Earning Income from Our Small Farm

If you’ve read any of the past posts about our country dream you will know we wanted to operate a small business from our farm. I’ve shared with you a number of small farm side hustles and those we plan on trying. Today it felt like the hard work has paid off and our dream to earn an income from a small farm is actually happening. If you think your dream to earn income from a small farm is impossible, this post might inspire you to give something you’re passionate about a go. Let me share with you what we’ve been doing behind the scenes and our challenges so far.

Hosting Farm Tours To Earn income from a small farm

One way to earn an income from a small farm we decided upon was hosting farm tours. Visitors coming to the farm seemed like a no-brainer to us. Families love a day out, especially if the day involves cute farm animals. It seemed like a simple thing to do: get some insurance, plan an itinerary and open the doors. Our state government and tourism board are currently promoting agritourism. We thought they’d love our idea. Which they did. A large group tour chain wants to include us in their offer! Sadly, our insurance company did not think it was a good idea. They dropped us like a hot potato. It took some time to find a new insurance company.

Undeterred we kept on trying and have hosted two large farm tours and a number of very small tours for young families. To add an extra layer of protection we ask people who come to the farm to sign an electronic waiver. We provide guests with a safety talk before we begin each tour. Guests understand we take no responsibility if their children are not supervised correctly.

Setting Up For School Visits

As a teacher, I’ve been on many useless excursions over the years. Sometimes you pay hundreds of dollars and get nothing but stress. It’s easier to stay at school! When thinking about opening our farm to the public, Gavin and I thought having excursions would fill a huge gap in the market. We have a couple of wildlife and environment centres around our city but there is nowhere where children can have a day of outdoor education centred around life on a farm. That’s how The Country Classroom was born. So far we’ve hosted a few schools and held an open day to introduce teachers to our unique program. It’s been a learning curve for sure, but we’re improving and refining with each excursion we offer.

Keeping it Simple and Themed

The Dairy has become the epicentre for our tours and school trips. During tours, the dairy is a place for guests to check in or sit with a cuppa and afternoon tea. The space becomes a teaching area when we have schools as well as a place to store bags and get changed after muddy play.

Using hay bales and cut-up sections of logs for seating keeps things simple and rustic. If the weather is fine, we can sit under the trees in the garden. If it’s colder we sit inside. We’ve carried our theme into sanitising stations too, using galvanised buckets for food scraps when visitors eat lunch and buckets of soapy water and sanitiser to keep things hygienic and Covid safe.

The Biggest Challenge So Far

Our biggest challenge so far in earning an income from a small farm has definitely been our perfectionism. We want to provide a quality product. We want people to have a great time because they are paying for this experience. The first couple of times we hosted we worked for hours beforehand getting ready and it was exhausting. It does make you question whether you are making a good choice. But every time we’ve hosted it gets easier and we have a system working now that means we still get our Sunday morning in bed!

How did we do that so quickly? Debriefing. After every tour, we decamp to our local coffee shop and discuss how we can refine the process, what worked well and what we can do to improve. For our little business to succeed this is essential. We’ve asked for feedback too. It can be hard to hear constructive criticism but it’s necessary if we want to provide the most pleasant experience for us and our guests.