We have a 2 man farm that we do seasonally. It's a maple sugaring operation. It's really a community venture, since whenever we have steam coming out everyone shows up. We put them to work. Go collect the buckets!

It's fun, but it's a lot of work. Very addicting. I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISbkO-NKA9o

What is alone? You might share the work with your partner and try to engage you older kids.

Profitable?
Hmm, I guess I don't exactly know what other people mean by that. Here's one mans view.
If you own arable land outright and can grow 90% of what you need, that is fruits, vegetables, grain, meat and wood, oils seeds for biodiesel, and if you have some solar to at least partially offset your power bills, you are essentially self sufficent. Once that is achieved, any excess production is prosperity or "profit". Anyone who has read "the self sufficient life and how to live it" can see that John Seymour accomplished this. Others have too.
Who can argue with self sufficiency as a noble goal?
I think it is within reach for alot of us...It takes courage. It takes determination. It takes luck.
I think it is the only reasonable solution to the huge problems we face with energy, the economy and the environment.
Of course, there are many among you who can see only problems. I am not blind to these. I see most of them too. But I have to hope that our ancestors picked smart resourceful mates and that we have the benefit of good genes, good education and good technology.

Just my $.02

You need some sort of income:
property taxes
spare parts
school uniforms
fees
tools
cement
screws
wire
....
Great goal. But I am not sure that if you make really everything yourself that you would be cheaper.
You need beer making equipement to make beer,
things to make cheese,
a butter churn,
tools for woodworking,
a sewing machine,
a spinning wheel
.......
and you have to learn all these skills, it needs 100 years to learn all this halfway. I think one has to be realistic, have a bit of veggies and something you like maybe run some sheep and make cheese and that's it. If your cheese is OK it'll sell and you buy your clothes or at least the fabric, pay your bills at time and have a tidy school uniform for the kids.

Because I have no debt and already own everything I need for the rest of my life, it's very easy for me to make a "profit". For someone who has to buy everything and learn everything from scratch, it's probably impossible.

Do you own health care for the rest of your life, oowolf?

Do you own the money for property taxes for the rest of your life?

Etc.

Also, owning the means of production doesn't ensure you'll make a profit on what you produce.

I'll take care of my own health-I have a comprehensive herb garden-until I can't, then I'll die.
I have more than enough gold and silver to cover my property tax (currently 230$/year) for more years than I'm likely to live--probably longer than "money" will have value.
Most of what I grow is extremely hardy, so I always anticipate at least fair harvests.
Of course, farming is a gamble and there are always thing you didn't consider or can't possibly prevent---c'est la vie...

I've already briefly described our farm/market, and stated that 'no, one man cannot.'

That being said, as for the OP, I would like to toss out a few more thoughts but in the 'positive' sense.

IF you want to do something like this, and make a profit, here are some lessons learned from the last 12+ years.

Someone mentioned earlier (KPVY maybe) that you should/must have a business plan. The plan will make you aware that you will be having a product to sell, retail pays best, and that you need the follow the 3 or 4 P's of marketing. Right price, right product, right place (read customer), and I believe the fourth is pormotion.

I/we grew the lovely, tastey round yellow cucumbers one year. Price right, product wrong for the place. Had a hard time giving them away. Same with black cherry tomatoes a few years later. The customer is key. Its great to grow stuff you like but you are growing it to sell.

And for the customer, you either have to have them near you, or you must transport to them. Transporting takes you off of the farm and costs money. (Yes, often times money is better selling at farmer's markets.) We are blessed/cursed with lots of summer traffic, and the twilight zone in the winter.

In the north especially, you have a shorter growing season so you would do best having something to sell both as early as possible and as late as possible. Two points here: (1) Product mix is important so you always have something to harvest. Look into what you can pick early (asparagus, strawberries, beets, etc.), plan your midseason crops (tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc.), and look for late season items (apples, fall rasberries, pumpkins, etc.). (2) Season extension is important. High tunnels will bring in early tomatoes when others are watching their bloom. Early tomatoes means BIG money. The high tunnels will also allow you to have other crops coming on late into the season. Black plastic mulch and raised beds also give you a slight head start on planting/harvesting.

Another thought on product mix, some products are big money and other are barely break-even. Berries are big money, apples are not.

Only grow as much as you can pick, sell, and eat. Wholesale is basically 'no sale.'

These random thoughts are based on ONE man working. Remember, someone has to do the selling.

Another thought is U-pick. We have never done it, but it does free you up from most of the harvesting. (You still need to go though and clean up after the U-pickers.)

That's enough for me now.

TC

For anyone thinking of going it alone, I'd recommend Joel Salatin's books. His best message is direct-marketing.

I have a friend who owns a 100-hectare (250 acre) organic cattle farm. He does it all himself (apart from a helping hand with the anciliary horse stabling stuff). I can't imagine this working as a one-man-band as oil goes through the roof, but I'm sure labour would become cheaper relative to both diesel and food prices, so one can adapt from a one-man-farm to a more labour-intensive setup as the dynamics change.

This guy sells uniquely via direct marketing, and even here in hicksville he has more customers than he can possibly cater for.

Understood.

To get back to the "profit" issue, I think the size of the profit is a critical variable.

It takes a lot of profit to be able to live on that profit.

The site is really slow and I haven't seen but the first page but I will offer some little advice:

Get the best land you can.

Get as much as you can own outright.

Let your kids worry about profit: just get it to them.

I second topcat's business plan point. Then, I would add that developing that plan means developing the farm, as in ponds for livestock water, fencing, and buildings, plus obtaining and learning to maintain whatever equipment is appropriate. That even includes learning who has the whatzit that you need to fix something.

Generally, truck-patching takes less capital investment than livestock or grain farming for the amount of income generated, but truck patching is much more labor intensive. That labor comes at peak periods of planting and harvesting, which depends on a local source for said labor, thus the migrant labor thing. If you don't want to get into the seasonal labor problem, you are left with limited productivity, or mechanization. Whatever you choose, it needs to be thought out as a whole-cloth concept, from capital investment, through development, markets, labor, inputs, and maintenance.

The nature of the land you get largely limits what can be done with it, for considerations of fertility, slope, water supply, drainage, soil type, and existing development, to mention a few. Generally, people have already figured out these things for a given piece of land, and have done what they could with it, which is a good general guide to the possibilities. The undeveloped land in the US, and most places I think, is left so for good reasons. Steep land is left in timber, etc., because if you plowed it, it would wash away in a couple years. So, first choose the land based on what you want to do with it.

The possibilities here are so broad that generalizations are as far as one can go without more specifics of plan.

I still think property around here is overvalued. People still want $3000 an acre which i think is nuts. These fools who bought the last 10 years and who will be unemployed in the next 10 will have to give it back to the bank. A friend of mine paid $120K for 40 acres (all woods) and hardly uses it (i think he has shot one deer). Already talking about selling. I know they aren't making any, but i'll pass.

I'm not sure how one pays for $120000 loan growing fruits and veggies.

Completely doable if you want to make the investment, two words hydroponics and aquaponics. Two years ago, the last year that I had my greenhouse with a complete set-up I was growing more than enough food for a family of 4 on less than .250 acres under glass. I spent a lot of time and money, mostly time getting it right but once it was going the up keep was pretty low this was in zone 6b. I was able to grow about 9 months of the year. Check out king crop or if you need a vacation go to Disney world epcot in Florida, it’s call the land.

I agree with the other posters. There's very little profit in farming, even if you own the land outright. There's no way to pay off the mortgage with the profits from the land. You need about 1000 acres of woods just to live a meagre lifestyle. I'm sure you can make it on less than that if you have good cropland. Any way you do it, you need to put a lot of investment at the beginning. Start your little farm before you quit your day job, unless you have enough to have an income and farm without an outside job.