My guest for this episode is Jean-Martin Fortier, the author of The Market Gardener and Canadian Small Scale Farmer. During our conversation today we discuss how he came to farming, his on-farm practices, how small is profitable, and the importance of standardization and simple practices. Together he, his wife, and two farm workers raised and sold over $140,000 in produce during the last growing season, with a net profit of $70,000 for him and his family, all on an acre and a half of intensively managed garden beds.
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Here is a model for anyone who wants to farm successfully.
In my review of Mr. Fortier’s book, and in this interview, I expressed how much I enjoyed his work. This is a handbook that I wish I’d had when first setting up my front yard garden. Combine this book with Peter Bane’s The Permaculture Handbook and you have all the makings of a small-scale permaculture farm that is holistic and integrative, with a Zone One Vegetable garden that can provide regular and routine cash crops, while developing perennial agriculture systems in other areas.
Resources
The Market Gardener Market Gardening Tools
On the subject of small-scale farming, you may enjoy listening to the life and times of starting and running a farm, including those with my friend Erin Harvey of The Kale Yard, and Wayne Herring, of Herring’s Green Grass Farm. Give those a listen and have a better understanding of whether or not this life of farming is for you.
Erin Harvey
Starting a Small Scale Farm
Wayne Herring
Starting a Sustainable Family Farm
Farming During Transition
Listener Questions - Small Scale Farming