The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff - And Making a Profit [With CDROM]

by Richard Wiswall

Contrary to popular belief, a good living can be made on an organic farm. What's required is farming smarter, not harder.

In The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall shares advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient, better manage your employees and finances, and turn a profit. From his twenty-seven years of experience at Cate Farm in Vermont, Wiswall knows firsthand the joys of starting and operating an...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1603581421
• ISBN13: 9781603581424
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Farming is a BUSINESS.

Probably the most important book I'll read this year. Why? For Sustainable Farming to be TRULY Sustainable, farmers must be able to earn a living -- and that means healthcare, retirement funds, and college funds for the kids (those are costs of production too!). This book gives you the record keeping tools to get you there. Farming is a business - treat it like one. At least for an hour a week or so... Wiswall has earned his title as the "Uber Bean Counter of Organic Farming". This is all the UN-sexy boring stuff about Organic Farming. But, if you want to move from gardening to farming, and by that I mean earning money and scaling up, then you NEED to read this book. Why? Because of the all books on organic farming I have read, Wiswall's is the only one that tells you the hard truths. YES a business plan is important. YES itemize your receipts. DO a cash flow analysis. The difference between the a successful organic farmer and an EX-organic farmer comes down to record keeping and their knowledge and comfort with the IRS's Schedule F form. Can you make a living --and you owe it to your family to include health benefits, retirement savings and a college fund in your profit planning- I will give it a qualified YES. OF course we all know it takes massive know how on the procedure side --how to grow things well with less input- but even more so on the business side. Gardening is a hobby, farming is a BUSINESS. Not the most fun book, but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Start planning for profit, rather than making do with "what's left over".

Business and farming collections alike will find this a key acquisition

The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook is a top resource for any farmer trying to link their finances with farming realities. It shows how farmers can become more efficient, better managers of employees, and how they can turn a profit and is based on the author's twenty-seven years of experience at Cate Farm in Vermont. Business and farming collections alike will find this a key acquisition.

ask yourself the important questions

This book covers a lot of ground, from basic bookkeeping to crop-specific enterprise budgets. But my favorite thing about it is that is starts by asking the reader to consider his reasons for farming, and to use the resulting answers to create a personal statement of purpose. Even if you aren't a farmer, I would recommend reading the first two chapters and going through the process of prioritizing your values. I own a small farm, and with three years of trial and error experience now under my belt, I found this book an incredibly useful distillation of some of the lessons I've already learned as well as some great new ideas for making my farm more productive and financially sustainable.

farm saver

Great book for beginner farmers and small business owners with little experience and accounting background. Easy read, lots of great ideas based on tried experiences. Methods for calculating costs with regard to labour, machine use, supplies etc. will definitely be used on my farm and these formulas were worth the price of the book.

Organic Farming Handbook: It isn't Luck! Green Values and a Business Plan To Make A Buck

Author Richard Wiswall has been farming for over 25 years on a cool organic farm in Vermont. He has done farmers everywhere a service with this new book on running a profitable organic farming business. Fine writing, good examples of what he's writing about, and a workbook style approach made Wiswall's book come alive for me. I'd say he's written the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Organic Farmers, but there are at least ten habits farmers can learn about by reading this book. And as someone who runs a small business, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to succeed at building a business, growing a rich life for themselves and their community. [...] Loved the Tale of Two Brassicas where Wiswall tells how he learned the difference between growing kale and broccoli.