When it comes to off-farm income, are you asking the wrong question?

Creating some form of off-farm income is the new normal, but too many of us are asking the question “how do I obtain all of my income from farming”.  This holds us back, because solving this problem might just be impossible in today’s economy with today’s technology and population numbers.

So many of us think of the early 20th Century or late 19th Century when we imagine the farming life that we want.  But we forget that back then people were still homesteading and could get their farm ground for free.  Today our population has grown so much that the government does not need to provide incentives to people to move out to the wide open spaces.  And, with vehicles being of such high quality and technology allowing people to work remotely, you are competing with more people than just farmers for that ground.

The prices of agricultural ground in every corner of the United States has steadily climbed to the point that starting a farm by buying ground and hoping that the crops will pay for the mortgage and equipment is not a reality.  Or at least if it is, there will not be money left over to pay the other costs of life.  This puts almost every farmer in America, large or small, in need of some form of off-farm income.

The simplest form of off-farm income is a town job.  But it might also come from investments, rental property, pensions, a working spouse or entrepreneurship.  I advocate for entrepreneurship in the absence of investments, rental property or some other form of passive income.  Entrepreneurship will allow you to control your schedule so you can be on your farm during those crucial management times.

Entrepreneurship will give you the ability to make more money than you would working the same hours at a town job.  Entrepreneurship will allow you to farm in an area with reasonable land prices that might be severely lacking in available jobs.

The question we should be asking is not “will I need off-farm income” but “what is the best way for me to produce off-farm income”.  I don’t want you to give up on the goal of one day doing nothing for your income other then farming.  Without having that as a goal, you have no chance of making that happen.

But don’t allow the seeming impossibility of this happening to stop you from farming.  And don’t let the manner in which you create your off-farm income stop you from managing your farm well.  If your supervisor at your town job is not going to allow you to leave work to calve out heifers, irrigate or bale hay before the rains hit then you will be sacrificing the management of your farm for the sake of producing off-farm income.

I choose entrepreneurship to create my off-farm income.  What will you choose?