[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What to do with a coffee plantation with abo...
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Ask HN: What to do with a coffee plantation with about 8000 trees?
My dad left me a coffee plantation and I have no experience in this
at all, nor did he. It is freshly planted so it won't reach peak
production until around 2026. But I want to learn how I could go
about taking care of it and eventually start selling beans. Do you
have any resource I can take a look at to learn more about coffee
and its production process?
Author : tsingy
Score : 209 points
Date : 2022-12-24 09:54 UTC (13 hours ago)
| J253 wrote:
| I'm a home roaster and buy my green beans from a website called
| www.sweetmarias.com. Everything about this company is awesome but
| there's guy there named Tom who knows probably as much as anyone
| could know about the entire coffee process from growing to
| wholesaling to roasting. He always travels to farms to meets with
| growers before purchasing. I guarantee if you get a hold of their
| customer service and explain your situation, you'll be able to
| get a hold of someone there who can give you answers to most of
| your coffee-related questions.
| tsingy wrote:
| Thanks a lot, I will reach out to them.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| Let's be realistic here, your only option is to sell it.
|
| Recap the facts: - You've confirmed you have
| no experience ("I have no experience in this at all")
| - You've confirmed your dad had no experience ("nor did he") ...
| so how do you know it's "good" land, or you dad did a good job
| until now ? Are you sure there are no "skeletons in the cupboard"
| ? - You haven't got long ("around 2026"), we're
| entering 2023 now, 3 years will fly by. You have no experience,
| you have no coffee bean buyers lined up (in what is a very
| competitive market). - Remember you are also taking on
| MORE financial risk by continuing because you will doubtless be
| required to incur CAPEX and OPEX expenses. So not only could it
| become a mental headache for you, but it could easily become a
| financial blackhole too.
|
| You _could_ lease it out, but do you _HONESTLY_ (a) want the
| headache of managing tenants, legal contracts, collecting rent
| and all that jazz (b) have enough experience to make sure you are
| not getting screwed and your tenants treating the land well ?
| kevmo314 wrote:
| No need to be so discouraging. Is it likely to be a lucrative
| business? Probably not. Is it likely to be even profitable?
| Probably not. But if OP wants to learn, why suggest their only
| option is to sell it? We don't tell our kids to give up
| programming because they have no idea how much pain dealing
| with javascript is.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > No need to be so discouraging
|
| I'm not being discouraging, I am being realistic.
|
| I am looking at the situation from someone who has no ties to
| the situation. Taking the completely objective view with no
| bias.
|
| I am looking at the situation who has been involved in small
| businesses, I know how tough running a small business is ....
| running a small farming business with zero experience will be
| sheer hell, frankly.
|
| If they had a couple of decades to learn, that might be one
| thing... but they have stated they have three years (2023 -
| 2026). The hard reality is that you are not going to become a
| farming wizard in three years. You are taking on a lot of
| stress and a lot of financial risk. 21st century farming is a
| tough business with tight margins and near-zero tolerance for
| mistakes.
| rippercushions wrote:
| OP has zero years, not three, because the choices they make
| today (and their father already made) will have a huge
| impact on the quantity and quality of the future crop.
| quacked wrote:
| I think the move you're missing is getting in on the ground
| floor with a solid ownership share to an experienced coffee
| grower. A 51/49 ownership split or a similar arrangement
| could be a life-changing opportunity for an experienced
| farmhand or manager. (Of course OP will not be able to tell
| the sharks from the real helpers and this would still be a
| gamble unlikely to pay off--it just could also be an
| incredible life experience that assists in later success.)
|
| I would say that if OP has a family and isn't already
| loaded, sell outright, but if they're younger and willing
| to go through hell they definitely should try to be
| involved in growing coffee beans.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, or you get screwed out of your share in some tricky
| way. If you do not have experience in the market how do
| you know if you're getting cleaned out?
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| > I'm not being discouraging, I am being realistic
|
| Hardly, you don't know anything about how difficult it is
| to do what they're trying to do. For all you know it's a
| crop that essentially grows itself and has a huge market
| demand so selling is easy. Your experience in unrelated
| small businesses in another country has very little
| bearing.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > it's a crop that essentially grows itself and has a
| huge market demand so selling is easy.
|
| I'm sorry but you're hilarious.
|
| There is no such thing as "grows itself" and there is no
| such thing as "easy selling".
|
| Many years of experience can make growing _LOOK_ easy.
|
| Many years of experience and contacts can make selling
| _LOOK_ easy.
|
| But the reality is it isn't.
|
| I mean, look at programming.
|
| Anybody can learn to program. Anybody can use boilerplate
| code and WYSIWIG editors to make code that "essentially
| writes itself".
|
| There is also "huge market demand" for programming.
|
| But the reality is people, especially the good paying
| people, want experienced programmers, not noobs.
|
| An experienced programmer can make programming _LOOK_
| easy. An experienced programmer can have a book of high-
| paying clients. But that is due to the experience.
| mtsr wrote:
| You're potentially setting the bar very high, though.
| Sure, experienced programmers can command very high
| rates. But even mediocre programmers can make a good
| living.
|
| The same could very well hold for a coffee plantation.
| I've seen something like it with an
| orange/nispero/avocado orchard. Yes, it's easy to make
| mistakes and it's not easy to get rich. But break-even is
| quite possibly not that hard to achieve.
|
| As another poster mentioned, these things are very
| regional. In the orange orchard case, there happens to be
| a cooperative in almost every larger village in the whole
| region. You can easily source everything you need there
| and you can sell your produce wholesale. Both at fair
| rates, since the neighbors also go there and they pay/get
| the same. And there's plenty of neighbors who will be
| willing to help out (although you might also find those
| who want you to fail to buy your land). And for the day-
| to-day you can make use of the experience of day
| labourers that you can pretty much always find in these
| areas.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Don't cherry pick words to change the meaning of people's
| sentences, it makes you seem disingenuous.
|
| Edit: see also the top-level comment from the former
| actual coffee farmer who said that there's not that much
| to do outside the harvesting season. This goes to my
| actual point, which is that your experience in a totally
| different field doesn't translate. Now that's hilarious.
| behringer wrote:
| Honestly I don't buy your argument. In the US you can
| take your crop to the nearest grain elevator and sell it
| by the truckload. If there's a way to unload your coffee
| in Madagascar the same way, one only needs to learn how
| to tend the farm.
|
| Without any experience in coffee farming, I can't say if
| that's as easy as shaking the tree under a barrow or
| what.
|
| I really don't see how you could know any more than that.
|
| Yes running a business can be hard, but not necessarily.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Friends bought a relatively large olive plantation. They
| had a ton of savings, moved from NL to Portugal and went
| 'all in' It took them more than a decade before they
| really got the hang of it. By then their savings had
| depleted and they had no other option than to flee
| forward and really make it a success. It worked, barely.
| There is no such thing as a 'crop that essentially grows
| itself'. It may seem like that to people that visit
| supermarkets rather than farmhouses, toolsheds and
| plantations. Any kind of cash crop will require money
| invested upfront (land, plants, this part seems to be
| covered), money until maturation (irrigation, fencing,
| possibly pruning depending on the crop), money to
| harvest. And if you're lucky they pay-off from the
| harvest covers all those other costs, or hopefully at
| least a substantial fraction. And if it doesn't there's
| always chapter 11...
|
| When you're used to the kind of income that software can
| generate farming anything seems like very hard work, even
| when it works well.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's discouraging. It's _encouraging_. Encouraging to sell,
| because that decision makes by far the most sense. If I
| inherited a business that I have no experience in and that I
| would not have started by myself I wouldn 't even bother with
| an 'Ask HN', I would have been on the phone to someone who
| brokers coffee plantations. Besides that, I don't drink
| coffee so I wouldn't even know if my product is any good.
| jrockway wrote:
| > We don't tell our kids to give up programming because they
| have no idea how much pain dealing with javascript is.
|
| Learning to program is low risk, high reward. The absolute
| worst thing that can come from failing is the hard drive
| space used by VSCode and the lost evenings you were going to
| waste on Minecraft anyway. Meanwhile, the reward is a
| lucrative software engineering job or at least the ability to
| make neat stuff. No reason not to give it a try; if you like
| it, you gained a new skill. If you dislike it, you find some
| other hobby. A maximum of $0 will be spent. Maybe $20 if you
| buy a book or something.
|
| The same is not true of an industrial coffee farm. Property
| tax bills will come due. Employees have to be hired and then
| fired when you fail. Specialized machinery needs to be
| purchased and will be useless when you give up.
|
| If you've got a few million dollars in your bank account
| that's burning a hole in your pocket, then I suppose "learn
| the coffee trade by buying a full-scale manor" is something
| you could do. If you don't, then cash out now and use the
| money to build a business you'll actually succeed in. If you
| just want to learn how to grow and roast coffee, plant a
| coffee tree in your backyard. When you get bored and it dies,
| pay someone $200 to remove it.
|
| I definitely get these ideas in my head all the time. I was
| watching some video about a box factory and was like I should
| own a box factory. You get a cool industrial loft, and there
| are machines in there, and guys with trucks come to pick up
| your boxes. Easy money easy life!! The I realize the video is
| a safety investigation video and the box factory blew up and
| killed everyone in the neighborhood because water coming into
| the plant had too much oxygen in it and am like; wait I don't
| know anything about any of this stuff. I will stick to
| programming for the time being.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I was really worried this post was going to be about selling it
| so I came by to say don't!
|
| I don't have any answers about how to make coffee but two
| thoughts:
|
| * start a brr.fyi blog about it, we love that here
|
| * if Jason Mraz can do it, so can you!
| tsingy wrote:
| Will do as soon some change happen I promise.
|
| Well Jason Mraz has access to capital I don't, money makes
| doing business easier.
|
| Thanks for the nice words.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I'd diversify the plantation with many fruit trees, you get some
| seasonal workers (who collect and sell at market). As a
| fruitarian, I'd love to be in your position
| tsingy wrote:
| I thought about and I'm already looking for trees / fruits that
| grow well with coffee. I too think it's a great opportunity,
| but the lack of knowledge about the subject scares me.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| I actually know a family with a small coffee plantation. I can
| put you in touch if you're interested. Let me know and we can
| figure out a way to contact each other securely.
| tsingy wrote:
| Big YES, please if it's not a bother. Thanks a lot, e-mail is
| in bio.
| cristiioan wrote:
| I don't think asking here is the best idea
| gk1 wrote:
| I'm constantly surprised by the kinds of people found on HN. If
| you told me yesterday there's an active HN reader who owns a
| 25,000-tree coffee farm in Colombia... and yet here we are.
| Magi604 wrote:
| The reasonable answer here, unfortunately, is to sell it, for
| reasons that others in this thread have pointed it out.
|
| The YOLO "hollywood movie"/NYT best seller answer, however, is to
| drop everything you're doing, go to Madagascar, spend some time
| trying and failing (with hijinx!) to grow the crop yourself. Your
| neighbors at first are distant and doubtful, but slowly you gain
| their respect. 15 years from today, tsingy brand coffee is a
| household name.
| hinkley wrote:
| Plus you meet your soulmate who is living monk-like because
| they are still devastated from the mother/father of their
| children passing away suddenly four years ago. Finally their
| kids tell them it's time to move on and you get married six
| months later.
| diego wrote:
| I mostly agree. The way I would face this decision is like
| this:
|
| 1) Do I enjoy the coffee business? Would I have bought that
| plantation if the opportunity had arisen? If the answer is no,
| selling is most likely the right answer.
|
| 2) That being said, it's not like the plantation is a hot
| potato that needs to be sold right away. OP has some time to
| check it out, learn about the business and decide if this is
| something worth trying for a few years. How long to try for?
| What's the opportunity cost? They would decide to invest a
| limited amount of time (e.g. one year of work) and then
| reevaluate at the end. I would timebox this decision process
| too. Perhaps learn all you can in a month and decide if you
| want to give it a shot? Part of this process should involve
| getting in touch with people in the industry and seeing if you
| like interacting with them. In the end, most of your job will
| be about interacting with the different types of players in
| your industry.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| The reality though is you could plant 100 - 200 fruit trees and
| make the same amount of money each year as the coffee
| plantation with 99% less work.
| paulkrush wrote:
| This is such an odd post for HN and it got real attention. What
| gives?
| ricberw wrote:
| One word: SimFarm
|
| If you try, you'll probably end up with locust swarms.
| carapace wrote:
| You might look into "Syntropic" agriculture and "Permaculture".
| The basic idea is to mimic natural ecosystems with agriculturally
| productive plants and animals.
|
| https://agendagotsch.com/en/what-is-syntropic-farming/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
| tsingy wrote:
| Will looks into those, thanks a lot. As I want to be
| environmentally friendly these a really interesting.
| beAbU wrote:
| Most of my family are farmers. It's crazy hard work, requiring a
| massive amount of effort and know-how. Most of my farming
| relatives are better educated than me from a pure academic
| perspective.
|
| Making a success of a commercial farm requires deep knowledge of
| the crop, the land, the weather and the local pests. Gone are the
| days of doing things the way your forefathers did things. Moreso
| if you actually want to be competitive in the market that you are
| producing for.
|
| Please dont make the romantic mistake of thinking you will become
| this farmer and it's all sunshine and success. One bad crop
| (which could be because of no fault of your own) can mean
| financial ruin.
|
| My advice: rub shoulders with the locals in the area. Maybe
| theres a farmer interested in renting your land and trees.
| Alternatively, appoint an expert to manage and run the farm for
| you.
|
| Theres a certain romanticism associated whith owning land you
| inherited. But you have to be honest with yourself and look at
| the numbers. If it's not your expertise and the financials don't
| make sense you'll probably be better off selling the land.
|
| My dad and I had exactly this conversation recently. He has some
| land that he got from his father, that he's renting out to the
| farming relatives. My dad's at the age now where he needs to plan
| for what happens to his estate. We looked at the numbers and
| relaized me and my brother will be better off selling and taking
| the money. In my country you are liable to pay hefty taxes on
| inheritance. Neither of us have the reserves to pay those taxes
| on a piece of land we have no idea how to run or manage. You
| inherit an asset that you are forced to liquidate in order to
| afford the inheritance taxes on that asset.
| mccorrinall wrote:
| > One bad crop (which could be because of no fault of your own)
| can mean financial ruin.
|
| You can hedge crop in many ways. Give Terry Duffy a call.
| vehementi wrote:
| There is also insurance, and other income stabilization
| options
| vikR0001 wrote:
| > You inherit an asset that you are forced to liquidate in
| order to afford the inheritance taxes on that asset.
|
| Do you live in France by any chance?
| beAbU wrote:
| Nope, South Africa.
| georgyo wrote:
| This is true in the US as well. Though it only affects people
| with larger inheritances.
|
| https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/estates/what-are-
| inheri...
|
| Out of scope for this comment, but there are several ways
| these taxs is avoided.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > In my country you are liable to pay hefty taxes on
| inheritance. Neither of us have the reserves to pay those taxes
| on a piece of land we have no idea how to run or manage.
|
| 1. Borrow against the land to pay the inheritance taxes.
|
| 2. Rent the land to a farmer, use the cashflow to pay off the
| inheritance tax loan until it's paid off.
|
| 3. Keep renting the land to receive cash income.
|
| If the cashflow from renting the land is not enough to pay off
| the tax loan, sell the land.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Naive.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| This is not a helpful contribution to the discussion.
| ticviking wrote:
| Hopeful, and for someone who wants to commit to preserve
| that inheritance not the most insane approach I've heard.
|
| Are you aware of better strategies to do that?
| tsingy wrote:
| I will hire people for sure. I can manage numbers and people,
| not a farm. Seems like France laws about inheritance.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| I will agree with parent comment and add a personal anecdote
| that perhaps provides some models for you to consider.
|
| I am a farm boy. There was one night many decades ago where I
| said to myself: "You can either wrap your head around DiffEQ,
| pass the course, and graduate with an engineering degree, or go
| home and clean hog barns for the rest of your life." I chose
| option A. While this makes a good story, it is also the literal
| truth. The point being, I grew up in farming and understand it,
| but have little desire to manage a farm myself. Same goes for
| my wife.
|
| Eventually with the passage of time, we inherited farm land.
| Our path has been to rent the land to farmer operators that we
| have good relationships with, and manage the leasing ourselves.
| If course, with the advice of an attorney and an accountant
| that are both local to the area where the farms are and who do
| a lot of farm-related practice. We feel we understand farming
| well enough to engage with farmer-operators and negotiate fair
| rents, get soil-conservation terms in our lease agreements that
| we desire, negotiate capital improvement projects that are
| mutually beneficial (some of our farm land had drainage tile
| installed a few years back, for example.)
|
| If you go this path, you will want local legal and accounting
| advice. You should also understand enough of the "big picture"
| items like the ebb-and-flow of the pricing of the commodity in
| question, how that impacts rents, the rent models used with
| operators for that particular commodity, and any farming
| practices that you with to enforce, such as soil and water
| conservation, appropriate use of pesticides and herbicides, who
| gets the rent from pollinators if that applies, etc.
|
| Option 2 is farm management companies. My farm land is in Iowa
| and Minnesota, so hardly coffee country. It is corn (maize) and
| soy bean country. There is a corn-belt farm management company
| called Hertz farm management that is one of the large,
| reputable farm management companies that many people in our
| situation use. You might be able to find an equivalent firm.
| This is a good option if you want something more turn-key, and
| don't feel that you have sufficient expertise be a landlord-
| with-a-clue.
| beAbU wrote:
| Your note about local services is super important. Local
| lawyers, accountants, banks and suppliers. People who
| understand the land, the crop, the challenges and all that.
| In my locality we have hyper local banks that only specialize
| in loans for local farmers. They understand the market, their
| clients and the associated risks.
|
| 300km in any direction is far enough that the rules are
| different.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Your answer and the parent's are both awesome. Thanks to both
| of you.
| voisin wrote:
| > You inherit an asset that you are forced to liquidate in
| order to afford the inheritance taxes on that asset.
|
| It is worth speaking with an estate lawyer or accountant. There
| are strategies to avoid this that differ based on country, but
| insurance usually plays a role. It is, in my opinion, unfair
| that someone would be forced by taxes to sell the birthright
| that their parent spent a lifetime working for. Good luck.
| vikR0001 wrote:
| Do you live in France by any chance?
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I assume this is also the case in a lot of other countries,
| but where I live the inheritance rules are different for farm
| land/assets. There's still a tax on it, but the lower limit
| is much higher, and I think the rate might be lower too.
|
| I think the aim of this is to avoid breaking up already
| poorly performing farms, and because the business tend to be
| low-revenue but high in assets (land, mostly). Doesn't hurt
| that farmers are a huge voting block here.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| And to others birthright and fairness in one sentence looks
| really strange ;)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Birthright" is this concept that can easily be accepted
| without question as cosmically inherent. But when you
| examine it, it doesn't really make any sense at all. It's a
| great way to perpetuate inequality, especially wholly
| unearned inequality.
| kqr wrote:
| There are multiple forms of birthright, too. The one
| we're used to is the right of aggregation -- I had one,
| inherited another, and now I have two.
|
| Another form is the right of selection -- I have one,
| here's another one that just become unowned, and I get
| dibs on choosing that over my own. If I retain my own,
| the other lapses to the public. If I choose the other,
| mine does.
| tosc wrote:
| > But when you examine it, it doesn't really make any
| sense at all. It's a great way to perpetuate inequality,
| especially wholly unearned inequality.
|
| This paragraph doesn't make any sense at all either.
|
| The reason is that there is no meaning whatsoever to the
| concept of earned inequality, and therefore no meaning to
| the idea of 'unearned' inequality.
| zo1 wrote:
| One could argue that it's "cosmically inherent" that
| something you earn through your own labor (of the body
| that you control/own?) should be yours do with as you
| please, so long as it doesn't hurt others. If you can't
| accept that fundamental property, we are quite frankly
| serfs, which is a few steps away from slaves. Slaves not
| only didn't own their own body, but they also didn't own
| the fruits of their labor.
| awinder wrote:
| You can balance the real dual-interests at play here
| through progressive taxation, allowing for transfers of
| wealth that only marginally accelerate society-wide
| wealth disparity. The slaves/serfs lingo is a little
| stretched when it applies necessarily to other people,
| and those other people have had their entire lives to
| benefit from the wealth of the other person anyways.
| nkrisc wrote:
| > One could argue that it's "cosmically inherent" that
| something you earn through your own labor (of the body
| that you control/own?) should be yours do with as you
| please, so long as it doesn't hurt others.
|
| Why is it only "cosmically inherent" as long as you don't
| hurt others? Has the tiger no cosmically inherent right
| to his meal? The truth is he doesn't, he must defend his
| kill if necessary.
|
| The truth is you must defend what you've earned as well,
| either by force or through mutual agreement (society).
|
| We, as a society, have agreed to grant each other
| exclusive rights to what we've earned. Of course that
| hasn't always been the case throughout history. Don't
| bring the cosmos into it, it happens through mutual
| consent, because we choose to.
|
| Your rights are man-made, don't take them for granted.
| They only exist so long as everyone agrees they do.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| [flagged]
| dismantlethesun wrote:
| I'm not sure why the idea of perpetuating inequality
| "doesn't make sense". For most of human history that's
| literally what civilization has been about: building on
| the efforts of your ancestors to be better than your
| neighbors, other tribes, and eventually other empire who
| would rather see you fail.
|
| Note I am not arguing that inequality is an unvarnished
| good or that history isn't filled with violence and sin.
| However, that's a far cry from saying simply that
| "birthright" doesn't make sense at least when talking
| about purely physical items to be inherited.
| kaibee wrote:
| > However, that's a far cry from saying simply that
| "birthright" doesn't make sense at least when talking
| about purely physical items to be inherited.
|
| Land in particular is a special case because more cannot
| be created (without absolutely massive capital projects
| and those require some special thinking, but they are
| outliers).
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-
| progr...
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/does-georgism-work-
| is-...
| dismantlethesun wrote:
| I will agree that land is a special case, but that's why
| we tax it continually.
|
| I think society needs property tax to perform well, or
| else people will horde control of land under the mistaken
| belief that they can sell or rent it for high prices. You
| need tax to bring people back to reality and force them
| to use it productively in the present.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| In the context of one society where some forms of wealth
| is claimed as "birthright" and thus perpetuating
| inequality is what does not make sense to me... meaning
| it is not fair.
| sethd wrote:
| Are you saying it's unfair to inherit something?
| ehnto wrote:
| It's obviously a nuanced discussion, but it's certainly a
| personal windfall to inherit land. It's hard to call it
| unfair, that's just life, but comparing one person who
| inherited land to someone who did not, it's clear who has
| the luckiest version of that scenario.
| voisin wrote:
| As long as there is sufficiently high property taxes that
| owners of land are forced to put it to societally useful
| purpose in order to pay the tax, I don't see an issue
| with land inheritances. I don't agree with "deemed
| disposition" tax rules that act as if the land was "sold"
| to the inheritor, triggering massive capital gains taxes.
| j-krieger wrote:
| It's unfair to keep large amounts of generational wealth
| untaxed in the family while hard working people are
| taxed.
| cf141q5325 wrote:
| Parents payed taxes when they acquired their possessions.
| I dont see why they should have a double tax burden.
| c22 wrote:
| Two hard working people are born in poverty. They each
| work hard and reap the rewards of their success. They
| both pay income tax on their gains. One of the people
| spends their lifetime of accrued wealth on themselves,
| buying a nice car, a huge house, and luxury goods they
| don't really need. The other person is concerned about
| the future of their only child and lives well below their
| means, when they die they will their estate to their
| child who immediately stops working and never works
| again. Is that fair?
|
| Now consider a third person who also cares for their
| child. This person also lives frugally but instead of
| saving their wealth every year they buy their kid fancy
| cars and luxury goods. They die penniless but their kid
| never had to work a day in their life. Is that fair?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It confuses work ethic with fairness. It works because we
| incorrectly associate good work ethic with positive
| outcomes. This is a particular to our current time and
| place in society and we should be very cautious when
| attempting to universalize it.
|
| It would be good to reframe it with consequentialism in
| mind to reveal the unspoken truths of the examples.
| saghm wrote:
| > Two hard working people are born in poverty. They each
| work hard and reap the rewards of their success. They
| both pay income tax on their gains. One of the people
| spends their lifetime of accrued wealth on themselves,
| buying a nice car, a huge house, and luxury goods they
| don't really need. The other person is concerned about
| the future of their only child and lives well below their
| means, when they die they will their estate to their
| child who immediately stops working and never works
| again. Is that fair?
|
| Ten generations later, the descendants of the first
| person have all been able to expand their wealth purely
| due to the wealth that their ancestor had. None of them
| have had to work hard for generations, but they all
| vigorously defend their right to give their wealth to
| their kids without taxes so that they also don't have to
| work hard. Meanwhile, the descendants of the second
| person are unable to acquire wealth due to the advantage
| that people like the first person have in controlling
| capital, and they all work menial jobs for people like
| the first person. Is that fair?
| voisin wrote:
| No, it isn't fair but that can be avoided by adding
| friction to wealth via an annual wealth tax, and then
| only applying it on the largest (100m+) fortunes. I don't
| think anyone thinks someone who works hard and saves
| shouldn't be able to pass on a few million, or even tens
| of millions, to their descendant. But what you refer to
| is equally true - no one but the beneficiaries agree that
| someone should be born into monstrous wealth and be able
| to sustain generation after generation on the basis only
| of winning the ovarian lottery.
|
| I, personally, would have a tax of 100% on all wealth
| over $100m.
| philwelch wrote:
| It would take an extraordinary amount of discipline to
| maintain that wealth ten generations down the line. "Rags
| to rags in three generations" is a saying for a reason.
| c22 wrote:
| I limited my hypotheticals to a single generation because
| I was interested in learning specifically what it is
| about _inheritence_ that people find unfair.
|
| Your response would seem to posit a different set of
| questions, namely _should capital be used to make
| decisions for society_ and _does a concentration of
| capital force those without to work a lifetime of menial
| jobs?_
|
| I'm less interested in addressing these questions since
| I've heard a lot about them before and I think it will
| take us on a further tangent from the original
| discussion. But I will just say that I see no difference
| between a first generation person who doesn't work and a
| tenth generation person who doesn't work beyond perhaps
| an abstract greater disconnection from the rest of
| society and the concept of hard working. And that for
| capital to have influence over society it must be
| deployed which carries with it the risk of losing said
| capital.
| voisin wrote:
| I think the answer is to treat capital gains and
| dividends the same as ordinary employment income and
| subject to the same tax rates. Perhaps introduce a sub-1%
| wealth tax per annum on very large fortunes (100m+) to
| add friction that the wealthy have to work to counteract.
| bushbaba wrote:
| *and to treat loans against capital assets as taxable
| income. Otherwise we'll keep seeing the wealthy avoid
| taxation by loaning against their assets. So long as
| rates stay relatively low.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Maybe stop taxing any of it...
| someguydave wrote:
| maybe the government should tax consumption instead of
| work or investment?
| c22 wrote:
| Most governments seem to tax all of these things.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| My situation is unique, and when I inherit it's moral and
| just - my parents worked so hard, we earned this, it's
| unfair to have so much tax.
|
| When others inherit, society needs to take their wealth
| and redistribute it. Their situation is not like mine.
| These millionaires and billionaires got lucky and their
| kids don't deserve to be rich for no reason.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Hard to tell if this is sarcasm.
| Sholmesy wrote:
| Is it hard?
| praxulus wrote:
| Of course it's unfair. It's the definition of unequal
| opportunity.
|
| That doesn't necessarily mean it's immoral or should be
| illegal, but how could you argue that it's fair that some
| people get free money while others don't by the luck of
| their birth?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| I work really hard _so that_ I can give things to my
| children. They're mine to give.
| praxulus wrote:
| So did my parents. I'm going to be a father any day now,
| and you can be sure I'll do the same.
|
| I don't see how it's "fair" that I was born to
| hardworking, financially responsible parents, while most
| others were less lucky though.
| c22 wrote:
| The same way it's fair when two people each buy a raffle
| ticket and one of them wins while the other doesn't?
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| That's not the same. Everyone can buy a raffle ticket,
| you can't randomly re-select your parents.
| pmontra wrote:
| Actually nobody selected their own parents or when and
| where they were born. That's a random selection that
| cannot be undone.
| c22 wrote:
| I don't get it, everyone can be born. Are you saying that
| it's the possibility of iteration that makes it fair? So
| if the raffle enforced one ticket per person it is no
| longer fair?
| djitz wrote:
| Hey, I didn't catch word about the raffle until it ended
| and that's not fair
| meibo wrote:
| That's still your fault, you could have read the
| newspaper in time to look for raffles.
| djitz wrote:
| My parents didn't teach me to read. You have an unfair
| advantage.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| while literacy is an advantage, its hardly unfair.
| kqr wrote:
| > Making a success of a commercial farm requires deep knowledge
| of the crop, the land, the weather and the local pests.
|
| ...plus logistics, storage, insurance, finances, repair,
| markets, etc, etc. I would be interested in working with a
| farmer through some time of my life just to learn such a wide
| variety of tasks!
| javajosh wrote:
| You make it sound like farming is just as hard as a regular
| job, plus a great deal of manual labor, plus the constant
| risk of total crop failure because of weather etc.
| ticviking wrote:
| Those forces are a non-trivial part of what is driving the
| consolidation of land-ownership to commercial mega-farms.
| redtexture wrote:
| Would placing the land in a trust, or family corporation avoid
| inheritance tax issues?
| beAbU wrote:
| I'm not too well versed with all the different legal options,
| but I don't think I want to go into a trust (i.e. business)
| with my brother. Somewhere someone will be left holding the
| bag and that's how you destroy familial relationships. In the
| end, we are gonna sit with a piece of land, that neither of
| us know what to do with, that's gonna create more stress than
| it's worth.
| etempleton wrote:
| This is good advice. Farming yourself will be an uphill battle.
| You will learn, but it will take some time and it helps if you
| have someone to guide you because so much of it is experience
| based. You can probably lease the land to a local farmer to
| farm it for you. You could maybe even convince them to take you
| on as a farm hand and teach you how to do it as part of the
| deal.
|
| As said, there is a lot that goes into farming these days and
| almost everyone specializes in a crop or two. The folks that do
| it the old fashion ways without adapting are usually going
| under because their yields are poor / inconsistent. This will
| likely be you if you go at it alone, so unless you are okay
| with eating some losses then I would get help.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Might be worth reaching out to a company like Equal Exchange.
| They may be able to connect you with educational resources.
|
| https://shop.equalexchange.coop/
| tsingy wrote:
| Will take a look into it, thanks for the link.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Hacker News Coffee Blend. Got a ring to it. Sure a few of us in
| here will buy a bag or 10 if you manage to get this going. Hire
| someone, setup a blog so we can follow pls and good luck!
| tsingy wrote:
| This is "diamond" idea, I will do and will credit you for it.
| madman2890 wrote:
| Where is the farm at? I own one in Manizales, Colombia. We have
| around 25,000 trees.
| tsingy wrote:
| It's on the east coast of Madagascar, can we chat? I'd be
| really interested in your experience if you are willing to
| share of course.
| sbuccini wrote:
| Can I come visit? I would love to hear what running a coffee
| plantation is like, especially in Colombia.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Growing-Processing-Sustainable...
| I've heard this book recommended a few times when this was
| brought up.
| tsingy wrote:
| Thanks for the link.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Who's currently running the plantation? You need to hire someone
| who knows farming if you don't already have such a person.
| tsingy wrote:
| The people my dad hired are taking care of it for now. It takes
| 3 to 4 years to get the first real harvest. I still have time
| before thinking of how to harvest and sell. For now I just want
| to keep the trees alive for that duration.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Sure, I'm not even mostly talking about the harvest. I'm
| talking about doing everything that needs to be done to keep
| the trees alive and the place operating.
| pryelluw wrote:
| Is selling the coffee the only business model you can execute?
|
| How about events hosting? Weddings, parties, trainings, etc.
| tsingy wrote:
| Maybe later, for now it's a barebone farm and not much else.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| If your spanish is decent, just go to any country in south
| america and find a farmer/owner. Farms aplenty out of every major
| metro about 1-2 hours from the metro, in every direction. A quick
| google will help you find the regions in every country where
| coffee is grown, or maybe even google maps.
|
| They will gladly talk to you for hours and show you the ropes. If
| they like you they will give you carte blanche to come in to the
| property unannounced and speak to their employees, anytime.
|
| Because in the end, its possible you buy their plants or seeds,
| and many farmers make money from that too.
| anenefan wrote:
| Welcome to farming, it's a continuous learning curve and like
| everything, be mindful of those who sell snake oil.
|
| The next few years should see coffee prices increase due to the
| losses this year in South America due to the prolonged /
| unexpected frosts.
|
| All I could find for a starting point. This might not be totally
| applicable to your region, but I'd suggest you seek out coffee
| growers association in your area for further advice. Best of
| luck.
|
| https://agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/1...
|
| https://www.agrifarming.in/coffee-growing-information-beginn...
| tsingy wrote:
| > be mindful of those who sell snake oil.
|
| That is why I want to learn, scammers are everywhere. Thanks
| for the links.
| anonu wrote:
| Lots of people saying "sell it" vs "keep it". But OP was only
| looking for advice on farming. Not financial advice.
|
| My guess is there are coffee farms nearby. If so, lean on a local
| experts advice.
| florakel wrote:
| You could simply do nothing with it and let nature take back the
| land. Natural restoration.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Well I would find someone with knowledge, maybe on the old side,
| and hire them, and if good pay them well. They can then teach
| you.
| tsingy wrote:
| Planned, but it's looking to be hard.
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't know anything about it, but I'd suggest the first
| question (to yourself) should be do you _want_ to learn /do, or
| do you just want to own it and have it be productive/successful?
| tsingy wrote:
| I want it to be successful, but for that it needs to be handled
| well. I'm from a poor country and people that can do that are
| rare and are probably running their own business. If I can hire
| someone, of course I would happily hand it over, but in the
| mean time I still need to learn enough to oversee how things
| go.
| forinti wrote:
| This is very important. I've witnessed friends inherit land and
| businesses they had little interest in and they tried holding
| on to it just because it was "in the family".
|
| If it's not your thing, just sell it and carry on with your
| life.
| OJFord wrote:
| I didn't even mean sell it, just pay someone to manage it, or
| sell a lease on it.
| kamphey wrote:
| There are roasting certificatations you can get. It might help
| knowing the work that is downstream of your coffee beans.
|
| If you have the cash and time, I recommend visiting roasters and
| other coffee farms. I took a 2 day roasting class on a coffee
| farm in Bali. Learned a TON in very little time.
| tsingy wrote:
| Thanks, I will take look into it.
| ckastner wrote:
| Hire a professional to do it for you.
|
| There's coffee as a hobby, and coffee as a professional business.
| 8000 trees is the latter.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I agree. Running a small cafe would be daunting to me; a
| roastery even more so; a freaking coffee farm is something
| else!
| tsingy wrote:
| Well, in my wildest dream I would do all of this, control the
| production from start to finish. The coffee shop culture is
| not really a thing yet in my country, I always wanted to
| start one. I miss it from when I lived in France where you
| had coffee shop everywhere.
| roflyear wrote:
| What county?
| tsingy wrote:
| Madagascar.
| tsingy wrote:
| Planning to do that if I find someone competent enough. But
| that is hard when living a top 10 from the bottom poor country.
| Also, I still need to learn enough so I can still oversee how
| things go.
| wara23arish wrote:
| I come from one of those countries as well, if you work as a
| software dev or have a good amount of income, this is great.
|
| I would assume labor is cheap where you're from, the problem
| might be with selling your product locally.
| tsingy wrote:
| I'm on a sabbatical year, learning how to code. I used to
| live and work in France so yeah, I have money to invest if
| needed because labor is cheap. Selling locally won't bring
| in much profit. That's why I want to specialize in
| specialty coffee, better margin and easier to export. I'm
| looking at producing rice also, this time for local
| consumption.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Well find someone you trust and have them manage it. Give
| them some equity in the enterprise so your incentives are
| aligned then ask them to teach you the business of farming
| coffee.
|
| Wanting to learn the business so you can micro-manage your
| manager sounds like a recipe for disaster.
|
| That or sell it to a big coffee producer and go about your
| life doing things you're good at.
| [deleted]
| ckastner wrote:
| I understand your dilemma, but I don't see a way around
| hiring a professional.
|
| Think of one of the simpler tasks. Say you need to fertilize
| the trees. When is the right time? What is the right amount?
| How many people do you need to fertilize 8000 trees in time?
| How do you finance that, including purchasing the fertilizer?
| Are you even allowed to purchase that much fertilizer (it's
| been often abused to make car bombs)?
|
| No idea whether fertilizing is even a thing with coffee, but
| other tasks won't be much simpler.
|
| If you can't hire one, is taking on a temporary partner (for
| a cut off the profit) an option?
| tsingy wrote:
| As you said it's a huge dilemma. I will keep it as green as
| possible, even if it cuts production by a big percentage.
| I'd rather have it fail that be not environmentally
| friendly. My life does not depend on it, I can afford to
| fail and that is why I want to try. I can hire people,
| labors are cheap where I live so that won't be a problem. A
| partner is fine if competent enough I guess. For now the
| goal is to break even, If I can achieve that it will be win
| already.
| workbytaylor wrote:
| World coffee research may be a good place for you to
| learn about coffee farming in the 21st century. Another
| commenter mentioned you won't be able to farm the old
| ways, and WCR could support you going forward.
|
| At the very least they could point you in the right
| direction to get started, and maybe even know someone you
| could hire.
|
| https://worldcoffeeresearch.org/
| tsingy wrote:
| I will contact them, thanks for the link.
| Jiro wrote:
| >I will keep it as green as possible, even if it cuts
| production by a big percentage. I'd rather have it fail
| that be not environmentally friendly. My life does not
| depend on it, I can afford to fail and that is why I want
| to try.
|
| I'm skeptical that you're in a position where you can
| afford to fail, short of edge cases like "I just let the
| land lie fallow and pump no money whatsoever into it" or
| "I am a multi-millionaire already without the
| plantation".
| tsingy wrote:
| My life does not depend on it, so if it fails, I will
| lose money for sure but that's fine, won't be the first
| nor the last time. Labor is cheap and I want to try.
| Fiahil wrote:
| > Say you need to fertilize the trees. When is the right
| time? What is the right amount? How many people do you need
| to fertilize 8000 trees in time?
|
| You experiment. It takes a lot of time, yes, but it's not
| that difficult.
|
| I find your answer and many other here overly pessimistic
| and unkind. Not every thing is about hustling a business to
| perfection and on the first try.
| ckastner wrote:
| > _You experiment. It takes a lot of time, yes, but it's
| not that difficult._
|
| A failed experiment might cost you 8000 trees. It takes a
| _massive_ amount of time, and money, to re-launch an
| experiment of this scale. And every re-launch, you
| restart the 3-4 year clock until trees are mature enough
| to harvest.
|
| When you quoted me, you left out the part about how to
| finance all of this.
|
| > _Not every thing is about hustling a business to
| perfection and on the first try._
|
| With an 8000 tree farm, that point is you very very
| likely have only one try.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Farming is hard, and margins are low. Coffee is also labor-
| intensive.
|
| What I'd do is find a local farmer in the area and lease it to
| them. You can probably set up something where they pay you
| something like 25% of the crop for rent.
| asdfghjkjhg wrote:
| I played hundreds of hours of farm simulator.
|
| just spend 2mi on machinery and you should be good to go.
| patrickdavey wrote:
| How do you end up in a situation where your dad, knowing nothing
| about coffee plantations, ends up buying one and then leaving it
| to you?
| tsingy wrote:
| My dad likes to try random stuff out of nowhere, has been
| living like that for ever. It's no surprise to me anymore. But
| sometimes he realises he does not have enough time to take care
| off them, the projects is abandoned or given to any of his
| children.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| My father was the same. Bought a 1000 hectare farm and he was
| NOT a farmer. Hard lessons learned, I learned some of it as a
| kid. The most important one for me was, don't try to farm if
| your father/grandfather wasn't a farmer or lived that life.
| Farming requires a transfer of knowledge/wisdom unless ultra
| commercialized and brute-forced with cash.
| tsingy wrote:
| I will hire a farmer for sure. But I still want to learn
| enough to oversee things.
| aliqot wrote:
| Look for some local Amish, we'll help anyone.
| tsingy wrote:
| There are no amish in my country unfortunatly.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > My dad likes to try random stuff out of nowhere
|
| You are literally doing the same thing by not completely
| letting a farm manager take over, or selling it...
| pseudostem wrote:
| Farming experience since 2014-15. My advice would be to
| immediately contact a coffee contract farming company in your
| area. Work out the minutest details in terms of work and costs,
| something similar to WBS in project management.
|
| Next sign a 3-5 year contract with the contract farming company
| (WBS was to make sure you're not getting a raw deal). Get them to
| provide you technical help. The way this works is, they recommend
| and you execute.
|
| All the best!
| tsingy wrote:
| > My advice would be to immediately contact a coffee contract
| farming company in your area
|
| There aren't any thanks to a bottom tier poor country.
| zzzeek wrote:
| Familiarize with Fair Trade practices
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_coffee), get in contact
| with other bean growers, like Equal Exchange as someone else
| mentioned. Consider operating as a co-op where the workers are
| actually owners too. I get the sense this industry is pretty
| fraught with worker abuse problems regardless but at least try to
| be on the right side of things.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Where is it located? Is it a region that has experience growing
| coffee? Because perhaps you can link up with a coffee distributor
| or a fellow farmer and get their advice. Also to be clear unless
| the coffee is in a warm high grown area, or on an island, it may
| not be worth a lot.
| tsingy wrote:
| It's on the east coast of Madagascar. Yes, but mainly bulk
| exportation of Robusta for instant coffee. I want to shift
| production of speciality coffee as there is higher margin
| there, mainly Bourbon and Arabica Elita.
| stateofinquiry wrote:
| I am a long-time reader, but compelled to create account for
| a little (relevant) self promotion. Since you are interested
| in high value coffee, you might find our app, BestBeans,
| helpful: https://smartyields.com/best-beans/ . Does not
| replace local knowledge, as mentioned by others, but is
| helpful for record-keeping, monitoring, and decision support.
| We are still adding features, stay tuned.
| dusted wrote:
| disclaimer: no farming experience
|
| If I got that, I'd look into either sell it flat-out, or try and
| run it as a company..
|
| disclaimer 2: only had one company, was not terribly profitable
|
| I'd try to hire someone in to run it for me
| muzani wrote:
| This is similar to the plot of the game Hundred Days. It's wine,
| instead of coffee, but I guess you can pull some inspiration from
| that.
| tsingy wrote:
| I'll check that out, thanks.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| You've had advice to hire a farm manager; and research roasting.
|
| Nobody so far has mentioned the processing. Roasting is for
| roasteries; that's not really the farmer's business. But in most
| coffee-growing areas, the farmers organize into collectives, with
| shared processing facilities. A lot of the distinctive characters
| of coffees are the result of the way the cherries are processed.
| Since the collective's output is all mixed together, it's not
| single-estate; I assume that sales are handled by the collective,
| not by individual farmers.
|
| Maybe there isn't a processing collective in your area; perhaps
| you could launch a processing facility, and encourage your
| neighbours to have a go.
| tsingy wrote:
| Interestingly, there isn't one in my area. Most of the coffee
| is exported unroasted here, and the local consumers roast
| theirs themselves.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| By "processing", I specifically meant to exclude roasting. As
| far as I'm aware, coffee beans are generally roasted in the
| country where they're consumed. Roasted beans don't stay
| fresh as long as green beans. I meant the processing that
| converts cherries into dry green beans.
|
| That processing always occurs near the place it was grown;
| cherries don't keep. The pulp has to be removed. That can be
| entirely mechanical, or it can be by fermenting. There are
| different ways of doing the fermenting. Then someone has to
| pick over the beans, to sort them for quality.
|
| This is just what I've read; I'm no expert, I'm just an
| interested consumer. And @tsingy, I imagine you've read a lot
| more than I have; but you seem to have misunderstood my
| comment.
| tsingy wrote:
| My bad, yes I misunderstood. There are but still in small
| scale and artisanal. And even the people we hired now can
| do it, but we have time until the first harvest though (3
| to 4 years).
| ckvjdonee wrote:
| [dead]
| JulianRaphael wrote:
| Second the book recommendation below and can highlight one thing
| about having spent time on plantations myself: do NOT cut the
| trees. There will be folks who will tell you that by cutting the
| trees you will get more sunlight and hence more coffee
| production. I've seen first hand how hundreds of farmers (mainly
| in India) cut all the trees on their coffee plantation and a few
| years later lost most of their land due to water issues and
| landslides. Depending on where in the world you are, you also
| want to understand what companion plants (could be macadamia nut
| trees, banana plants, etc.) are best suited for your coffee
| plants.
|
| I would not try to compete with low-quality bean production. Not
| sure how much land you have but you most likely don't have the
| resources to compete at scale. There is, however, a massive
| specialty coffee market and people are willing to pay good money
| for good coffee. So besides my recommendations above, try to find
| some specialty coffee producers in your region and learn from
| them.
| tsingy wrote:
| Thanks for the advice. It was my plan already, targeting people
| with more buying power is always better for businesses if you
| can't scale.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Farming is a hard and unforgiving activity. Most guys who have a
| dream to become farmers fail miserably since it requires a ton of
| grit, know-how, problem-solving and luck. With the help of
| science (measuring soil, pests, weather and so on) and capital
| input to buy tools (hand tools, sprays/pesticides (if really
| needed), farmhands, vehicles, watering systems, monitoring
| systems and so on), you might succeed.
|
| If you are willing to be honest with yourself, you might find
| that being a farmer is not for you and it might be better to
| sell. You can also run it purely as a business, aka being a kind
| of farm manager and not be too close to the ground but employ
| good people that knows the plants/cultivars and the local
| environment (weather, soil, pests), listen to your people, treat
| them well, treat your new neighbours extremely well, as they will
| assist with a ton of knowledge and sometime physical help. Most
| importantly, honour the land & the plants; take good care of them
| and your environment and everything might fall into place a bit
| easier.
|
| This is tough thing to be given/gifted, to be honest. Please
| prepare for the worst, emotionally and physically. It might also
| be the most rewarding and freeing thing you can do with your life
| and/or become.
|
| Do not discount alternative income streams: if there are more
| land available, plant some other low maintenance crops or small
| stocks like chickens and so on for cash flow. If there is a
| river/stream, forest, small mountains etc, it can be worthwhile
| to build a handful of cabins or a camping terrain (but small, you
| want to stay niche, have good ablution blocks, skip electricity,
| just supply clean water) and so on. Multiple income streams can
| do wonders for farms. All depends how much money you have upfront
| to invest into the property. Luckily, you already have the 8K
| trees.
|
| Good luck mate, hope that the journey ahead works out!
| javajosh wrote:
| Good on you for trying to grow food, and seeing how hard it is!
| Over time I've grown more and more fond of people just _doing
| hard things_ , not necessarily new things, admiring the
| willingness to "wade through reality" to see what it's really
| like. With gardening and food growing, I think the public view
| is very wrong - that its easy grunt work that anyone could
| learn in an afternoon. The same belief is held about most
| skills, like plumbing, carpentry, or electrical repair. Once
| you start executing a project, you get to learn how wrong you
| were. Which, I think, is fascinating and fun!
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Speaking from experience?
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Anecdotally, I spent the last two years trying to grow various
| stuff in planters on my balcony. I invested quite a bit of time
| and effort into it, including good soil, fertilizers,
| monitoring..etc. I kinda figured that while I might not get
| amazing yields, I have done as much as I could to at least get
| decent yields.
|
| Reality had a lot to say to the contrary. Between the various
| pests, weather and nutrient problems, I ended up with
| relatively unproductive gardens both years (Except the peppers,
| for some reason those ended up being both very productive and
| very spicy.)
|
| All of this is to say that your comments on farming are pretty
| spot on. Growing stuff is hard. Growing stuff so that you make
| some profit to sustain yourself is even harder.
| nkozyra wrote:
| Peppers are some of the most resilient plants on earth as
| long as the temperature is right.
|
| They can survive and produce with too much/too little water,
| don't have _tons_ of pests (although hornworms will strip the
| leaves if you don't remove them fast enough) and are tolerant
| to a lot of soil conditions.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > including good soil, fertilizers, monitoring.. etc.
|
| Similarly, I could afford some pots, hand-picked hot pepper
| seedlings and "Chilli Focus Premium Fertiliser", and to
| inspect them daily.
|
| And on a good year I had a great crop, some is still in the
| freezer. On a bad year, the weather waterlogs them and pests
| finish them off.
|
| But none of this scales to 8K plants. None of this was
| intended to show a net profit.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| >very spicy
|
| means the plants had a lot of stress :)
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > (Except the peppers, for some reason those ended up being
| both very productive and very spicy.)
|
| Sounds like you need to look at your soil. What else did you
| try to grow?
|
| Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why "just stop
| growing fodder crops for livestock and grow things humans can
| eat!" doesn't exactly work.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, various herbs, peas, green
| beans..etc.
|
| It's not that these were unproductive, I got a good amount
| of vegetables and herbs from my garden, but it would have
| been much cheaper to hit up the farmers market to get the
| same amount of stuff. My anecdote was more speaking to the
| capriciousness of farming/gardening. Time and effort make
| no guarantee of the result.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > Time and effort make no guarantee of the result.
|
| True enough! Growing things successfully is all about
| education. Actually growing what you grew might have been
| next to free with the right know-how (composting and
| natural alterations for good soil, harvesting seeds from
| organic foods, natural pest control, etc). But of course
| you don't know that until you get years worth of
| education!
| nicoburns wrote:
| > it would have been much cheaper to hit up the farmers
| market to get the same amount of stuff
|
| It seems to me generally true in the modern world that
| it's cheaper to buy mass-produced goods than to make
| things yourselves. There are exceptions, but they're
| increasingly rare.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I mentioned the farmers market purposefully. The ones I
| visit tend to not be mass-produced stuff, but even with
| the commensurate price increase that carries, it's still
| cheaper than anything I've grown myself.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'd imagine even a farmer's market is likely to have
| crops grown on a scale larger than you are growing them,
| even if that scale is still much smaller than mainstream
| commercial farms.
| tsingy wrote:
| The farmer manager is likely how I will handle it. I have no
| interest in being a farmer (for now) but still want it as a
| business that I oversee, hence the need to learn at least a few
| things about how things work. I'll looking to hire people then.
| I realise it will be hard and will require a lot from me, but
| that's why I want to try, the new venture is exciting. Money is
| not a problem because I live in a third world country, labors
| and lands are still cheap.
| roflyear wrote:
| I'm into coffee and understand the processing bit. There is a
| real market for quality specialty coffee. What varieties are
| you growing?
| tsingy wrote:
| It's 60% Robusta 40% Arabica.
| roflyear wrote:
| Try to also find what specific varieties of Arabica, if
| you can. That matters a lot for specialty coffee.
|
| There is not a lot of Robusta specialty, and for a
| reason: it isn't known for being great tasting coffee.
| progre wrote:
| I actually prefer Robusta but it's getting hard to find
| since some marketing genious figured out that you could
| charge a little more with that "100% Arabica" on the bag.
|
| The thing is, for Arabica to be good the roast has to be
| right and the brew has to be right. Robusta, not as
| flowery but it can take a lot if abuse and still taste
| quite good.
| tsingy wrote:
| Exportation and local consumption tends to mainly prefer
| Robusta. I prefer Robusta also, way stronger, wakes me
| better.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| To most "coffee people"'s palette, Robusta is like burnt
| shoe leather strained through an old gym sock. Vietnamese
| drink a lot of it since they grow it there, and it's been
| successfully marketed in the US by "extreme amounts of
| caffeine" brands.
|
| > for Arabica to be good the roast has to be right and
| the brew has to be right
|
| But the OP doesn't have to worry about that, they just
| need to find a way to market their beans to a specialty
| roaster. Small batch single origin Arabica can make a
| tidy little profit.
| tsingy wrote:
| > But the OP doesn't have to worry about that, they just
| need to find a way to market their beans to a specialty
| roaster. Small batch single origin Arabica can make a
| tidy little profit.
|
| This, I'll probably switch to mainly Arabica as soon as I
| can (Bourbon and Arabica Elita)
| Vivtek wrote:
| There are people who prefer robusta. Just .. not many.
| tsingy wrote:
| On the to do list. But here, not a lot is documented. I
| will probably have to call a lab when looking for
| certification in order to have a proper labelling when
| selling. That would settle it. I'll be more careful if
| later I have to plant though.
| raincom wrote:
| One of the problems in the third world is that thugs backed by
| local politicians can illegally take over your land. Neighbors
| can start stealing your land meter by meter every year. Even if
| your relative becomes a guardian of this land, don't expect
| anything good from such relatives. For instance, people get fake
| death certificates of the real owner in order to take over
| others' lands.
|
| 8000 tree coffee plantation could be 4 to 18 acres of land.
| Unless you visit Madagascar every 6 months, unless you have a
| trusty hand, better sell it. I don't know the prices in
| Madagascar, you can get at least $200K for it.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Depends on where it is, and what your ambitions are, but you can
| potentially make an awful lot more from agritourism (think
| vineyard hotels) than you can from agriculture directly, which is
| a brutal business in general.
| tsingy wrote:
| It's in Madagascar, will take a look into that, thanks. Any
| links to start with?
| roflyear wrote:
| Madagascar is not known for its specialty coffee. Might not
| be a deal killer but the country produces mostly coffee for
| use by large corps.
| tsingy wrote:
| It's not known because no one produces enough of it and
| markets it well. The land and climate are perfect, we have
| Bourbon and Arabica Elita that is high in demand but
| production does not follow.
| anonymoose55555 wrote:
| I inherited a farm as well as a listed manor attached to it. I'm
| in the process of selling the manor and much of the fields after
| 10+ years of looking for a buyer. Here's my .02:
|
| 1. You should not feel obliged to continue your father's work.
| You're a different person and I'm sure your father would prefer
| you to be happy above the farm staying in the family. If you
| think selling the land is a better option, do it. If you built
| your own career, don't sacrifice it for the farm.
|
| 2. Consider leasing it. I'm in the EU so I get subsidies (even if
| there's nothing there but grass), plus a lease from people who
| want to actually grow something there.
| tsingy wrote:
| 1. Well, agriculture always had my interest. As an example,
| people in my country eat the most rice per inhabitants in the
| world, yet we still import rice. We have land and everything to
| plant rice, just not enough tools or knowledge to scale it. So
| I want to try, this is an opportunity I can't miss to start
| with.
|
| 2. I might if I find people who would pay for it with the
| promise of keeping thing environmentally friendly.
| anonymoose55555 wrote:
| Perhaps you could require an organic farmic certificate or
| something, rather than a promise. At a vary least such
| certificate should in theory prohibit from using anything
| harmful to the environment. I got one, but mainly for higher
| subsidies.
| timst4 wrote:
| I used to work on a coffee plantation of about 1000 trees in
| Kona. The owners ran a very lean operation. Coffee doesn't
| require much maintenance outside of picking season. They had one
| farm manager and a handful of WWOOFers (work trade volunteers) to
| help with keep up with farm work and mowing. During picking
| season they would hire pickers from Ecuador and the Philippines
| to come pick the cherries. There was a co-op that weighed and
| processed the raw cherries on the island. The co-op also handled
| warehousing. They would sell raw beans to a bigger fish for
| roasting and shipping. Three employees total and they did quite
| well. Kona is out of the ordinary though. It is well regarded and
| fetches a decent price wholesale.
| roflyear wrote:
| Price is a huge thing. With that many trees they must have been
| doing only 2klbs of coffee a year on the high end (green). I
| don't see how they could have been doing "quite well" as green
| Kona beans sell for like $40-60/lb (a lot considering most
| green coffee is like $8 or so a pound).
| hinkley wrote:
| In farming it seems that co-ops generally offer a little
| better price to the farmer than the usual list of suspects.
| Especially if your buyer is far enough away that it begins to
| affect the quality of your yield.
| boplicity wrote:
| Lease it to someone who knows what they're doing, is able to make
| a living as a farmer, and wants to take care of the land, as
| opposed to trash it. You're in a much better position to be a
| good landlord than you are to be a good farmer.
| tsingy wrote:
| Would be easier for me to learn how to be a farmer than finding
| someone to lease it. People are poor here and those that can
| pay will certainly already have their business running
| somewhere, need to be convinced to take it.
| amelius wrote:
| Make sure it is used in full capacity! If you don't, even more
| forests will certainly be cut down to satisfy growing coffee
| demand in e.g. Asia.
| hinkley wrote:
| I know someone a few years ago was trying to start a trade in
| coffee leaves, to help better annualize income from coffee
| plantations. Apparently you can use them like tea leaves.
|
| Haven't heard much about that since. Anyone know what I'm talking
| about?
| jccooper wrote:
| I don't know anything about your land or crop, but farming tends
| to be a regional activity so you probably have neighbors in the
| same business who know at least how the job is usually done. You
| need knowledge from them. How that shapes up, I dunno. Maybe you
| want to hire one of them to run your operations; maybe you want
| to lease it and watch what they do; maybe you want to work for
| them for a year or two to learn; maybe they'll just tell you what
| to do each month if you just stop by and chat.
|
| I stand to inherit a farm (of a very different sort: dry plains,
| mostly growing wheat) and I plan to do the same thing my father
| does now: lease it to a local.
| [deleted]
| markdown wrote:
| This happened to me.
|
| I couldn't compete with the coffee berry borer and ended up
| chainsawing them down one by one. Coffee is surprisingly hard
| wood.
|
| I planted noni instead, but that turned out to be a fad, and
| those were removed next.
|
| Then I grew taro, and all was well.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Is wood from coffee trees worth anything? Such as for building
| furniture.
| markdown wrote:
| I don't believe so. There isn't enough wood in them. Some
| cultivars can grow to be small trees, but are usually pruned
| and kept as little bushes.
| Yahivin wrote:
| Be sure to give people their favorite gift on their birthday to
| increase your relationship quickly.
| humps wrote:
| Depending on where you are located in the world, find a local
| artisan coffee roastery and see if you can talk to the owner.
| It's the fastest way to gain access to face-to-face deep
| knowledge of the coffee industry because they typically work
| directly with the farmers. In the process, you may also find
| someone who is willing to work with you and buy all the beans you
| produce in 2026 and beyond.
| tsingy wrote:
| There aren't any thanks to a bottom teir poor country. Coffee
| is sold / exported unroasted here. And if there are, they
| control the whole production line, from plants to exportation.
| I could learn from small producer, and learn to scale by myself
| I guess.
| givinguflac wrote:
| Read "Teaming with Microbes" and other books in the series.
| mch82 wrote:
| Short-term: hire someone to keep the trees alive.
|
| Longer-term: start reaching out to top agricultural programs for
| advice. Look for lists like this one & write to faculty:
| https://agronomag.com/best-schools-for-farmers-in-the-us/. You'll
| probably be able to find people with expertise in coffee. I bet
| there are also conferences or industry associations that will
| help with networking. There are probably also government programs
| in your country.
|
| What happens to the coffee today? Is 8000 trees a lot (sounds
| like it to me)?
| tsingy wrote:
| Hiring to keep trees alive for the next 3 years (done).
|
| The second part is where I needed help. Thanks for the link.
|
| Yes that's a lot, around 2.5 tons of roasted beans per year
| apparently.
| roflyear wrote:
| It's a lot but green beans only retail in the US for max $8lb
| a pound. Roasting is another world entirely.
| thesaintlives wrote:
| There is serious money in roasting and selling good coffee. Think
| vertically. Supply yourself beans and roast in rich locations!
| humanistbot wrote:
| Sell it.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Hey I think the best bet is to reach out to some people in the
| gourmet coffee bean space who are trustworthy. Like some coffee-
| roasters who you've been buying from for years who have dealt
| with farm-to-table approach. With some vetting you can probably
| get some worthy deal going.
|
| Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of places in New
| York that I believe are ran by diligent people. I could probably
| point you to their direction if that's of interest, but I am in
| no way affiliated nor interested in getting into that kind of
| business, just would love to see such a resource not go to waste.
| bigmusicshoe wrote:
| i am sure people have already reached out to you, but my wife and
| i managed a large plantation, permaculture (more work, better for
| the environment ((sustainable)))- in Nicaragua (Masaya area). We
| are looking to relocate from Berlin, and this could be an idea.
| send me a message to bigmusicshoe@gmail.com
| tsingy wrote:
| Permaculture is the goal, but I don't know enough and hiring
| someone that know enough is also tough. I'm in Madagascar, a
| bottom tier poor country, has a lot of potential though.
|
| Mail sent.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| you need a farm manager with experience managing operations of
| this size, in this region, with this crop. good luck finding one
| who is trustworthy.
|
| aforesaid manager is also a person who would be essential if and
| when you choose to sell this farm.
| manv1 wrote:
| Farming is about sales and marketing.
|
| My FIL bought two farms as a hobby, and he essentially has two
| choices: selling to middlemen for peanuts or going direct-to-
| consumer. DTC is problematic for obvious reasons - you have to do
| last-mile delivery and "how do people buy when they don't know
| what's available."
|
| Middlemen buy low from you so they can sell high from someone
| else, and have market-making ability.
|
| So before you do anything, try to figure out who you're going to
| sell these crops to.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| A friend of mine had a similar situation. They retained a few
| acres around their ancestral home and run a homestay during
| tourist season.
|
| The bulk of the land was leased out to a large coffee company on
| a multiyear lease.
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| Best thing is to profit share with a farmer. When you make money
| they make money.
| pkphilip wrote:
| Whereabouts is this? I work with farmers and I may be able to put
| you onto someone who can help
| tsingy wrote:
| It's on the east cost of Madagascar.
| Birkeholm wrote:
| Hey, are you from Madagascar yourself? If not, my parents-in-
| law used to live there and still do business there (export).
| They might be able to share some general knowledge.
| O__________O wrote:
| If it was me, I would focus on the business side, not the farming
| side.
|
| Farming is extremely labor intensive and largely a commodity
| business. Marketing and branding are largely where profits are
| made in the beverage business.
|
| As an example of a recent successful high grow beverage company,
| take a look at Liquid Death, which turned a low budget AD into a
| billion dollar company within years:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=iXjhNZlqexs
| tsingy wrote:
| That's my plan too, I'm not a farmer. But it still requires me
| to know how things work on a high level. Thanks for the link.
| O__________O wrote:
| No, in my opinion you do not need to understand farming.
|
| Liquid Death bought water wholesale from a bottling company.
| At 8000 trees, that's a business, but barely, and would not
| support a real growing coffee business. Running building and
| running business is all about focusing on the right thing at
| the right time. Realize there's sentimental value to fact
| trees were planted by your family, but in the end, it's
| critical you're clear about your goals and situation.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I cannot provide advice but I would like to follow along in your
| journey to learn as you learn. Consider a blog or vlog, I am
| happy to contribute financially. Best wishes.
| tsingy wrote:
| Yes I will and will post here again when it's ready and
| whenever changes happen. Thanks a lot for the advice.
| ingenieros wrote:
| Is the plantation located somewhere with nice views? If so you
| might be better off turning it into a bed and breakfast and
| offering guided/tasting tours. Many local coffee farmers here in
| Colombia have opted for this option as simply "selling beans" is
| no longer profitable for them. Best of luck
| tsingy wrote:
| Does rainforest with lemurs count as nice view? Anyway, good
| idea, I will look into it.
| ingenieros wrote:
| Most definitely! I would totally book a night or two to see
| that.
| psytrx wrote:
| Heck, 8k trees is a lot. Definitely find a professional. Growing
| coffee is exceptionally difficult.
|
| Do you have an idea which crops have been planted? Is the
| plantation in a favorable location (altitude, weather)?
|
| Depending on both, you should become clear about whether you want
| to produce commodity coffee or specialty coffee. The latter is
| more difficult to produce, but also more profitable.
|
| If you're going the specialty route, it may even be fruitful
| (hah!) to get in contact with content creators. They usually have
| useful contacts in the industry, and they might be willing to
| connect you.
|
| In any case, try to get in touch with European roasters, as they
| usually value traceability and prefer to roast single origin
| coffees.
|
| Best of luck! And enjoy the journey.
|
| Oh, and if you had your first batch, please drop me a message. I
| know a few local roasters (Germany) that may be interested in new
| sources. :-)
| tsingy wrote:
| Already looking into hiring.
|
| 60% Robusta 40% Arabica. Really good location, altitude and
| weather for robusta, and slightly less for arabica.
|
| I'm leaning towards environmental friendly speciality coffee.
|
| I'll take you up on that offer then.
| noduerme wrote:
| My grandfather took a trip west in 1945 after the war, leaving
| his wife and kids in Baltimore. He somehow ended up in what's now
| Rancho Mirage, talking to someone who was selling land. He'd
| saved up about $10k and sank all of it into a 10-acre grapefruit
| and date farm, basically a patch of desert with some palm and
| citrus trees and well water. Took my grandma and dad and aunt out
| there and they lived in an airstream trailer on the land. Sold
| the fruit to Dole mostly for juice. Barely made ends meet. When
| he died in the 90s, the patch sold for over $1m to a hotel
| conglomerate. So if nothing else... my family has a mantra: Never
| sell real estate.
|
| For your specific situation, my grandfather had a different
| saying: _" Find yourself a teacher"_. He claimed this philosophy
| came from the Talmud, but I can't say. In any event, my
| grandfather had already gone from being a door-to-door cloth
| salesman to a cutter to a tailor, and he always found an expert
| teacher to attach himself to and learn from, and this usually
| meant someone humbly but seriously devoted to the work at hand.
| In the case of the ranch, it was a Cahuilla Indian man who had
| lived nearby, and who taught him how to take care of the trees.
| My grandfather employed him as a full-time caretaker and kept up
| his house on the land for the rest of his life.
|
| My advice with anything where you don't have the knowledge to do
| it yourself would be to find yourself a teacher by searching in
| the humblest of places for someone with that knowledge, and make
| them your mentor.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > So if nothing else... my family has a mantra: Never sell real
| estate
|
| "Warren Buffett: $10,000 invested in an index fund when I
| bought my first stock in 1942 would be worth $51 million today"
|
| Looks like he could have done 51 times better for no work
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/warren-buffett-10000-investe...
| [deleted]
| noduerme wrote:
| True, but if you can imagine someone even more conservative -
| my grandfather (and father) had a lot of respect for Buffett
| but considered him to be a reckless gambler.
|
| I once sold 1000 BTC for about $10k, for reasons largely
| similar to the ones that kept my grandfather from entering
| the stock market. I think putting $10k into an index fund
| probably seemed just as insane to most people in 1942 as
| keeping $10k in Bitcoin seemed to me in 2012.
|
| In addition to having run a casino, I'm a reformed gambling
| addict (as long as you don't leave me alone in Vegas for too
| long). Part of overcoming gambling addiction and its
| manifestations in everyday behaviour is that I don't second-
| guess decisions I make out of being too conservative or, in
| other words, feel regret for pocketing my gains and walking
| away. That way lies ruin. And also, as a gambler, I'm an
| optimist, so I don't think I missed my one-and-only chance to
| make 50x my money. There's always another spin right around
| the corner.
| phonon wrote:
| >Never sell real estate.
|
| If he would have invested that $10,000 in the S&P 500 and
| reinvested the dividends, it would have been worth more than $2
| million by the 90s.
|
| https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/
| tsingy wrote:
| I happily hire anyone that is that knowledgeable, but where I
| live that is rare, and they are probably running their own
| stuff. I wholly agree with you though, I won't venture into
| this alone or without a general view of how things work.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| As you're in Madagascar you might want to get in touch with
| CRS[1] who have a training program for coffee growers. A relative
| worked with them on another project in Tana a few years ago and
| found them good to work with.
|
| [1] https://coffeelands.crs.org/2021/04/agroforestry-and-
| coffee-...
| tsingy wrote:
| Yes I am, nice guess. Thanks a lot, will take a look into it.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| If you have the money, hire an expert grower and pay them a
| salary. Have them manage the plantation and the migrant workers.
|
| That's it. Keep it simple. No partnership. No business deals. A
| simple employee arrangement.
|
| That's basically step one. However, it will free up your time to
| find a buyer for the beans when it's time to harvest them and
| sell them. Rinse and repeat.
| shaggie76 wrote:
| I noticed your trees are 60% Robusta and wanted to address the
| suggestions about targeting boutique coffee houses and higher-end
| customers: I doubt very much Robusta will be sought after.
|
| My understanding is that market for Robusta may be only for
| instant coffee production or to adulterate Arabica to make
| cheaper. I've only rarely seen Robusta sold green and there's
| good reason for that: it's distinctly unpleasant by itself.
| tsingy wrote:
| This is the first thing I will do if I can manage things at an
| ok level. I'll switch to produce speciality coffee (Bourbon and
| Arabica Elita), and focus on that. Still if robusta can sold I
| will still take care of it.
| dranudin wrote:
| I prefer my espresso if it is at least in part robusta. I think
| most espresso drinkers feel that way, so there should be at
| least some demand for it.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Robusta seems to be favoured for making espresso. I think
| robusta is not as "unpleasant" as it used to be, say 20 years
| ago.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Serious suggestion: sharecrop it with a neighbor.
| appabings wrote:
| Read The Coffee Exporter's Guide: Third Edition https://www.un-
| ilibrary.org/content/books/9789213614860 Its free and will give
| you a good overview of the industry.
|
| If you want to get into farming get Wintgen's Coffee - Growing,
| Processing, Sustainable Production: A Guidebook for Growers,
| Processors, Traders and Researchers, 2nd, Revised Edition
| https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Coffee+Growing%2C+Processing%2C+...
| (You will get a way cheaper from other sources).
|
| Depending on the country you have different options. You can
| think about leasing it to other farmers or a cooperative. Talk to
| a local Specialty Coffee Roastery for a different perspective.
|
| If you are interested in more information I could make a follow
| up post
| tsingy wrote:
| Hey, thanks a lot.
|
| Just dump any information you can, I know nothing about this so
| any bit of info is good. Leasing is not really an option
| because finding someone who will lease would be hard, we don't
| do that here.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Omwani coffee in the UK has recently released a Madagascar
| origin specialty coffee, and they claim to be trying to work
| with local producers, it might be worth reaching out to them.
| You might also want to reach out to other boutique coffee
| producers, many of them have farmer education programs
| (counter culture and square mile are the first two that come
| to mind).
|
| Meta-advice, find people who actually understand the business
| and get their opinions. This forum is great for CS startups,
| but it's full of people who think their success in one field
| means they are experts in everything they've read an article
| about. Be skeptical.
| Vivtek wrote:
| Coffee is a weird crop. 8000 trees is probably about 8 or 10
| acres, and you're not going to be able to work that yourself.
|
| Where you at? Hawaii?
| tsingy wrote:
| In Madagascar, east cost.
| jjwtieke wrote:
| Can I come stay and help out? I also know nothing about coffee
| other than it's delicious. Maybe you could turn it into a bit of
| a learning experience and document your journey as part of
| marketing. I'm a writer and can do video production and socials
| so could help with that.
| mustyoshi wrote:
| Look into selling the coffee cherry husks after debeaning them.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Professional consulting and crop insurance were created for that.
|
| We don't have a minimum context. area?, rain?, acid soil?, market
| location?, variety? (early/season/late?), potential load of
| fruit?
|
| Without data, we can't suggest you anything of value
|
| Try the advice of an --independent-- professional consulting.
| Hear local sellers also but not only locals. Specially if they
| are local sellers also (Will try to sell you as many useless
| products as possible).
|
| Remember this: Chemicals are not a magic wand. Is the number one
| mistake of a newbie. Sometimes are useful, but incorrectly used
| can do more harm than good. If your plants get ill, first
| discover the real problem. Your plants are alive beings in the
| Family Rubiaceae, try to understand their ecological needs and
| fix those first.
|
| If you are newbie I would suggest to diversify your crops to
| reduce the possibility of failure. Some years are bad, other
| good. Do your location allows avocados? zapotes? icecream beans?
| plant a couple of trees somewhere to exercise your skills where
| they don't disturb the coffee plants or where they help them (If
| I remember correctly coffee plants need some light shadow to grow
| well, check it). Just an example, not need to be followed
| literally but, in resume, don't put all your eggs in the same
| basket.
| K0balt wrote:
| I also own (and live on) a small coffee plantation, and I know a
| little about it. Feel free to dm me for any questions. I'd be up
| for a call to chat a bit, maybe I can answer some questions? Glad
| to share what I have learned.
|
| Basically, you will either sell to the local processors or you
| will process it yourself. We are gearing up to process ourselves.
| We have about 10k trees, and we do all organic and no non natural
| fertilizers or pesticides. This year we are producing about 500
| lbs of coffee after roasting. I think we can get to maybe 1000
| lbs ( more with chemical fertilizers).
|
| We will be making a boutique coffee with a story and a negative
| carbon footprint (we don't do mechanized agriculture, and have
| solar charged electric vehicles for transport to the nearby,
| downhill port. and will be shipping on sail-only vessels to the
| USA)
| kleer001 wrote:
| How much money and time do you have to burn to get it started?
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Sell it. It's going to be a massive drag on your life until
| you're up to speed (easily a decade) and won't make enough money
| to be worth it.
|
| If there isn't a massive attachment to the land, that's what I
| would do. Bona fides: I manage a 7th generation family cork farm
| that I will one day inherit and promptly sell.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| One important question, Do you want to do it?
|
| If not then sell or rent it to someone who does. Do what you want
| tsingy wrote:
| Yes I want to do it but not as a farmer, I will hire a farmer.
| I'm more business inclined and will handle it from a higher
| level.
| kaapipo wrote:
| Get rid of it and invest the money
| altairprime wrote:
| Contact a direct-to-farm coffee distributor like PT's Coffee and
| ask them if they know anyone who can help you evaluate and manage
| it or sell it to a co-op. At the very least, they will find it
| interesting that you thought to ask them :)
| hestefisk wrote:
| I'd sell it!
| Jun8 wrote:
| Ok, this may be a dumb answer but bear with me, I'll reiterate an
| idea that I often proposed to a colleague who has a heirloom land
| and house in Wisconsin: turn it into a adult farming fantasy
| retreat!
|
| Two indisputable facts: (1) Most city dwellers like myself dream
| about a simpler life, working in a farm with their hands, raising
| up at 5am, harvesting crops, etc. (2) As most people commented
| farming is back braking work so (1) is just a fantasy for 99.9%
| of people who think about this.
|
| Why not let people live the farming life, e.g. for 5 days, living
| on a farm and doing the actual work as well as _paying_ for the
| experience. I would easily pay $200 a night to live on a coffee
| plantation during harvesting time to collect and process beans or
| help operate a combine or milk the cows, etc (am so ignorant
| about farm life it's hard to give legitimate examples :-)
|
| I don't know if this idea already exists in practice. The
| colleague I propose it with excitement always gave me a bemused
| but incredulous look!
| zach_garwood wrote:
| I think this is a fun idea, but it overlooks the fact that most
| farming tasks take skill. I think the owner would most likely
| end up with a trashed farm at the end of the season.
| Jun8 wrote:
| Absolutely true. I was thinking more along the lines of
| having people do manual labor that requires minimal training.
| polotics wrote:
| It doesn't work in practice, because a day of bad work by some
| non-trained city dweller will most likely do a lot more than
| 200$ of loss of income, if not straight damage. And then there
| are the accidents: "was your staff qualified to operate the
| machine that ate their hand?" ... Best of luck finding
| insurance for this projecz...
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| This is reactionary logic without perspective.
|
| Plenty of people currently pay fir lifestyle vacations that
| have a bit of danger.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The work doesn't have to be unsupervised and doesn't have to
| be work where mistakes carry large negative risks. Think of
| it more as an extended tour / homestay with some
| participatory elements.
|
| We know it is possible to do because WWOOFing has been a
| thing for a long time. The question is more if there is
| enough of a market to cover the increased costs and maybe
| loss of productivity.
| rfb wrote:
| It does exist in other forms with WWOOFing, farm stays, etc..
| The problem is that while farm work looks simple, there are
| important skills that need to be developed before a volunteer
| or guest can be useful on the farm.
|
| For example, my first WWOOFing gig asked for at least six weeks
| so that I could become somewhat useful and offset the costs of
| food and shelter.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Amazing. No idea. If it were me I would hire someone experienced
| in both the growing, finance and marketing aspects of this. Then
| it becomes a question of how to pick someone good. You can be
| their apprentice.
|
| It might be simpler to sell it to someone else though!
| tsingy wrote:
| My adventurous mind prevents me to sell. I'm might fail but I
| will definitely try to make something out of it.
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