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Start Your Farm

Written by: Forrest Pritchard,Ellen Polishuk
Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies,Coleen Marlo
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Publisher's Summary

Do you dream of starting your own farm but wonder where to begin? Or do you already have a farm but wish to become more sustainable to compete in today's market? Start Your Farm, the first comprehensive business guide of its kind, covers these essential questions and more:

  • Why be a farmer in the 21st century? Do you have what it takes?
  • What does sustainable really mean, and how can a small (as little as one acre) to midsize farm survive alongside commodity-scale agriculture?
  • How do you access education, land, and other needs with limited capital?
  • How can you reap an actual profit, including a return on land investment?
  • How do you build connections with employees, colleagues, and customers?
  • At the end of the day, how do you measure success? (Hint: Cash your lifestyle paycheck.)  

More than a practical guide, Start Your Farm is a hopeful call to action for anyone who aspires to grow wholesome, environmentally sustainable food for a living. Take it from Forrest Pritchard and Ellen Polishuk: Making this dream a reality is not for the faint of heart, but it's well within reach - and there's no greater satisfaction under the sun!

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. 

©2018 Forrest Pritchard and Ellen Polishuk (P)2018 Tantor

What listeners say about Start Your Farm

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Great Book!

This is a great book to get a good insight into the business side of small/medium size farming. If you want to start a farm business, you need to listen to this book.

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Really enjoyed this

The book was read almost from a story perspective, but there were many gems of wisdom imparted that are so easy to forget when you are overwhelmed by daily farm chores!

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  • Avriel
  • 2020-06-03

More of an inspirational novel

This was my second audiobook after listening to "You Can Farm" by Joel Salatin, which set the bar pretty high. This was a nice listen, and helped motivate me towards my goal of starting a farm, but I did not learn anything new from this book. I expected to hear more about technique, marketing options, and applied knowledge. Instead, this book is more like a story combined with self-help advice. The book was also much shorter than I realized before purchasing. If you're looking for a "how to" type book, skip this one.

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16 people found this helpful

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  • David Pratt
  • 2018-10-20

Inspiring Book for Entrepreneurs

I listened to this book on my daily commute through Northern Virginia, a landscape of beautiful farm land and vineyards that is also being transformed into subdivisions. Now is a great time to start a sustainable farm business and Forrest and Ellen have wealth of first-hand experience to share. Lesson #1 no one will care about your business more than you. You will learn more from your mistakes and trial and error than your successes. Everything is important, from marketing to training your labor to finding efficiencies and especially to measuring everything you can to understand your costs and profitability.

The amazing thing is that it IS possible to farm in this era of CSAs and farmers markets and make a living as well as live a good life outdoors.

I liked the blending of two author voices and the alternate male and female audiobook narrators. They did a great job emphasizing what is already clear and easy-to-follow writing.

Some day I hope I am lucky enough to live on a farm with sheep in my yard, cows grazing in the fields and fresh eggs to gather and fry up over easy.

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11 people found this helpful

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  • ACustomerofAmazonWhoBuysThingsOnAmazon
  • 2019-09-15

a lot to think about!

This book was a wonderful introductory resource for those of us wanting to get into farming. Right now I'm a hobby farmer, but I would love to change that into being a full-time farmer who actually can make a living. This book gave me so much to think about and for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful about the possibility of being able to ditch the day job and actually make a living from my farm.

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  • Anonymous User
  • 2019-05-24

helps better your financial situation

even if your not going to farm, it's still gives helpful advice for all aspects of life.

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  • Anna
  • 2018-10-06

A good resource to have as audio and in print

Many people wax poetic about owning land or managing a productive farm. Until you dig your hands into the soil each day, face a brood of chickens at every dawn, or great customers when you would rather be counting sheep, you won't know what it means to run a farm. Buy this book to decide whether this life is for you. Ellen Polishuk and Forrest Pritchard have done it all, and it shows in their research and prose.

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  • Farrah
  • 2021-03-24

Great book to start!

Just getting into learning about farming. Love they harp on sustainability. Covers a wide variety of topics from a soil to business to livestock to managing family and relationships. Loved it and might even buy the hardcopy to reread!

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  • NELSON
  • 2018-09-28

SO disappointing

If you have listened to Forrest's first book on Audible, don't listen to this one! Go back and listen to the first one over again. This will make you regret ever learning his name. Sad. It doesn't even feel like he really wrote this Feels like a Ghost Writer. Horrible Readers both for male and female voices.

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  • Crafty Reader257
  • 2021-08-13

Quality info!

This book was easy to listen to, but there is a lot of information! If you're considering getting into any aspect of farming then I suggest you give this a good listen. Make notes, and listen again. I would back up, play, back up again, take more notes, then continue. I'm sure I still missed things.

Still, I'm glad I bought this and I think you will be too.

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  • CFr
  • 2021-06-05

not much value

Not much value here. A long guide to common sense. Thank goodness for one interesting chapter on soils.

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  • Thor
  • 2019-07-08

This book is a perfect blend between philosophy and practicality.

This book is a perfect blend between philosophy and practicality. It contains a wealth of experiential wisdom and gives as much attention to the motivations, outlook, and value system necessary to farming as it does to the practical, scientific, and economic implications. Fantastic book, I highly recommend that any and all beginner farmers hear them out and take their principles to heart!

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