want the things you have to offer.

Why is this true? Because we all prefer to buy things from people we know and like! So the job of your content is to help people get to know you, and subtly demonstrate that you are a good person to do business with.

Here's the reality: people are NOT surfing the internet aimlessly; they are looking for 1 – information and 2 – stuff they want to buy. If you link those two things up, you will make the sale. Which brings me to . . .

4 – You monetize that traffic i.e. generate income from your visitors in any one of a dozen ways. My website produces income as direct sales of farm products – my veggies, meat and eggs. I also sell my e-books from my site. Information is the ultimate product by the way, it can be sold anywhere in the world, 24/7 x 365 and delivered electronically with no printing or shipping required. There are months that my website produces more income than the farm itself!

To sum up, the internet and search engines have replaced the Yellow Pages as the first place most people look for goods and services. I strongly believe the future of small farms lies in staking out their spot in this territory. See the following pages for more sources for your research.

Learn more about the Content -> Traffic -> Presell -> Monetize (CTPM) process

Doing business online using CTPM

See next page for the critical farming information you need to make the 1-acre farm plan a reality . . .

Copyright New Terra Farm 2010-13 20 Get the Complete Start Farming pack PLUS Audio Practical Farming Books from New Terra Farm

The CSA Garden is the centrepiece of the 1-Acre Farm Plan. So, how do you start-up, market and manage a successful CSA market garden? If you would like to learn how to plan your garden, market your garden, and manage your garden for optimum production, get Bootstrap Market Gardening, only from New Terra Farm. This book is based on our experiences in creating and implementing our award-winning small farm marketing and management model. $27. Learn more about Bootstrap Market Gardening

'How to Raise Meat Chickens' is my concise, step-by- step guide to successfully – i.e. profitably – raise meat birds on your small property. We've been raising chickens for meat for 9 years here at New Terra Farm. From buying day-old chicks to feeding and care to packing them off to the processor, we show you the critical information you need to raise your own small farm flock, to put food in your freezer and money in your wallet. $27. Learn more about How to Raise Meat Chickens

Raising pigs on pasture is a an important part of the 1-acre farm plan. Pigs are 'easy keepers' if raised the way we recommend. And my 'Pigs on Pasture' book will show you step-by-step how do it, from finding weaner pigs to marketing your delicious pastured pork. $17. Learn more about Pigs on Pasture

OR, if you would like to save some money, see the Special Offer on the next page . . . The Complete Start Farming Pack PLUS AUDIO from New Terra Farm

Get EVERY New Terra Farm practical farming book, plus a special 60-minute Small Farm Marketing and Management Teleseminar and save. Order using this special link and get them ALL for $67.50 just $47. (that's probably about what you pay for a month of cable TV; trust me, this is more educational!) Note: The books and audio sell separately for $110.50. This is a 'Farm in a Box', containing all the information you need to start-up, plan and manage your own mini-farm using the CSA concept. Get the Start Farming Pack and get started on your own small-farm dream.

Get the Complete Start Farming Pack only from New Terra Farm

BRAND NEW FOR 2013: I've teamed up with Jody MacIntosh of TOSH Gardens to create a 12-week INTENSIVE home study course we call the 'Bootstrap Bootcamp'. If you are serious about making a living on your small property, take the time to check this out. We'll show you step-by-step how to build a practical plan to make your small farm enterprise a success. The Bootstrap Bootcamp ONLY from New Terra Farm