He Scaled His Farm Back and Doubled Sales (Wild Harmony Farm)
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Ben has found the sweet spot for regenerative farming. When he was told to diversify to make profits, he became burnt out and ready to throw in then towel. But he didn't want to quit so he found what wasn't working and cut it out. He made his way down from 12 species to 2. Focusing on only pigs and cattle has allowed him to find revolutionary ways of raising these animals for more profit with less work.
Wild Harmony Farm
Exeter, Rhode Island
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Im a 67 year old guy.....a farmer. Milked cows for 45 years.....rotational grazed the milk cows. Had 160 acres of poor ground..... sand and rocks with 60 acres quality heavy soils. We bought the farm..... and we never had any issues with making payments. That was the sole income...from the milk cows ! No rented ground. Just our 160 acres. Most people felt we would go broke.
My question always was....... ?? How " cant " you make it dairy farming when its money from the " tank " to the " bank " ???? Nearly all expenses were covered by July 15. Winter time we dried up most of the cows due to possible frost bite ( teats ) and easy to bale poor quality hay for dry cows. We needed high quality dairy " grass " early spring time when cows had calves !
Cheap equipment for baling harvesting etc.
Bottom line.....keep it simple.......work hard. If you need a vacation that means you dont enjoy what your doing.
For me....milking cows / farming was a vacation !
Wow!! That’s awesome! I’m so glad you were able to sustain such a great passion!!
So start rich and work towards mono. 😂😂😂😂😂
What a blessing to love your work. I wish it could be that way for everyone.
He struck a chord with the diversification comment - something always suffers when you have too many irons in the fire. I learned, and am still learning, this. Interesting operation - I like how he has his pigs set up. Good interview! Well done!
Absolutely!!! My jaw was dropped most of our visit! He has some amazing ideas!
@@BreakingNewRoots What I find so interesting in this and quite a few others is what folks gross earnings are...when I convert currency, it is really surprising and somewhat concerning. Different scope I guess.
@@dhansonranch on really? Discerning how?? Are you saying it’s higher than you expect or lower?
@@BreakingNewRoots Way higher. If you convert the 500000 to CDN, that is $684,600. I just bought a half a cow and I paid 4.50 CDN (3.29 USD) a pound plus cutting and wrapping. The half was 350 pounds. So at 700 pounds hanging weight, to generate that kind of income, a person would need to raise 217 head of cattle. Granted there is more money to be made by doing value added. But even if a person were to charge double what live weight price is at moment (1.94 USD x 2 =3.88 USD or 5.31 CDN) to live weight of my animal (700 hanging = 1160 live weight), generating 6160 CDN, a person would still need to raise 111 head throughout the year. There is absolutely a number of factors at play, but that kind of income being generated makes me scratch my head - there must be something I am missing. Been wondering this for a while now. I am not discrediting what is being shared, just attempting to figure it out as it applies here. I still maintain there is great information being shared.
@@dhansonranch oh interesting.
Sounds like Joel Salatin's information on farming this way is really spreading. He has been doing this for many years. Love it
Oh yes!! A lot of farmers we visit say they learned about Joel and took it from there. I love how everyone then puts their own spin on it depending on what their specific farm needs.
@@BreakingNewRoots I love it too.
I love it! Silvo pasture is incredibly under rated and the US has so much potential with silvo pasture farms. Not enough people in the US (especially the world as a whole) don't know enough about regenerative ag practices. More people need properties with some land so they can participate, especially in the current world we now live in!
Absolutely!! ❤️
This seriously hit home. My wife and I are getting super burned out over the last 5 years with so many different income sources/ animals. It's a lot, and we're considering completely down sizing too.
I can so relate!! Talking with Ben really opened my eyes that diversity doesn’t have to be key on a small farm. It’s okay to niche down and focus on what you really enjoy.
@@BreakingNewRoots where does ben sell his animals to after they're raised? Does he have that many clientele to do all private sales? Or does he have a cattle/ hog dealer get his animals?
@@plainandsimple1 he sells the meat in private sales. I can’t remember if they do farmers markets or not.
Ha, now I feel better about giving up bees after thinking for years that I wanted to have them. Took just 2 years to realize they cut into my gardening time too much.
@donnahudson4813 we have meat birds, 200 layers, a diary cow, her calf, we had almost 30 pigs, and a bunch of goats, not to mention we both work full time. AND we're clearing the 20 acres we live on, and I'm the only one building infrastructure and fixing the equipment lol
I can’t believe how much gold is in this video when it comes to pigs.
I’m amazed and absolutely going to do the pinwheel system on our farm.
In a few years I’m also now going to raise our own pigs instead of buying piglets because of how the females can still be used for high end pork and give another butcher date. Super grateful. Thank you.
Yes!!! So much knowledge here!! I love his pig system!!
@@BreakingNewRoots ps you are killing it for amazing content being posted fast! If your are ever in ottawa Canada come see me and the farm ❤️
@@RyanSunDynasty thank you so much!! We would love to!
@@BreakingNewRoots once you get your passport sorted. We just planted 1300 nut and fruit trees into our pasture where we run our 1000 chickens, sheep and pigs. We have ducks and bunnies for the kids. 4000 square-foot no till family garden and a 5000 square-foot flower garden. 16 chowchows. Grass fed quail and black soldier fly. We are new farmers and learning new things every second of the day.
Would love to host you and your family.
Oh wow!! That’s great! We would love to see you!
We have a saying down here in Tasmania: "no one can do everything, that's why we need to be part of a community so we can trade with each other for needed skills and goods"
Yes!! Absolutely!!
That's a catchy saying
Thank you to all of you farmers for feeding us. God bless you all, and may He help you all find success. We need you!
There's a war on farmers. The land grabbing by the government here in the US for green energy production is insane. Laws are being used in ways never intended.
Great job creating the video. This is a brilliant system.
Thank you!
It appears to be a war on farmers but that's only part of the big picture. The war is on humanity and the intent is to reduce our population dramatically. Eating well and caring for our health will put a crimp in their plans.
I had an idea of the same-ish pinwheel system on a smaller scale around a permanent structure. Awesome to see it absolutely works. Awesome operation he’s got going!
My thoughts too! It’s great to see a concept working!
Thank you for showing this, and well done to this gentleman who has worked hard to discover "uncomplicated" farming.
Love that term! So true! We have a tendency to overcomplicate things for ourselves!
What an amazing story. Looking forward to viewing more of your videos. Found you from Gold Shaw Farm
Hi! Thank you so much!!
Found you from Morgan, this was just as interesting, so I've subbed for more. What a great system, that gentleman talks alot of sense.
Thanks! It really did! It opened our eyes to the mistakes we made versus if we could've just pumped the breaks, maybe we would still own the farm we did!
Excelent intervew. Here Lola from Argentina. I have 3hectars farm and struggle with bunt out and inflation and resourses.
Here I can find some ideas.
In our 3rd month of buying our meat form Wild Harmony Farm) Loving IT! looking forward to taking a tour of the farm this fall if they offer one. Keep up the good work and congrats on your new little one!❣😃✌🙏
That’s awesome!! They really are doing some great things there!!
Awesome job Ben and Rachael!!!!!!
Wise wise man. Time is money and you can’t buy time so he’s doing very wise things. I pray they grow in abundance. I love seeing farmers share their stories 15 yrs as a farmhand taught me it costs a lot of time. Very wise thinker
Oh yes! Absolutely!!
I came across the channel through Morgan. I have no intent so start farming here in Germany. :D But it is so interesting how different people do things different. Or sometimes the same. This guy was very interesting to listen to. Thank you for being open! Subscribed. :)
Thanks for joining! He really taught us how to scale back to what you enjoy the most and go all in on that! It was super cool how he breeds his pigs and his rotation was incredible!
This guy is the real deal.
Yes he is! Just making things simple! Just makes too much sense!
Wow I grew up in Exeter🤯 so glad something so awesome is going on there
I absolutely love the knowledge your videos share. kudos well done. thank you
Thank you so much!!
Thank you for the valuable tidbit about no human being able to manage more than two things at once.
Yes!! I’m so glad he said that!
This style of farming is very attractive.
It definitely gives a better work/life balance that we all seem to struggle with!
Outstanding interview and excellent advise. Your system can be complex but it shouldn't be complicated....love it
Yes!!! I loved that part of our conversation!!
I have a question that you might have already answered. The numbers are a bit hard for me to believe. If he is doing pigs and cows and has 3 acres dedicated to 90 pigs they process once a year. If 1/2 of his income comes from pigs - and it is probably more, because it sounds like the cows have less land and they take up more per cow, he is generating 1/2 of $500k, or $250k from 90 pigs. That's $2,700 per pig. That seems a wee bit high. What am I missing?
Hi! I see how you’re trying to breakdown those numbers. He doesn’t explicitly explain his full financial breakdown but he processes more than a few times a year and the income isn’t split 50/50.
I used to grow 20 vegetables in a diversified market garden. After eight years of doing this and seeing barely any profit I looked at what sold best and took the least amount of harvest time. For me it was broccoli/cauliflower/carrots/lettuce. I cut every other plant out. I don't even farm in the summer anymore because the profit margins are not there and I make so much in the spring/fall. I live in South Carolina, so not farming for profit in the summer is nice! I do a garden for the family, but absolutely no summer sales.
Do you have any high tunnels or anything? We have seen a farm in Virginia that grows opposite of their "competition" and they take the summers mostly off from vegetables and dominate the winter markets
@@BreakingNewRoots I only use low tunnels with row cover. It gets so hot here in SC that I could only real use a high tunnel like three months of the year. And finding a niche is the real secret to farming!
@@AnenLaylle That may be the truest thing about finding the niche being the secret!
Thank you for this. Great data for planning.
Absolutely!! I loved his methods!
Great interview yet again!! How many acres is their farm? Sorry! Forgot he said 60 acres. Thanks so much. Loved this one. I have 12 acres and am trying to figure out how to replace my income with our farm. So unsure about which way to go or where to start.
Thank you so much!! I can’t remember how much exactly they have but I think they were using about 30?
HI, really nice video. Thank you. One quick question: It was mentioned that he was netting 20,000 on 300,000 gross with high diversification. After making the changes, how many pigs and cattle does he plan to sell this year and what is his expected net profit (you said the gross would be 500,000). I have just purchased some property and plan to do something similar. We are trying to decide on the numbers of pigs and cattle we need to raise to make our needed income. Thanks in advance.
Hi! He doesn’t go into a breakdown explanation but he does talk about his gross vs net income. My advise would be to scope out your market. Sales prices are so variable based on location. Check out your local farmers market, talk to them about their costs (if they shut you down just move on). Walk some pricing backwards from there. And then start small. Don’t jump in too fast thinking it will pay all your expenses right away. There will be a large learning curve to marketing and sales. But, I’m excited to hear that you’re wanting to farm and feed your community!!
That is one angle on "living your life" to make a profit. If you do not enjoy taking care of animals and are looking to 'make money" you are right... go paint houses.
When you have the right balance of animals they all work together to make your work load less. If you want to raise a bunch of animals to make money you are a business person... like the male in this video. I am happy he is happier now.
Absolutely!! There is a balance for sure and I’m sure it’s different for everyone but I’m really enjoying seeing people take a step back and reframe their farm to make sure they are happy doing what they do.
The late Alan Nation, editor of Stockman Grass Farmer, intro'd the idea at one of their grazing classes to have ONE core centerpiece business and then a couple fewer temporary/seasonal/short term enterprises.
If the enterprises can mutually benefit the other all the better.
Ex. Cattle graze down a field partially (& leave manure) then poultry (seasonal turkey?) follow several days later and scratch through the manure pats just as the fly larvae develop. Turkey manure, enhanced by store bought feed, provide high quality fertilizer for the grass
Cattle are permanent centerpiece while turkeys are a "put & take" enterprise. Buy them in late spring/process for thanksgiving. 5-6 months and then they're off the property.
You dont even need to have turkeys every year ...switch to feeder pigs occasionally.
Back & forth
Absolutely!!! I love how Ben is really working with that idea and especially the way he is raising his pigs to be a semi-seasonal/temporary animal on the farm! Such innovation!
What electric wire system does he use for his pasture pigs? Solar charger or a AC charger?
That’s a great question, I think it’s solar.
Exactly what I’m going through right now. But with nursery plants
How so??
Excellent segment.
Thank you!!
So much to learn here thank you so much for this content. I'm falling into this same trap. Wicked diversified making things complicated originally on a journey to produce all the things I want to eat. Time to narrow in on what I want to focus on.
I think we all do, right? It sounds like a great idea but then in practice it’s exhausting!!
Great video, thanks for sharing!!
Thank you so much!! Ben was great! We are so glad to have met him!!
This guy is legit.
Yes!
We stopped raising pigs this year because it was complicated to do on the land we have. Plus the cost of feed has more than doubled in the last few years and we could not raise them profitably. We raise meat chickens, sheep and dairy goats. It works well on the land we have access to. We do everything we can to keep it simple and flexible as we rent our farm land.
Yes! Keeping it simple is so important. And also, what I’m learning, just because there is a general market for a product doesn’t mean I should produce. If my land doesn’t do well with a species then I shouldn’t force it to happen.
Interesting video 😊
Thank you so much!
Outstanding
Thank you! ❤️
I got some good ideas. Thanks.
Absolutely!! I learned so much from Ben and really enjoyed learning about his farm!! So glad you did too!!
My brother was a general contractor, he started out installing windows, gutters and siding. He later went on to build houses and commercial work. He told me he was making more money with more headaches and less profit. He returned to windows, gutters and siding with a small crew, focused on that and made a very good living. KISS, keep it simple, stupid. Bigger isn't always better.
My dad always said that!! Keep it simple!!
Ranching for profit class? Can you provide a link?
Sure! I’ll ask Ben and get back with you!
Here is the link.
ranchmanagement.com/ranching-for-profit-school-2/
When I think of starting a a farm, it’s always the sales part of it that I find intimidating. I can figure everything else out.
I’m so glad i worked at a bank before farming full time. It gave me so much experience in sales and marketing.
What I've learned over 7 years now, sales IS everything on a farm. I thought if I made a better product it would sell itself. Your product and it's quality really almost don't matter if you can't sell anything you just have a hobbystead. Best advice I can give is learn to sell your product before you make it especially if you are the "I can figure the rest out" type. The only time I ever did well was having someone else handle all sales but without them I went back to were I started.
Comment stuck out because this is the mentality I began with and would strongly advise against.
That's me! I've done it 4 times and failed on sales.
@@davidtyler7208 I have always been a big proponent for the idea that people don’t buy from you because of your product, they buy from you because of YOU! Don’t worry about selling the product so much as selling yourself and your relationship with your customers. If customers get warm and feelys from you they will come back time and time again!
@@talkingjoseph5582 check out my last response! Have you tried to focus on the relationship with the customer and not the product sales itself??
If you hire disabled veterans, you get a 40% tax credit on their salary. There is also a military skill bridge program where you get the labor for free as a mentorship for six months.
Please write a how to book dude!!!!
He absolutely should!
Diversification needs to be at the community leave, we can't do it all. That's why community is so important.
Yes! That is so true!!
I think the fascination with diversification is mostly nostalgia. It's the way traditional farmers did it. Thing is, traditional farmers weren't diversified to make money, they were diversified so they wouldn't need money. They generally made money on one or two crops.
That’s such a great point!!
The farming ranching management crisis is real. Lots of people dont understand how to run things
How to design how to manage people including themselves.
Yes. But I understand why. We get into farming because we loving growing/raising things, we want to help our community. But we forget that it is a working business and should be treated so.
@@BreakingNewRoots A biz should be a biz agreed. some of the best farmers, if they can get their feet under them is people who do not come from farming backgrounds. I think it's because of that reason. Management and understanding people. Modern farms rarely have 7 kids of labor to take you from small farm to retirement and kid takes over. I don't fully agree with transitory labor practices of farming and ranching industry. Because it's a double edge sword that is basically destroying there labor market in the modern labor context. Honestly, if he didn't do the first killing himself farming he'd probably never had got the connection and training enough for staff to do the other part of his farming. Sigh, farming management crisis is so under talked about. It's sad. Even if you love something as an employer kindness is having your crap together enough to make sure your employee is taken care of. At least in my mindset you don't want to be walmart and have your employees on welfare while you rake in record profits. Just a bad look. (mind you that is management for the purose of doing that act and not management because you don't know what your doing properly. Walmart understands what it's doing. It's by design) And in a modern sense for most perspective employees in the labor market it's why so many farms are low on the options. If you are going to transport yourself (which requries a care or living on site and you as well have to think about retirement, health insurance, kids, colleges can you do that as a random working for a farm? No most employees working as spot labor moving place to place can't.) I remember my first tour of singing frog farms and realizing that the reason why they had so much labor that worked full time on farm. Got a decent wage it was huge. We forcus on the farmer/family making "city wages" but not on what the employees are making. Why would a employee want to work a job (yes they might love it, but they gotta survive as well) making good money but not city wages or better since they gotta drive out/live on farm. Just a lot of click click click brain moments really turn my thought process away from the romanization of farming and ranching to the actual reason why there's currently a breakdown. It verbalized in my mind what are the halmarks of an actual sucessful farm/ranch. And am I doing that? I remember meeting an old guy who worked for the company straight out of high school/entry level to retiring in the boardroom. And he was talking about cultural changes in the way buniess ran. He was a farm boy who went to work in the city slightly post reagan reforms. When all the union jobs where being broken down and if they couldn't break it they just sold the company in pieces. complete work place landscape change. Comapnies use to think of 10 and 20 year plans. Now they think in Five year Plan or 1 year plans. Short term profit over long term gain. But that's honestly been the farming mindset for generations. That's how we got go big or go home farming. That's how we got break the backs of labor farming. It's how we got poorly designed farms or no design farm. Eh sorry for the rant completely agree again. "working business and should be treated so." when other people are involve.
@@MistressOP I have found that every farm we have visited that has working employees, they make sure to pay them well above the current wage. I can’t say there is an industry standard but maybe better or worse business practices than others. Either way, the farms we are seeing (not by design) greatly value their employees.
Thanks for sharing wisdom, pruned from years of experience. Would the Giver the gifty gi us, to see ourselves as He sees us. Hmmm. The Word has that! Psalms, Proverbs, Eccl., gospels, Acts...
Why doesn’t he breed back the sows instead of leaving them unbred?
Seems like it would be more efficient to keep breeding sows.
Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too. But that’s kind of his whole point. Instead of focusing on the traditional value of “production” he processes the sows, they only get bred once and when their piglets are weaned the sows are used for meat production. He does keep gilts back to breed for the next line but it’s not as much maintenance.
Farrowing can be challenging.
If i heard that right...he was making $300,000 gross and only netting $20,000? And they had several unpaid staff? I hope he got better. That is a losing plan longterm.
Yes, although I believe his staff has always been paid. As he described in the video, once he scaled back he was able to increase his profits.
I’m not dismissing his experience,
but I really have to wonder if the plan was really the problem. Or the execution….
I have seen some farmers raising various produce (lettuce and whatnot),
and we’re able to make a lot of money….
To have to bring in half a million-$800,000 a year. You must have a whole Lotta debt to make so little profit. We have for several years, doubled, our profit, simply taking finished steers to the auction.
I don’t recall a conversation around debt but I do know that feed expenses, animal expenses, and land payments can easily add up to a large number. Also, Ben makes a point to say that he does pay himself a wage and has multiple employees that he pays well. Those too are not low expenses.
I’m curious how you are doubling your profits on your farm by going to auction. Are you reducing costs elsewhere?? Sounds like you are really figuring out your sweet spot!
@@BreakingNewRoots
We have no imputes, only grass, no feed, no bills. We have 250 acres in Ava Missouri, we breed and purchase South poll cattle/steers they bred back great, are grass genetics based cattle, slick oil hide, approximately 1000/1200 pounds max, they are simply the cattle for no imputes.
Example: 400 lbs steer at sale is approximately 800-900 pound, even if you purchase high when you double the weight at sale you double the profits. We don’t even have a tractor. You have to have forage and understand high intensity grazing. No hay let them eat it stomp it and fertilize it. No stress. All that the greats Salatin, Judy, etc. have the formula you just have to apply it.
@@SJA-ox3hs oh for sure! That’s a great system! I’m glad you are able to apply that on your land!
What costs 170k no matter one pig or 100?
looking for more info on how he does his pigs
You can follow their socials for more details.
@BreakingNewRoots I sent them a email about this but I have not gotten a reply yet
Question(s) How was he able to afford the time overseas and buying the land if he was so sick? I'm not trying to be negative, but I have to question this.
Happened at different times in his life.
👍
❤️
Where is all that money coming from? Just a few pigs and cows?
In the video he states how many animals he raises.
We need it to be at $800k for it to be comfortable living for our family.” WTF!?!
He's saying for a business as a whole and paying all expenses, including his other employees. :)
@@BreakingNewRoots That’s not what he said.
@@allblooms8972 in context, that’s what he meant. 😊
What happened to just feeding yourself, then painting when you need cash?
Just stop feeding the chickens 😅😅 that solves that annoying 😒 chore
Sounds like this kid could fall back on his parents if it doesn’t work out or he changes his mind 🙄
Thank u for sharing so much useful information. To be watched again
Thank you!! I’m so glad you enjoyed our visit with Ben! He has some really great ideas!!