How important do you think it is to diversify yourself?

I'm just curious. I have mainly sold hay over the past few years. I do raise a little field corn also. Over the past few years my garden has gotten bigger and bigger and I'm finding out that there is a big market in my area for home grown vegetables. I try to keep equipment for whatever I am growing. If I want to do all hay one year I can. If I wanted to do all corn I could, but let's face it they isn't any money there but you never know. If I wanted to do all vegetables I could. How important do you think it is to be flexible from year to year or do most of you stick to one thing?

If you knew two things it would be a sinch. The weather and market is all you need to know but I have never guessed it right. Luck and common sense will usually get you furthest.

For me, I choose one crop and diversify within itself. Meaning I grow fresh market potatoes, but several different varieties of them. One crop, one direction of travel.

Best to get in to one thing and stick with it. Take the good and ride out the bad. Otherwise you end up trying to get in to things when they're at the top instead of the bottom and you pay through the nose to get in and loose your backside.

Some of the BIG farms around here have diversified. They have dairy,chickens,feed steers, and hogs. We are talking operations that are several thousand acres. I think its pays off for them to help level the peaks and valleys of profitability. For the little guy I dont think it pays. If you have 4 pig barns you have some bargining power on the contracts. If you have one pig barn, one chicken barn and some steers, you are a little player to each company involved and it doesnt matter to them if they have a contract with you or not.

I've got my hands in too many things. Originally it was so that
the work would be spread out through the year. Now I never
seem to catch up! Hogs (smallish herd), cattle, hay, beans,
wheat, milo. Then there's the turkeys and chickens. Those are
just a small personal market portion. I don't like them enough
to have my life run by birds. I've got a following that buys all of
the eggs and birds I can supply them so it all works out. Right
now I am sitting on a bunch of hay that isn't worth anything but
have cattle that are worth the time. If you are spread out in
several things you can ride the ups and downs. Never have
caught corn fever. I've never gotten the interest over the yields
and all of the variables. It just seems to me that corn is so
much more sensitive and small things have a greater yield
impact. Maybe I am all wet there, but I don't see me getting a
new header and learning corn.

The old saying "don't put your eggs all in one basket" I think rings true. Being fexible to do something one year but not the next is nice, but that in itself is just a guessing game. Being diversified is doing several things all at the same time and I think its important. If you do say 4 things during the year and one turns out poor, one great, and the other two average you are gonna do alright. You do one thing and it turns out badly, you have to stretch that lose out over time till you hit a year of success. And it IS possible to have 2 or 3 bad years in a row on any given one thing.

Real important. So important that I got an education, a good job in town with good benefits. So I retired at age 58 and am now hobby farming on the family farm. Lot of years of hassel, but nothing is cheap. I put up with a lot of crap and travel, and it aint for everyone, but I had a good run.

I will put it this way, specialization really only took hold in last 40 years or so, before that the vast majority of farmers were diversified in some manner, crops and livestock, truck patches, orchards on the farm etc. As late as the 60's and early 70's carload after carload of calves and lambs were shipped to mid-west grainbelt farmers for feeding out. Livestock will be in higher and higher demand in the coming years, straight crops and hay production deplete the soil where efficient livestock management can improve your soil. Year in and year out grass pasture is the most profitable crop in temperate zones.

I can't speak on the farming side of things, but as a mechanic it's really important. If I hadn't been able to do all of the things I have learned to do over the years, I would have lost our house, and we would have probably been on the streets a few years back when times got really bad. As it was I was able to jump easily from equipment mechanics, to industrial maintenance, to fabrication, and anything else that was needed, to keep working and keep the bills paid.

I would imagine farming would be the same way. When one crop isn't doing so good, it the very time another will be doing great. You might not get rich, but if you hedge your bets by being diverse, you ought to at worst break even.

If you are going to be in the vegetable business, you would need to grow a certain amount every year to hold your customers - because if you don't grow vegetables ever year, they will go to someone else that does grow them every year.

How many acres? Day job? More diversified = less time per
operation and usually more overhead which means less profitable.

Always have been somewhat diversified here. Dad
had,timber, maple , hay, beef, potatoes, and milk.
He always did a little bulldozing and building on
the side.

Sold the milkers in 1954, switched to heifer
raising and more logging, started plowing snow in
the winters.

Mid 60's he went to beef instead of heifers, just
about quit construction, and increased the
logging.

I came back to the farm in "70, he was slowing
down, and I was kind of drifting, we just
"coasted" for a few years.

In 1982, he bought our first 4x4 pickup, and we
got a little more serious about the snow plowing.

About 1990 we sold the beef herd, started selling
all the hay, and doing more bush hogging/mowing
for other people. Mid 90's was the last commercial
potato crop, and also the last full time winter
logging. Dad died in 2000, at 93 years old.

At present, I am selling hay, maple syrup, and a
little firewood. I plow snow in the winter, and
bush hog/mow through the summer.

Throughout the years, the various enterprises have
been split about in thirds, as far as income.

In 2012 there was no snow, the maple crop was
short, and the hay had to carry me until snow
money started coming in in January of 2013.
Another profitable enterprise would have been
really welcome that year

Depends on the area but around here the local grown and organic movement is huge and ever increasing everyone I know that sells locally grown vegetables and fruit organic or not sells out.Many farmers markets and they draw a crowd.A friend of mine puts out 5 to 10 thousand Sweet Potato plants every year and sells out within 2 or 3 weeks after digging them.If I were younger I'd go into it big time.A big draw for the Sweet Potato man is to 'let' customers pick up their own potatoes as he plows them out.More and more people want to know where their food comes from and how its handled. I have several people that buy calves and pigs from me every year to raise to slaughter.

(quoted from post at 13:50:28 10/03/14) Depends on the area but around here the local grown and organic movement is huge and ever increasing everyone I know that sells locally grown vegetables and fruit organic or not sells out.Many farmers markets and they draw a crowd.....More and more people want to know where their food comes from and how its handled. I have several people that buy calves and pigs from me every year to raise to slaughter.

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I'd echo this. The farmer's markets are getting bigger all the time and lots of city folks are turning toward or prefer organic (I tell people I raise organic llamas!). Back home we did some of that "truck farming" as we called it, lots of work but did pretty well with it until Dad discovered that hay, feeding cattle and corn and beans were less work and kept us out of trouble since we were more willing to do it.

A wealthy friend got a bunch of hogs, mostly to punish a nasty neighborhood that borders his place, but he sells all of them to individuals for the freezer now. Also sells whole hogs to a local restaurant who cuts the meat themselves. He get top price as they are organically raised (but he's not certified organic). Whole Foods was initially interest in them but bailed on the deal before the first group was up to market weight. He doesn't need the money, he sold a building products manufacturing operation and "retired" to a 500 acre farm they bought from a local big shot company CEO. He's the kind of guy who likes to stay busy... and it still offends the neighbors.