How to fail at farming: Part 3

[@clairejeannette8454]

I won’t be a farmer but it’s lovely to watch the two of you.

[@commentarytalk1446]

Without becoming maukish or melodramic, it tears my heart to hear you talk about point 1: Diversification. Way back in the early noughties during the Blairite Government, the "officials" were already telling farmers in the UK about the NEED to think about creating multi-revenue streams "because" ... quote-unquote "Subsidies are here today but they may go tomorrow." Well that's all coming to pass inevitably. It tallies with the reduction in farmers nationwide at small scale too over the last 20 years. What does that tell you? The food production system (ie producers) is as you say "The Economics Is Broken" in the UK. It is an entirely broken system. Eggs is also a tricky business tbh given the protein pay-load quality they give to people the market price is amazingly low on them (probably veiling those externality costs that your ducks are less subjected too). To bring some value to this comment: What you seem to have to me imho is a vision of a small, green, eco-farm on a small family-scale run business and USE THAT TO SELL !! IE you really need to set up eco-tourism to generate multi-revenue stream of income in additon perhaps to whatever skills you both have professionally in addition to your primary farming business. You have a beautiful place, a beautiful vision. That also has value in a market of people desperate to escape the crazy grind of modern life... Help those people and help yourself: It's a market begging to be tapped.

[@parccarreg]

Exactly. Thanks for the lovely comment.❤

[@charles-mr4oz]

Your experience has mapped almost perfectly onto my own. I don't produce food and so it is even more disappointing that a nation obsessed with tv chefs and cookery books that a living cannot be made selling high quality food. Like you I have considered retailing my product. Like you I can see that it doesn't really stack up. Like you I look around at similar enterprises and they either have a resource that I don't have or they are not really doing it to make a living. My business has survived though. I have given up an awful lot to keep it going but most of what I have given up wasn't important to me. Time rushes on and I am faced with the possibility that I will be unable to sustain the sheer physicality required for much longer. Over the years I have felt that the isolation of my business has been the worst aspect. I have chosen to create something that people find hard to understand locally and I have grown sick of explaining the same things over and over. It's wonderful on those odd occasions when people just understand. Be proud of what you have achieved. You have not played safe. You have done something extraordinary. People look at my produce and are amazed but in truth the produce is good but it's my business model which is the real marvel. It is the profit and loss account which has allowed me to stay in business when so many have failed. I am about 20 miles from you. I would love to visit the farm some time if it's not just a pain in the backside.

[@parccarreg]

Hey Charles, thanks for the comment and the kind words. It's really tough, and I hope you are managing to stay sane in the process of it all. Drop me an email [e-mail] and we can meet up. All the best

[@mauricebrown9094]

Your video about the mulching your blue berries I watched with a lot of interest. Since then, I have been very relaxed in all people's videos. However, I have watched this series of 3 video's and admire you for telling everyone the truth on how things are going on your small farm, Especially the problems that can occur, your honesty is truly admirable. Thank you so much. I am really sorry that you have hit bumps in the road and feel that you not only survive but come back stronger in the future. I love that idea of the Black Soldier Fly production.. Keep up the good work..

[@parccarreg]

Hi Maurice, thanks for the comment - really appreciate it!

[@clairejeannette8454]

I’m retired and can’t donate, but my spirit is w you both!

[@parccarreg]

Following this video we had a very successful crowdfunding campaign, but were struck by disaster. I guess you could say this is PART 4: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXrEc2lsfMmDf68

[@PHYSIZIST]

It maybe a consideration to get a freeze drier so the produce keeps for 30+ years, isn't wasted, and can be sold at a higher cost (with higher input cost).

[@xyooj96]

in my limited experience of poultry farming, you either diversify or specialise. diversification makes you a jack of all trades but master of none, if you choose the wrong products. specialisation provides you a thinner safety margin, unless you have or can create a large enough market. having view your three videos in this series, I think you may have chosen the wrong species of poultry birds to get to your goal. the khaki campbell species only get you the eggs, so your eggs must sell for more than twice your feed to make it sustainable. for the past five years, I have experimented with khaki, runner, pekin, muscovy, and others; if I am in your shoe, I would go with pekin; pekin may not get you the most eggs, but your other product is meat from them. pekin does eat bit more than the other breeds because it's a bigger bird; though its rate of growth is superior to all other breeds, thus your meat turnover is better. after several years of R&D, I have decided to go with muscovy; my feed bill iis a lot less with muscovy compare to the other breeds due to the muscovy eating a fair amount of grass and vegetation, similar to geese. i was over 400 muscovies a year ago, but now downsize to 150 birds and still continuing R&D on this species as well as searching for a much bigger land to breed them. I have learnt fair bit from videos such as yours, so I hope you don't go under with your project.

[@parccarreg]

Thanks for the comment. Pekin is really a meat bird, not an egg bird. Although you can get both meat and eggs from them, the main focus with Pekin will always be meat. In fact, if you are allowing them to get old enough to start laying, then you are keeping the bird beyond it's ideal slaughter age. There is a reason that commercial farmers do not use dual purpose birds. You end up with inferior performance on both businesses - it is not more profitable. If we were to run a meat business we would need to invest in the equipment to process and sell meat. We would also be splitting ourselves across two businesses quite different businesses, with different logistical requirements. Khaki Campbells are the most efficient laying duck, they are as good as many commercial chicken breeds.

[@xyooj96]

@@parccarreg I'm trying to understand your business plan. if you're exclusively just focus on selling eggs, are you selling an egg for at least $1 each or equivalent British currency? wheat nearly double in price since Covid, to about $400 per metric ton here. when i had the other duck breeds that don't eat grass I go thru about one metric ton per month or less if i don't free range them; now with muscovies, one metric ton get me through almost three months or more depending on how much i free range them. my ducks eat mostly wheat, supplement with veggies/truits waste that i pickup at the supermarkets or fruit shops and also duckweeds that i have several tanks. duckweeds has more protein than the duck requires, which is 18% in the duck pellets that i feed them sometimes. i'm growing other protein rich plants to feed them as well. in all your videos, i see that yours are exclusively on pellets because your khaki probably don't eat too much grass, so that's a big feed bill if all on pellets. i consider myself inexperience, but i'm learning not to make the mistakes that others made. your videos point out some gread examples, so thank you.

[@parccarreg]

@@xyooj96 ​The number 1 problem that people run into is trying to scale their creative ideas UP to a commercial level. Duckweed is great, but the practicality of doing it on a large scale is complex, and inconsistent. Running around collecting food waste in small qtys is inefficient and impractical on a large scale. You keep saying that Khaki's do not eat much grass. ALL ducks are the same - they are monogastric and grass makes up probably less than 5% of their diet. Watch Part 2 where I talk about this. Muscovies might be slightly different but nowhere near geese. Last point is. Your feeding system is inconsistent, which is never a good thing for laying birds. If they do not receive a consistent level of nutrition they can easily be put off laying or go into a moult.

[@xyooj96]

@@parccarreg yes, I know my feeding is inconsistent and by purpose for experimentation; I'm still in R&D mode. to get consistent egg laying, you need consistent feed, and that will likely be commercial pellets which has nearly all the nutrients the duck requires. I'm hoping to do my own feed mix when I'm in full mode/production. I have switched to muscovies based on watching my feed bins. and yes, it's a lot of work picking up waste veggies/fruits from the shops and I have now only do that about once a week; if your farm is far out from urbanised area then that's probably not very practical, but we are on the fringe of urban so plenty of shops to pickup these un-saleable products. I am about breakeven with muscovy by just selling the birds, mostly the males. at least enough to pay for the wheat and a little bit left over. I have a market for the meat, and working on a market for the eggs On duckweeds, I produce them using the duck water from the duck pond; it's a duckponics system, on a solar pump that pumps the water during the day hours. I'm thinking about expanding this duckponics to grow the veggies/fruits that can be fed back to the ducks but I'm not there yet. I just don't have enough hours in a day to do all that, while still holding a full time job in a different field to farming. duckweeds are easy to grow, and i'm using plastic swimming pools to produce them; the more sun there is the faster the growth. now I'm only pumping the duck water from the swimming pool for the ducks and I'm planning to evetually pump from the large earth pond (dam) that the ducks use daily. the duckponics system is still experimental as well, but very good so far in producing duckweeds. this is the least amount of labor, the water is recycle back to the duck pond (swimming pool). My thinking is that it's not sustainable using commercial pellets. there needs to be a circular system within the whole operation itself, and not depending on external variables. you are still depending on an external variable, such as the pellets that come from outside your operation. Also base on me using about one hectare of our two hectares property, I don't think it's financially viable until you operate at least on 40 hectares (100 acres ) or more; that's what my proforma figures indicated. I think in farming, you need to get to a tipping point else you are forever working too much for too little return. I'm about five years into this project now, and I have not yet feel that I'm confidence enough to go full scale (and quit my full time job to farming). thank you for sharing your knowledge :)

[@parccarreg]

@@xyooj96 It's all good stuff that you are experimenting with. Keep experimenting and definitely proceed with caution before you scale. Keep watching our channel as I'll be talking more about all of this stuff - much easier than in the comments!