This 3 minute video explains how it took a crisis and 5 years travelling around the world to discover the idea behind Farmwell… To create simple farm software so farmers can quickly setup a website and sell local food online… and make it super easy to find local food in your area.
And special thanks to Trilight Entertrainment for filming and editing this video.
If you’re a farmer, you live with risks that range from weather to injury to financial ruin. But why should you bust your hump from dusk till dawn with stress and risk for less than you’d get pumping gas or working construction?
The answer to that question is found in time. Let me explain.
When you think of it, time is all we really have. We’re born. We’re here for a while. One day our time is up. As life is precious, so is time. We all have aspirations, family, projects and dreams. But it’s challenging to find the time for it all.
This is as true for me as it is for you. My background is in business and IT, but I know farm life too. I grew up on a hobby farm in Canada and in 2012 I was Bill Mollison’s farm manager in Tasmania. For the past 1.5 years I have put virtually all my time and energy into developing Farmwell. It’s web software for farmers who want a simple way to get more customers with less work. There’s a waiting list of farmers keen to start using it. These farmers have made it clear that they respect the value of their time and want to invest it wisely.
Continue reading Don’t Waste Another Minute Until You Know What Your Time is Worth!
You might know how to buy a farm debt-free with as little as $10,000 in savings. But what if you don’t have any savings at all?
How do you get into farming when land is so expensive?
It’s easier than you might think. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading You don’t need money to buy a farm
Let’s say you have a bit of savings and you’re keen to buy land to farm. Even if you can see hidden value, land is by no means cheap.
The problem is not that you can’t borrow money to purchase that hidden gem you’ve found. The problem is that the real costs only begin once you start; equipment, materials, transportation, energy, development, effort to build up a customer base.You’d have the burden of repaying the loan while you’re still at your most vulnerable — the startup phase.
That means never giving the farm a fair chance to get up and running, a chance to be financially sustainable.
Is there another way? You bet.
As much as I love fresh local food, why isn’t there more of it? Why aren’t there more small farmers selling their amazing produce to their own communities? What’s stopping them?
For sure, the local food movement is growing, but why is it still at the fringe of society? Or am I just being impatient?
In my last article, I looked at excuses consumers make to justify their supermarket addiction. Today, lets look at it from a farmer’s point of view. What’s holding our local farmers back?
We know that the best food is from local, small-scale farmers and out of our own gardens and food forests. But why do most of us still find ourselves regularly going to the supermarket?
I ask this question to friends, colleagues, farmers, students and people I meet every day.
Here is what I’ve found to be the top 10 excuses why we still haven’t kicked our supermarket addiction:
Continue reading Top 10 excuses why we’re still addicted to supermarkets