The Urban Farmer: How To Increase Profits and Get More Done… by Doing Less Work (FSFS29)

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How To Increase Profits and Get More Done… by Doing Less Work

  • Focus on what works.  And get rid of what doesn’t.
    • What are the 20% of the things that are giving you 80% of the return?
  • How to filter down what’s working and what isn’t…
    • Put all of your products into a list.
    • Write down – How much each one actually sold on a unit basis (per pound, per bed, etc.)?
    • Write down – How much did each of those products cost to produce and how much time did each one take?
    • Sort them by revenue per unit.  Highest to lowest.
    • Then look at the top 10 crops on that list.  How much did those generate compared to all of the others? 
    • Then look at what you could get rid of based on total revenue per unit, total cost to produce per unit, and the total time per unit.  Odds are you can eliminate a significant portion of that list.
  • The advantages of growing less total crops…
    • Growing less crops allows you to spend more time focusing on the crops that you are growing.  This should lead towards you producing higher quality products.
    • It simplifies the farm management.  Because less is happening on the farm you can go from constantly just trying to keep up and manage a lot of crops to managing a few crops well.   This creates a situation where there is less running around trying to just keep up. 
    • It allows you to scale up more effectively because you can incremental crow based on what’s working.  Versus just adding a bunch of crops where some are successful and some aren’t.
    • You will get to know the crops better.  How they grow on your farm and in each part of the season because you are focusing on less.  With a lot of crops it’s very hard to know all of the specifics and nuances of each crop.  When you grow less you can focus on those crops more and know more about them.

Learn More from Curtis Stone:

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2 replies on “The Urban Farmer: How To Increase Profits and Get More Done… by Doing Less Work (FSFS29)

  • Elia

    Very inspirational Curtis. Thank you for the work you’re doing Diego. I can definitely see how 75k+ is something possible and attainable with small scale farming and I’m impressed with the hinted at profit you say you make now. I was just curious as to how much of a percentage of your current income is actually net? No need to give actual figures.

    Reply

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