The Problem:
Well simply because nowadays with all the uncertainty of the jobs market, AI, robots, automation and the new economy, the viral diseases and widespread cancer illnesses it is, in my humble opinion, the best insurance and risk management measure you can take for you and the long term wellbeeing safety and the future of your family is to start/invest in an organic farm.
The Economic context
Strengths:
Good timing of the subsidy funds available for organic farming to start and operate on top of the 15–20% of trend of the farmers who are switching to organic farming, more and more data is available than ever before.
The data explosion is a blessing for farmers and agribusinesses but, to fully realize the benefits of burgeoning data, the movement for making agricultural and nutritionally relevant data openly available, accessible and usable worldwide needs to accelerate.
Weaknesses
Governments are playing a part by supporting policies that encourage good quality, open data. On the other hand public data is just released and has a 30% margin of error(due mainly for it is not cross-checked with other sources and there is a lack of quality control protocol on the whole procedure) and for farmers the biggest problem is that they don’t know what data to look for, where to find it and how to analyze it and extract useful business insights out of it.
The big problem today for small-sized to middle-sized farms is the lack of proper dimensioning and integrated management of all the inputs and outputs referenced to their own local resources.
The need for organic farmers today is to leverage every bit of available data(soil nutrients, seed varieties, available weather data, certified organic practices, techniques, products and strategies) to help them achieve knowledge and sustainability over the long term in order to reduce farming risk and improve productivity while reducing costs.
Organic farmers today lack :
- Access to all data needed for farming planning and management
- Limited or no data analysis available
- Limited know-how to certified organic practices, techniques, products and strategies
that usually translate in problems with low yields, low nutrients absorption, high input costs especially for small-sized farms(seeds, fertilizers, pest treatments, irrigation materials and water usage and storage), unrealistic income projections and ultimately generate cash flow problems .
The Market & Opportunities
As a farm-to-table #organicfarm you can position yourself as a Robin Hood business model who can take $ from the rich and wealthy to preserve their health and for the retiring baby boomers to prevent and treat and in some very few incipient cancer cases even prolong their life.
More and more applications and consultants are available that can help aggregate publicly available data(using Big Data techniques) and help you as an organic farmer accelerate your knowledge about agro-ecology( in terms of strategies, know-how and certified practices ), give you a step by step guidance on all the farming processes( from initial investment to actual profit ) and also help you measure and manage your business by making use of a smart sensors IoT kit!
It turns out that by making use of the right data and knowledge an organic market garden with a lean design and good management can easily make ~100k $/acre with a healthy 40–50% margins(hint: subscribe to learn more)if the investor is dedicated on adding enough value on the supply chain.
One last thought …
If I haven’t turned you over on this idea yet let me lay out just one more positive to the balance your thought process:
Owning an organic farm for your family is like having the ability to print your own money for your business!
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To get a broader perspective and a more in-depth view on these strategies take your time to read the Maximize your PLOT e-book here, the 1 month crash course to organic farming and Big Data.
PS. Subscribe to get notified as in the next article we will talk about all the steps needed to get started with such an investment.
