Market Farming Success: The Business of Growing and Selling Local Food, 2nd Editon

by Lynn Byczynski

An insider's guide to market gardening and farming for those in the business of growing and selling food, flowers, herbs, or plants.
Market Farming Success identifies the key areas that usually trip up beginners―and shows how to avoid those obstacles. This book will help the aspiring or beginning farmer advance quickly and confidently through the inevitable learning curve of starting a new business.
Written by the editor of Growing for Market , a respected trade journal for market farmers, Market Farming Success condenses decades of growing experience from every part of the United States and Canada. It focuses on the factors that are common to market gardeners everywhere and offers professional advice that
•    How much you'll need to spend to start a market farming business;
•    How much you can expect to earn;
•    Which crops bring in the most money―and whether you should grow them;
•    The essential tools and equipment you will need;
•    The best places to sell your products;
•    How to keep records to maximize profits and minimize taxes;
•    Tricks of the trade that will make you more efficient in the greenhouse, field, and market.

This new Chelsea Green edition of a 2006 classic is greatly updated and expanded, and includes full-color photos, charts, and graphs, plus many inspiring and instructive profiles of successful market-farming pioneers.

Genres: Gardening, Agriculture

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2013

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was super informative, practical, and full of solid resources. I imagine that it's a book I'd turn to for it's bibliography, full of reputable references. It's both inspiring and realistic. Market gardening has to be one of the only jobs that truly engages all parts of your body and mind. It also gets into the nitty gritty about what type of insurance policies you should consider, for example, and gives an incredibly honest picture of how hard and complicated this type of work is.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific resource for those new at the business of growing and selling local food. This new edition is wonderful, and full of important updates over the previous edition.

[Karen Mahtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contains lots of tips-of-the-trade w/r/t how market farmers do things (things like field ops that one might already be familiar with).

Includes a section at the end that details quantities/weights for packing orders for wholesale.