My cousin has 3,200 acres near Prince Albert, Sask that she and her husband grow canola on. They make a living at it, but it's all about saving and living on very little until you know what you are going to get for next years crop. She also works in town so they will have steady income, plus their two boys are free labor. While it sounds like a nice life, the few times that I've been there was enough to realize it's not for me.
I agree with the others who suggested finding a niche market. Veggie gardens turn a profit if you put the time into them and sell the produce yourself. There is a guy on one of the local highways that parks his truck at the same place every day with sacks of stuff in it from his garden. Every day, that truck is sitting there all day long. I've never driven by without seeing at lease one car stopped next to him. I have no idea what he makes from this, but I do admire his commitment and like to believe that he's making enough from it to make it worthwhile.
There was a show on HGTV a few years ago called the Good Life. It was about people who quit the corporate world and moved out to the country to pursue their dream doing what they wanted. Some started vineyards, others opened Bread and Breakfast's. The one that stands out to me was a lady who started growing Lavender plants. I don't remember how many acres she had, it wasn't huge, but it was almost all covered in Lavender. She was selling it in just about every form possible. She had it for sale online, along the road and in stores. She cut it , bottled it, wrapped it and made soap out of it. The list just went on and on. It was impressive. Again, I have no idea what type of money she made from this, but it looked like she was turning a decent profit.
If it's your passion and what you want to do, then come up with a business plan. If you can put it down on paper and answer all the questions that you need for a good business plan, then you have a chance of succeeding. I think that the reason most people fail is a lack of preparation and research. A good plan will require learning about all aspects of what it will take to make a business successful. If you want to grow something, figure out what sells, what it takes to produce it, process it and sell it. If there is a profit at the end of that, then you have to decide if that's enough to live on. Most of the time you'll find that it's not enough of a profit to make it worthwhile.
You have this one life. I was also in a dead end job that paid good, had excellent benefits and required very little effort on my part. After awhile I became bored with it, and then I fell into a rut of just working all the time. It was a shock to realize that I didn't know what fun was anymore and that I didn't have a life. I had work and I had vacation to escape work. One day, I decided to quite and find something else to do. It took a few years longer then I had thought it would, but it was the smartest thing I ever did. Maybe one of the hardest too, but it was definitely worth it. There were a few yeas that I barely made enough money to feed myself and had to rely on a credit card for gasoline. I had one month where I had $300 in the bank and nothing lined up, no calls for jobs and bills for more then that due at the end of the month. I got lucky and the phone rang with a job. I was close to desperate, and did that job pretty cheap to make sure I had some cash. That led to another job and it's been pretty steady since then. I'm still three to four months out from being unemployed, but I've gotten used to that part of being self employed. There is some stress to not knowing if I'll have any income after I do the jobs that I have booked. I don't know if farming will be the same, worse or better. I do know that there is a level of stress that comes with creating your own income when compared to working for others that isn't comparable. You will need to be motivated to go out and create that income.
I know guys that are very talented with amazing skills, but lack the motivation to get work when things are slow. If the crops are down, if the rain doesn't come, and if the price for what you produce is low, what will yo do to pay the bills? You will need a backup plan. Those guys just sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. If you are the very best at what you do, that still doesn't guarantee you an income. You have to be good, motivated and able to sell yourself.
Good luck, it's always going to be what you make of it. Nobody else can change that.
Eddie
