Smallholders Handbook part 6
Here is our sixth instalment about joining the Good Life and living off the land with a sustainable smallholding.
At BigBarn we would love to promote thousands of profitable smallholdings on our UK Food Map to help reconnect people with where their food comes from and helping build inclusive, sustainable, communities around food.
To help here is the sixth of 12 extracts from Lorraine Turnbull’s book The Sustainable Smallholders’ Handbook
Food Production
Producing food or drink from your smallholding, allotment or garden is perhaps the most obvious way of deriving an income from it. And although everyone’s circumstances are unique, the diversity of possible projects is so great that there is bound to be something to suit. If you have hardly any land, for instance, you can still grow enough fruit and vegetables to make jellies, jams, juices, chutneys, pickles and the like; and you can make your processing equipment (ordinary domestic kitchen appliances aren’t really up to this kind of use) work harder for its living by foraging hedgerows, moors, and even beaches for wild ingredients.
Fresh healthy veg
Whatever project you decide suits your own situation best, though, make sure to do your sums as carefully as if you were writing a full-blown business plan; and you’d be well-advised to major on one or two high-value strands to maximise your income and to rationalise the cost and effort involved in production, processing, and selling.
Eggs
Free range
If you have fewer than 100 hens you’ll make just enough to cover your costs, which is fine if the hens are a hobby. But to make any money out of laying birds you have to think of them as a crop that needs replacing every 18 months or so, so there’s a recurring capital cost to factor in as well.
Tasty. And really good for them.
These sums might prompt you to ask yourself whether the return is going to be worth the effort. I was an egg producer and packer for two years before realising it was too much work for the reward. I would have needed larger henhouses, a higher stocking density, and at least 500 birds to make even a small wage. But the profit from selling eggs is not going to provide you with a living unless you have thou- sands; and even at this level the input on your part – such as moving their houses regularly to deter rodents and prevent soil erosion – is beginning to mount up alarmingly. By the time you reach a genuinely profitable level of egg production your capital investment, not just in housing but in ancillaries such as automated packaging plant, packing shed(s), and feed silos, and your additional running costs including labour, feed, bedding and utilities takes you beyond the scale at which you can really be described as a smallholder.
However, if you believe that large-scale egg production is a viable proposition – and as the EU allows a maximum of 1,000 hens per acre it may very well suit your circumstances – you will also have to register as a food producer with the district council’s Environmental Health Department. Large poultry houses with a packing room and feed silos also need planning permission, so have a chat with your local planning officer before making any commitments.
Tempted? You can read more over the next few months or buy Lorraine Turnbull’s book The Sustainable Smallholders’ Handbook available here