This the fourth post in Theresa Gould’s series on her organic farming learning experience.

My husband, Robert, and I have had to go solo these past two Stateline Farm Beginning classes due to our childcare not being well and the fact the class is on Thursday evenings this month.  Hopefully in January when the classes go back to Saturdays, we can arrange for childcare for those full days.  It’s a little disappointing to be going separately, but we knew childcare would be our biggest challenge in taking the course since we don’t leave our children with just anyone.

Back to the task at hand – sharing what we learned from Class Number 4.  Class 4 focused on budgeting and cash flow.  My husband said it was definitely a numbers class as they went over a financial statement of one of the guest farmers who was speaking.  The farmer did a complete cash flow presentation.  She even shared how having laying hens and selling eggs is really unprofitable.  This is something we keep hearing over and over again from the farmers.  How sad is that?  Yet most of the farmers agree that selling eggs is necessary as it acts as a “teaser”.  Some farmers have indicated that they cannot keep up with the demand for eggs.  It is the egg aspect of their farm that brings people onto their farms, which in turn helps the customer get to know the farmer and her story and this is usually what attracts the consumer to purchase other products from the farmer.

Now hopefully I am not sharing some insider stuff by telling you this, but as large a readership as we have here, I thought that educating you on the farmer’s angle would equip you to understand why organic eggs may be priced the way they are.  What if more farmers decide that considering their bottom line, it isn’t worth the labor and time of providing eggs?  Where would we all be then?  Just something to consider and a reminder to buy local to support small farmers that truly care and want to provide us with good food.

Robert thought that the farmer doing the presentation did a very good job of explaining things.  He really enjoyed the class, but he is a numbers kind of guy.

In each of our classes we have had activities where we break up into groups and do role play exercises.  Class 4 was no exception.  The class was divided into two large groups – vegetable farmers and livestock farmers.  Each group was to budget a start up farm using $10,000 for their start-up costs.  They planned their budget and covered everything from – buying seed/livestock, how much of land they would require, how they would irrigate, would they purchase a tractor etc.  When they finished the activity, one person from each group presented their plan to the rest of the class.

My husband thought this exercise and the whole class was very helpful and useful.

Related: previously on altCon
lessons in organic farming from Stateline Farm (11.25.09)