Q&A with Mark Shepard: Are you making any money?
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Have an agroforestry or permaculture question for Mark? Use the contact form here: www.forestag.co...
Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises and runs New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural forest considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States.
New Forest Farm is a planned conversion of a typical row-crops grain farm into a commercial-scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem using oak savanna, successional brushland and eastern woodlands as the ecological models.
Trees, shrubs, vines, canes, perennial plants and fungi are planted in association with one another to produce food (for humans and animals), fuel, medicines, and beauty. Hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts and various fruits are the primary woody crops. The farm is entirely solar and wind powered and farm equipment is powered with locally produced biofuels that are not taken from the human food chain.
Trained in both mechanical engineering and ecology, Mark has developed and patented equipment and processes for the cultivation, harvesting and processing of forest derived agricultural products for human foods and bio fuels production. Mark was certified as a Permaculture designer in 1993 and received his Diploma of Permaculture design from Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement.
Mark is founder and board President for Restoration Agriculture Institute and serves on the board of the Southwest Badger Resource Conservation and Development Council. He teaches agroforestry and Permaculture worldwide. Mark is a farmer member of the Organic Valley cooperative, the worlds largest Organic Farmer's marketing co-op, and is the founder and chief Cydermaker for the Shepard's Hard Cyder winery in Viola, Wisconsin.
Is this Mark's channel?
Shepard's approach here reminds me of Ray Krok's approach in forming McDonald's into a real estate company that happens to sell hamburgers using advanced, efficient processes.
This guy doesn't think like a farmer. He thinks like a businessman. This is a brilliant approach, but most people won't understand it...unless you have studied out of the box business models....and most farmers haven't. :/
The Summary is that the Land is owned by a Real Estate Company which received Rents by your and other's Farming Companies. The Farming Companies reinvest into themselves to grow and improve and the Real Estate Company makes Money anyways. How do You use or reinvest the Income of the Real Estate?
Love the evil laugh at 3:12! :)
So are you profitable or not?
Not really, but he makes the bill of his money elsewhere. Farms making all money directly off selling cross is also extremely difficult to accomplish. But if you can farm his way that is much healthier for the land, and make additional money in other ways, what's the difference?
@@deansmits006
He is very profitable, but he reinvests so that he avoids the bulk of income taxes, etc. He is very clever.
Is it only me or is this video broken ecxactly when Mark claps his hands? No way for me to watch further. Neither on my mobile, nor on my desktop.
so wait..are you a Shepard or an 'apple nut' guy?
Great video, but Mark, if that is a WIFI router right behind you then you may want to consider relocating it farther away from your body. World Health Organization has declared wireless radiation as a Class 2B Probable Carcinogen, and the signal that WIFI emits is one of the worst. Thank you for all your powerful content! God bless you
TheTruth that's false.
This is a bunch of bologna. I'd like to see him say this to the bank when they ask where the mortgage payments are. Maybe some fancy accounting can prevent them from taking the tractor, but I'm not sure what he's going to use it on when his land is gone.
Not sure what that has to do with anything. I've read Shepards' book. He speaks like he's an academic; and the number of 'statistics' he cites are innumerable - but he doesn't actually provide a single citation in his entire book. Not one. I tried to look a few up, and I couldn't find data to corroborate a lot of his sources. That kind of academic laziness is frightening.
Nothing he says is ever concise. It's a pretty simple question: Do you make a living off your farm? .. His answer starts off with the (true) fact that very few farms are profitable - and that's as close as he comes to saying that no, the farm does not support itself. Then he goes on this long narrative about how if we don't count certain expenses, we are profitable. The suggestion that farmers should actually be renting their land from land owners... boy, that hierarchy sure does remind me of something...
Why is he talking to venture capitalists in the first place? Venture capitalists invest in high-risk high-return businesses. It's insane that this is the kind of farm he's talking about running. Venture capitalism is perhaps the antithesis of a working-diversified-perennial-farm.
Man, you want another one? He dedicates a huge portion of his book to majesty that is the North American chestnut. We can grow these, they will yield great every year, and it will cost less and be less work in the long run.
The North American Chestnut is all but extinct. Gone. Imagine having the farm he suggests, that requires 30 years of preparation to produce it's staple product. And then a black swan comes along and wipes out an entire generation of work. The additional layer of irony here is that SUNY-ESF has produced the first blight resistant American Chestnuts using genetic modification. A method he detests. Mass scale selection - his suggestion - has not reliably produced blight resistant chestnuts.
I think he makes most of his money from promising an impossible utopia to gullible, good, people.
@@DrZazzoo From what I know about farming and business, the economics of his farm still make sense to me.
He has much lower labour costs do to the lower management needs of the system, lower fuel costs by making his own biofuel and electricity, and very low input costs, since he's not buying new seed every season, and he's not applying fert, herbicide, pesticide or insecticide. These input costs make up something like over a third of farming expenses to non-organic farmers. Also if he completely owns his land, and isn't renting it from somebody else, that also decreases expenses by a lot (rent can be like 33% of total expenses to some farmers).
So all that considered makes it not hard to believe that the farm is profitable.
I am slightly suspicious of him, since I'd like to know how much income he makes from his book, speaking events, farm tours and consulting as opposed to the farms income, and I want to know if the outside income is what keeps him solvent.
Mark is profitable and expanding his operations. He carefully reinvests profits so that he avoids taxes as well. He is performing the miracles other small farmers need to learn from.
I have a ranching/business background, and what he says makes perfect sense. He is using technology appropriately but sparingly for optimal profit. This approach is very sensible. Suggest you read his hook for a better breakdown of the details.
If you dislike his emphasis on sequestering carbon, just realize that it is putting it where it is most useful, and doing it in the cheapest manner as well.
Dirt needs carbon to correct poor drainage if it's clay, or if it is overly drying sand, through the chemical bonds carbon creates. Carbon frees up locked nutrients in soil so plants can utilize them, as well as assist a healthy soil biodiversity. This method can reclaim degraded land, which is the opposite of conventional methods.