Hi guys,
Gary mentioned to me in another post that he recommended I look at CSA. I have done a bit of digging on it, so I am now reasonably educated on what its all about.
I actually came across an operation here in Brisbane called http://www.foodconnect.com.au
. They seem to be following the CSA concept well.
Some rough numbers I did are:
Typical sale price is $40 a week per 'fruit and vegie pack' (small family)
$40 * 125 packs per month = $5000
~ Equates to 33 packs per week.
Of course the $5K does not include any of the costs. So assuming that your costs (not setup, just operational and inputs) are 1/3rd again you would need to sell roughly 175 packs per month (40 per week) to cover them.
My estimation then is that an aquaponics/organics farming operation of a reasonably small size would be to produce this, and would be able to get the numbers (40 families) without too much difficulty from immediate and extended family and friends, and friends of friends etc. I need to follow up on this assumption with some more quantative research, and if anyone has any information to share on this I would be interested. There isnt a lot of hard data around on the subject, although there are some breadcrumbs around concering density and yield of certain popular crops such as lettuce and tomatoes. It doesnt seem as if broader good quality research has been conducted.
From the new farmers point of view there is a lot of work to be done in researching, preparation and setup. There are also costs associated with all of this which wont be immediately recouped. The ability of the aquaponics/organic farmer (integrated farming) to largely eliminate ongoing input costs is a major advantage however.
In my own situation I have purchased 15 acres of land in a fairly fertile area with a good source of water. I am in the process of doing some planning based on research of traditional farming methods and then applying some aquaponics factors into the equation. In a typical commercial application you would use NFT of floating raft, I am going to go with NFT. I think in terms of footprint on the land and minimizing water volume NFT is a better choice where practical. Of course Tomatoes grow better in bags/pots etc... and potatoes.. well thats a different story all together.
So, a CSA focused aquaponic/organic integrated food production operation is the goal. A CSA farmer is commerical by virtue of the fact that he is selling product, therefore there are some other commercial realities that come into play as well, and one of these is marketing and customer relationship management. From what I have seen so far this aspect is extremely poorly done on either an industry or individual basis.
One of the complexities faced by the small CSA farmer is the variety of crops needed to produce a 'pack'. If you were to try to produce the whole range of grains, nuts, tree fruit, vine fruit, leafy vegies, fruiting vegies, root vegies, and herbs/spices then thats quite a big ask! Some CSA farmers even get into honey and jams! And of course there is stuff that we simply cant grow in our area due to climate.. coconuts & bananas for instance dont do well in the sub-tropics. So, carefully selecting your crop mix is important. One other aspect to this is that its hard to be an expert grower on such a wide variety of crops. Doesn't mean I am discouraged from trying, it just means I will prioritize accordingly.
If you are starting out fresh then getting a crop like lettuce going in a month or so isnt a problem... but getting nut trees, some vine and tree fruit can take years... so my thoughts are to try the dwarf varieties that get going faster, but plant the big ones straight away. Of course you also have to look strategically at replacing those trees as well... a lot to think about on a small operation.
Thoughts?
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Originally Posted by GaryD
