How to get started with agtech and farming investments?

Robert Hall7 said:........ sure, if you say so.

You can get land classification at any local county assessor's office. Don't go looking for "Class 1" or "Class 2" soil—we don't use that system here in the States.

A 5,000 square meter plot is slightly smaller than a typical farm field. I don't see why buying a piece like that wouldn't make sense, though, from an efficiency standpoint, having everything in one contiguous block is much better for equipment handling, costs, and transport time. I've always been amazed by how some places in the Midwest just have these massive, endless stretches of farmland.

Yes, if you’re moving toward serious production, a single contiguous tract of several acres is the gold standard. When buying, always demand to see the deed to verify the actual owner and ensure there aren't any liens or mortgages on the property. Never hand over cash under the table. Don't sign anything without a lawyer present. Get everything notarized and file the paperwork for recording immediately. No second-guessing.

If the land sits right up against a forest, fencing is your first priority. Go with the heavy-duty wire. Make sure you bury the fence line at least 8 inches into the ground and reinforce it with barbed wire. If you decide on orchards, flowers, or vegetables, digging a well is a must. But before you start digging, you need to secure water rights from the state. The fines for unauthorized water use are brutal, expensive, and completely pointless. I can't even remember how much I ended up paying.

Terrain slope? For certain crops, a slight incline is actually beneficial. Soil quality? Just send samples off for a chemical analysis. You tell them what you want to plant, and they give you a roadmap on how to amend any nutrient deficiencies. Also, don't let thick woods block your sunlight; stay clear of the tree line to avoid pest issues—insects, wildlife, that sort of thing. If you can't avoid the woods, study the local hunting regulations. They're online. Be prepared to deal with the local hunting clubs or game wardens, depending on who holds the lease.

You need reliable access roads. You'll need paths for tractors and for your car, because you'll likely be driving out to check your crops more often than you think.

As for evaluating the specific plot you've set your sights on, leave it to a certified agricultural appraiser. Pay the fee, get it in writing, and then nobody can pull any fast ones on you. Of course, there's always room to negotiate and try to drive the price down.

Good luck.

Perfect, that is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Could you perhaps give a rough estimate of the price range per square foot for a smaller plot (up to 5,000 sq ft) near a major hub like New York City? I tried browsing the listings, but the range is massive, anywhere from a few dollars for larger rural plots to much higher prices in California or near the coast. I know a blanket answer is impossible, but I am wondering if I should budget around $1.00 per square foot, or if that is overly optimistic for what I described.

So now you're asking me about square footage? Look. Out where I live, people are asking anywhere from $4,000 to $5,000 per acre. I have no idea what prices look like around the outskirts of New York City, but I do know one thing: land has become outrageously expensive. Don't forget, I live 62 miles from New York City.

Greetings to everyone!

I am relatively new to the world of gardening. I’ve recently come into possession of some land up in Appalachia, and according to the locals, the soil is a sandy loam. I am curious to know which types of vegetables tend to thrive best in that kind of environment.
I would also appreciate any advice on companion planting—specifically, which vegetables play well together so they might actually share the same garden bed.

Thomas Fowler84 said:Perfect, that is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Could you perhaps give a rough estimate of the price range per square foot for a smaller plot (up to 5,000 sq ft) near a major hub like New York City? I tried browsing the listings, but the range is massive, anywhere from a few dollars for larger rural plots to much higher prices in California or near the coast. I know a blanket answer is impossible, but I am wondering if I should budget around $1.00 per square foot, or if that is overly optimistic for what I described.

I actually have a plot exactly like that for sale right now. It's near New York City, right by the woods, on a gentle slope with paved road access and city water. Total size is about 40,000 sq ft, with 5,000 sq ft being buildable. Asking price is $26,000. All the paperwork is clean. It would make a great orchard—there’s one there already, though it's overgrown now. It's beautiful, pure nature, and the soil is great. Honestly, it's just too close to my current house, and it’s a shame to let it go to waste when I could put that money into a different project I've already started.

I don't think there’s a simple answer here. You often see different soil qualities within the exact same field. Take a look at what your neighbors are growing and use that as your baseline. Better yet, take a soil sample to a lab. They'll give you a full breakdown of what's lacking and what you need to supplement, which will let local farmers give you much more specific advice. Honestly, if you get the fertilization right—especially using manure—and keep up with irrigation, almost any vegetable will thrive. Trial and error is really your best bet. I'm assuming you aren't looking for data on whether one variety might yield 5% or 10% more or less than somewhere else under identical weather conditions; nobody can give you a definitive answer to that anyway, since there are a million variables at play beyond just the physical texture of the dirt.
As for the idea that certain vegetables can't grow next to each other? I've never heard that in my life. That's a completely different issue called crop rotation. You should never plant the same thing in the same spot year after year. Any experienced gardener can tell you that.

Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you're just growing stuff for your own kitchen—if that's the case, just plant whatever you actually enjoy eating.
Just a quick follow-up on what mistytinker26 mentioned; manure is great and honestly essential if you want to grow a decent amount of veggies, but you have to be careful not to let it touch root vegetables—think carrots, radishes, parsley, beets, or turnips. If it does end up near them, it needs to be fully composted—it should lose that rot smell and you shouldn't be able to tell what it originally was. For everything else, though, manure is king, especially for things like tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, or cabbage. For those, I find it works best to bury a clump of it right near the base; they’ll send their roots straight into it and just go wild.

So here’s the deal—I just inherited about 15 acres of decent farmland, and I’m staring at it wondering what the move is. Is it actually worth putting money into a nursery or something similar? The land is right near a major highway outside of Austin, too. Or should I just flip it and pocket the cash? 🙂 !! Right now, I’m just renting it out for pennies on the dollar.

15 or 17 acres is way too small for row crops. It’s decent for fruit or veggies, but for a nursery? That’s plenty of space. 🙂 Personally, I wouldn't suggest a newcomer jump into the nursery business. It feels like the big players have already carved up the market, but hey, if you want to take the risk, go for it. 😉 There’s also the issue of subsidies for permanent plantings. If they pull those incentives—which could happen any day now—a lot of these nurseries will be forced to pivot or just fold entirely. And if you aren't looking to break a sweat, maybe just stick to drinking... 🙂 it’ll be a happy ending for both you and whoever buys your land. 🙂

If you aren't exactly itching to put in the hard labor, maybe just sticking to the drinks makes sense. It’s a win-win: a happy ending for you, and for whoever ends up buying the place.

Ha. Ha. Very clever.

☕

strawberries: it all comes down to WHERE you’re planting—if the soil hasn't been worked for years, say out in some remote part of Montana where nothing has been touched, they’ll grow like crazy with almost zero "chemicals." But if you're on land that's been farmed to death? You're going to be fighting an uphill battle with pesticides just to see anything at all...
I happened to overhear some local strawberry growers chatting...

Good luck with the strawberries. It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders just getting them planted. Best of luck to you. If there's anything I can do to help—just say the word.

Honestly, I think heavy clay soil is actually the absolute best kind of earth you can have!!! The thing is, this clay (the stuff I'm working with) is incredibly nutrient-dense, it just lacks any actual air. So, my advice to anyone else who wants to—like I do—plant directly into clay is to mix it with some sand (which, unfortunately, I don't have on hand) just to loosen it up and get some oxygen in there. You're lucky if you've got good soil!

2. Back when I first moved out to the country three years ago, I spent ages pouring over books to figure out which plants actually like each other and which ones hate each other. But now, having actually gotten my hands dirty, I mostly just go by instinct. It’s all about balance. Onions next to carrots—they protect one another from pests. Lettuce shields radishes from flea beetles, marigolds guard apples from earwigs... and I make sure to scatter a bit of sage, wormwood, or mint everywhere to keep the bugs at bay. I always leave a little patch of stinging nettles where they grow naturally, though just a tiny bit: they act as a stimulant for everything else. Certain things just don't mix; beans and onions are enemies, and beets won't stand being near leeks or potatoes. I've even been hunting for some oilseed rape to plant around my apple trees; I read somewhere that the oil evaporation alone works similarly to spraying the trees with red oil. Also, after my first encounter with a toad in the garden last year—which effectively dealt with those nasty slugs and other creeps—I'm expecting quite a few more this season.
I could suggest a book for you:
DARKO ZNAOR: ORGANIC FARMING—you could just photocopy pages 300-302, or check out the section on Monsanto-style methods in the garden: 298-299. There's tons of info like that in various organic gardening manuals. I'd suggest heading down to a Whole Foods (if they still carry them) to grab a Moon planting calendar for 2009; you can probably find one online too, and they are packed with gardening wonders!
If you're feeling more philosophical, try looking for that book by those two Englishmen: THE SECRET LIFE OF THE SOIL, or something like that, published by UNESCO. You should be able to find it in libraries—I actually spotted it on a shelf the other day at the local library near the old Labor Party headquarters—but I decided to borrow Steiner's small agriculture course instead.

How is everything coming along?
I just love helping enthusiasts (the kind of obsessive type I am).
Even though I'm a recent transplant from the city, and I refuse to touch any chemical poisons (I much prefer making my own smelly nettle stews and similar concoctions), my yields have actually been a hit with the neighbors. They've lived here for generations, true farmers, and yet even they come to me asking for "book advice" because they can see that what I'm doing actually works.

There are plenty of other handy ways to fix up clay-heavy soil if you're dealing with it. Basically, you're looking at ground that’s packed with tiny particles—anything under 2 microns—so you really have to work with it. You could try incorporating leaf mold (just haul some leaves from the woods in the fall to cover your garden beds, then till them in come spring), or maybe use crushed corn stalks, turnip remains, straw, or even mulch. You can even go the "green manure" route by planting specific crops just to till them back in; I usually recommend things like triticale, clover, oats, or rye, provided you plow them under before they actually bloom. Honestly, the absolute best thing you can find is grain hulls from a local mill—that outer casing stays effective for four or five years. Sand is a bit of a temporary fix since it tends to sink into the deeper layers after just two or three years. If you're working with a small patch, you could experiment with sawdust, but you absolutely have to add lime because sawdust is going to acidify your soil. A rough rule of thumb is about two bags of sawdust to two liters of hydrated lime, but you can easily pick up pH testing kits at places like 7-Eleven or local hardware stores. They sell those little packs that let you run about ten tests for roughly $13—which is what I picked up last year while I was traveling through Austria.

Anyone who isn't prepared to deal with constant headaches, blisters, and endless setbacks might be better off just leasing some land; the real money is being made elsewhere (link, link).
If you're just looking for a hobby or some light recreation, a small backyard garden will do just fine.

Hey there. I’m looking into setting up an LLC, mainly focused on olive farming since I currently own five different plots totaling about 5.6 acres. I was wondering if anyone here has experience with the best way to move those properties into the company—ideally something that balances tax efficiency with keeping things legally sound?
a) Should I just lease the land from myself at a standard market rate?
b) Or would it make more sense to transfer ownership of the plots directly to the LLC (though, honestly, the idea of tying my personal property to potential business liabilities makes me pretty uneasy)?
c) Or is there some other clever workaround I haven't thought of yet?

By the way, does anyone have a ballpark idea of what leasing olive groves goes for out in the islands? Specifically over on Maui?

Thanks!

I’d say option A is definitely the most worth considering. As for option C, I’d actually suggest looking into a sole proprietorship or a small business instead—why jump straight to an LLC? I mean, if you really need the structure of an LLC, that doesn't mean you can't start with a simpler setup first.

mistytinker26 said:I’d say option A is definitely the most worth considering. As for option C, I’d actually suggest looking into a sole proprietorship or a small business instead—why jump straight to an LLC? I mean, if you really need the structure of an LLC, that doesn't mean you can't start with a simpler setup first.

The reason I'm leaning toward an LLC is that your liability is limited strictly to the capital you've put in—usually just $6.75—but there’s more to it than that. An LLC gives me way more flexibility when it comes to how I handle my taxes. Honestly, I can't stand the tax brackets for sole proprietors... even though I probably won't be pulling in anywhere near $0.00 a month, just the thought of facing a 45% tax rate versus 35% for a lower bracket is enough to make me walk away from the whole idea.

casualfalcon86 said:The reason I'm leaning toward an LLC is that your liability is limited strictly to the capital you've put in—usually just $6.75—but there’s more to it than that. An LLC gives me way more flexibility when it comes to how I handle my taxes. Honestly, I can't stand the tax brackets for sole proprietors... even though I probably won't be pulling in anywhere near $0.00 a month, just the thought of facing a 45% tax rate versus 35% for a lower bracket is enough to make me walk away from the whole idea.

True, but it isn't quite that straightforward.
The catch with an LLC is that the obligation to pay sales tax (to the government) triggers the moment you issue an invoice. For example, if you sell something to Walmart, and Walmart practices a 90-day payment delay, you might issue the invoice in March, but you have to pay the sales tax in April while you don't actually receive the funds from Walmart until June. In effect, you are acting as a creditor for both the state and the client. I am not saying an LLC is bad; I am simply saying one must account for this "catch." Everyone will run their own numbers, and having both options available is useful. One could also operate as a sole proprietor under the profit system (meaning minimum wage plus a 20% corporate tax).

Hi everyone,
I've gone through all ten pages. Very useful stuff, and I've grabbed all the links. Thanks to everyone. Now, I'm hoping to lay out my situation in the hope of getting some solid advice...

Basically, I just finished sorting out the paperwork for some inherited farmland out in the rural Midwest—specifically the plains near Pittsburgh. According to the locals, the soil is incredibly fertile, gets plenty of sun, enough rain, dry summers, and fairly balanced winters, alternating between mild and freezing. It hasn't been worked since the start of the war. My plan is to start with a walnut orchard on one large plot (about 12 acres), because walnuts grow like crazy in this region. I have at least 15 large trees around my house that yield at least ten bags of nuts a year, roughly speaking...

So, I've gathered the documentation, cleared up the land ownership, and already spent some money on it. The perimeter is fenced, and I intend to set up irrigation using a nearby well. What really motivates me is that this area is designated as a zone of special national interest, which means there's a per-acre subsidy $7567 and the local county subsidizes the purchase of saplings (and maybe even planting materials, if I understood correctly) by about 50%. Add to that the fact that a close relative of mine works in the shipbuilding industry in Italy, which could make him a great liaison for selling the timber... I can't shake the feeling that I'd be making a mistake if I didn't give this a shot.

And look, I'm not expecting to get rich overnight. 😁 I'm only in my early 20s, and my long-term goal is to go much more serious with farming on this neglected land. I want to reclaim it bit by bit since there's quite a lot of it, so this would just be the starting point. I have some savings, a bit of grit, and I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not planning to sit around waiting for a miracle. Walnuts this fall, then maybe cherries next year (which also grow like weeds there) or something similar?

Thanks for any advice. 😉

1. Regarding those subsidies for planting permanent crops, keep a close eye on things. Based on the latest draft legislation—which, whether by accident or design, "leaked" from the Department of Agriculture—those specific incentives are being scrapped. Everything is moving toward capital grants now (roughly 40% excluding tax). Honestly, it’s too late to start planting right now since everything has already leafed out.
2. I don't think those connections in Italy for selling walnut timber will matter for at least another 20 to 30 years. It takes a walnut tree at least a decade to reach full maturity, and you won't see commercially viable timber for 20 to 30 years, if not longer. Cherries are a different story because they're mostly sold fresh, so market demand is the real issue there. Word is the processing industry isn't looking for cherries; they want sweet cherries. If you want the real scoop on the sweet cherry market, give Sysco in Pittsburgh a call.