'How to start a farm with no money' it sounds crazy right?. I equally felt he same when I first heard about about the statement, and I thought its neither pragmatic nor worthy an idea pursuing.
But with deep reflection of our current situation you will understand that it is actually what we should start doing. It is exactly what most most young Malawians are actually thinking about, and exactly what I have been thinking for long.
With the growing rate of unemployment among young Malawians, there is a movement among the youth youth towards self employment. Agriculture is one such enterprise that us the youth see feasible and easier to venture into but main obstacles we face are lack of land and startup capital, qualified as the basic factors of production.
That compelled me to go into search of ideas regarding how I could still establish a farm even if I have no money. The YouTube video by John Suscovich saved as the light at the end of tunnel.
In this video John Suscovich presents two things that enabled him start a farm without grant money;
1. Make little savings and invest in your farm
2. Be resourceful, think on your feet, make something out of nothing;
find the cheapest land (see pic below) you can get, either from village heads like in Malawi situation or asking to utilize part of most idle lands we see around and then eventually purchase permanently. Make sure all resources will be reused and/or recycled.
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| The cheapest land I have got from Salima district, it is a virgin land |
Having found solutions to main stumbling blocks when you want to start a farm,and now that you are set and more than eager to start farming I would also like to give you some 9 Nice Rules that I read from www.artofmanliness.com about starting your farm, I will just revise them here for you;
Rule #1: Avoid Debt!
Farming doesn’t HAVE to be financed with borrowed money. Avoiding debt should be a primary goal for any new farmer, even if they have to start very, very small for a few years. That’s how our farm started. And clearly, I still save my pennies.
In a nutshell, debt (borrowing money, with interest) allows us
to accelerate our goals, turning dreams of tomorrow into realities of today.
While borrowed money might buy us a tractor, a new barn, or even the land we’ll
be farming, experience, the most valuable farming asset of all, cannot be purchased.
Experience doesn’t come with a Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture, and it
certainly doesn’t come from a book. Agriculture is fraught with uncertainties,
surprises, and intellectual challenges.
Rule #2: Allow Yourself the Opportunity to Fail
It’s okay to fail. Moreover, in farming, it’s important to fail. While painful at first, failure
can be an enormously useful tool. It helps us learn our personal limits of time
and energy. It’s an instrumental timesaver in the long run, letting us know
what works well, and what’s a complete boondoggle. Failure provides us
perspective for future enterprises, making us intellectually stronger, more
emotionally resilient.
Rule #3: Identify Your Market Before You Start Farming
Before you plant that first seed, raise your layer hen, or milk your cattle, take the time (lots and lots of time) to figure out where you’re going to sell your products, who is going to buy them, and how you’re going to do it. Once you’ve done this,
create a backup plan. Then, come up with another backup
plan. Chances are you’re going to need them.
Rule #4: Match the Land to Its Suited Use
We can try to force our
human dreams onto the land, or we can work with what nature gives us.
Involve right people to evaluate your land and recommend how best you can utilise it, s for my Salima Land above, its perfect for livestock production.
Rule #5: Grow Your Passion
Everyone knows that farming
is hard work. So do yourself a favor: grow something that you love. It may seem like common
sense, but we often find our decisions driven more by finances, tradition, or
inertia than by something we truly love.
Rule #7: Don’t Worry about What Other People Think
There’s an old saying that
goes, “The easiest way over the wall is through the door.” In this case,
perhaps it’s an open gate. There’s nothing more satisfying than following our
own intuition, and being true to our dreams.
People will always talk their opinion about everything you do, my advise is follow you heart. Listen but in the end make a final decision that you won't look back and regret. Let them talk and they will change the talk with your progress but be film on your decision.
Rule #8: Have a Sense of Humor
When it comes
to farming, it’s only a matter of life or death.
Think about it for a second. Take an average day at a mainstream job.
What’s the worst that typically happens? A client gets pissed off, or an irate
customer reams out the supervisor.
On any given day on a farm,
things die. And not in any noble, dignified, or discreet kind
of way, either. Things die screaming, eviscerated, and—more often than we’d
care to think about—partially masticated.
Frankly, it
puts this whole farming thing in perspective pretty quickly. And faced with the
possibility of daily mayhem, a sense of humor can be a handy-dandy coping
mechanism.
Rule #9: Read. Ask Questions. Share Your Knowledge.
Okay, so this
is really numbers nine, ten, and eleven all rolled into one. Consider it a farming
Venn diagram.
Don’t like to
read? Start. Read everything that hits your intellectual radar.
Shy? Get up
near the teacher if you want to learn anything.
Have an ego?
Better to lose it now, before Mother Nature loses it for you.
Last but not
least (bonus rule!): Be generous with your knowledge, especially with people
who want to learn from you.
