The Farm - 150+ Ways to Make Money on the Homestead
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You've chucked it all in and bought land. Maybe you're a backyard homesteader. Or quite possibly, you have a farm business raising beef or meat chickens or market produce. You find yourself wanting to and needing to stay closer to home, working on the farm all day instead of working at an outside job.
How can your homestead produce income?
First of all, think of yourself, your animals, your gardens/crops, and your land as producers. Modern life has trained us to be good at consuming: if we work hard, we will have the means to pay our basic life-sustaining bills and then be able consume more of what want to enjoy. So we got good at consuming, only to find the price of those commodities kept going up and the rewards for all our hard work moved further and further out of reach.
Reevaluating our heart's desires, we went home. But now the question is how to make a living from home.
The second thing you can do is look for the lack. When I lived in Australia, I wanted to make some catnip toys for a friend's cats. No one knew what I was talking about. The one source I did find was remorselessly expensive for half an ounce of the dried herb. I moved a lot at the time, but I dreamed of being able to corner the market on catnip and making 3 million Australian cats very happy. I could hear Marlon Brando in my head: "I could have been a contender."
Where will you sell your wares?
- farmer's markets
- roadside stands
- CSA
- farmshare online groups (often by state)
- direct sales
- internet sales
- vendor tables at craft and county fairs, homestead conferences, farm and home shows
- local stores
SELLING WHAT YOU PRODUCE
What you grow
- fruit and vegetables
- culinary herbs - fresh or dried
- flowers
- seedlings
- seed packets
- small trees and berry bushes
- nuts (pecans/walnuts)
- mushrooms
- medicinal herbs and plants
- farmshare of the produce
- braided garlic
- bare root plants
- foraged edible and medicinal plants
Who you grow (animals can be live or processed)
- farm animals: cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits
- baby farm animals: chicks, kids, lambs, calves
- beehives
- eggs
- worms for bait
- fish
- herdshare of the animal(s)
- poultry for meat or eggs
- dairy products: cheese, butter, yogurt
- honey
- eggs
- canned jams, pickles, other goods
- hams/bacon/jerky/sausage
- maple syrup
- molasses
- cider/ apple juice
- wine and cordials/ beer
- dried foods (leather britches/ dried fruit/ green powder)
- mealworms
- feed hay
- dog treats
- sprouted wheat or barley fodder
- fermented feed
- tanned hides and pelts
- animal fibers such as wool or rabbit hair
- hand-dyed wool yarn
- beeswax candles
- hand-carved toys or decorative items
- hay
- firewood
- compost
- manure
- baskets
- woven fabrics (hemp/wool/cotton)
- seasonal wreaths and garlands/ wheat sheaves
- brooms from broom corn
- tinctures and salves and herbal vinegars
- wood chip mulch
- corn maze
- U-Pick-It - berries, apples, pumpkins, etc.
- fishing from a stocked pond or lake
- Christmas trees
- Thanksgiving turkeys
- Independence Day fireworks display
- petting zoo
- hunting access and guiding
- shooting range
- edible and medicinal forage walks
- farm tours
- bed and breakfast
- events and weddings venue
- storage of large vehicles (RV, boat)
- tent clamping
- campground
- renting a room in your home or mother-in-law cottage
- animal boarding and kennels (horses/ dogs)
- beehives (take to new location for pollination and return with hives and the honey)
- lease land for grazing
- lease land for growing and harvesting hay or forage crops
- lease land for growing food crops
- stud services (steer, bucks, roosters)
- host craft fairs in crafters' barn
- goats for weed control
- pigs for brush clearing
- cooking
- food preservation: canning, drying, fermenting, smoking/ curing meat
- raising animals
- butchering
- gardening and crop growing for your zone
- winter hoop tunnel and greenhouse growing
- sheep shearing
- beekeeping
- pruning orchard trees
- cutting, seasoning, and stacking firewood
- pollarding
- making sillage
- keeping oxen
- using a scythe
- repairing machinery
- sewing and mending clothing and linens
- mending fences
- blacksmithing
- spinning, knitting, crocheting
- foraging for edible and medicinal plants
- making medicines from plants/herbalism
- tutor children
- internships in exchange for room and board (you do get labor)
- permaculture, no dig-gardening, hugelkultur
- chicken coops and pens
- chicken tractors
- rabbit hutches
- furniture
- solar food dehydrators
- bat and owl boxes
- birdhouses and birdfeeders
- toolsheds
- playhouses
- garden beds
- run a saw mill on the farm
- fence building
- fiction
- how to
- autobiography
- cookbook
- You Tube channel
- blog
- dedicated sales website
- candles
- soaps, lotions, lip balm
- clothing
- quilts
- sewn toys
- wooden toys
- cradles
- sewing, knitting, crochet patterns for home goods
- yard art, windchimes
- cornhusk dolls
- baked goods
- bread
- sourdough starter
- apple pectin
- ghee
- apple scrap vinegar (apple cider vinegar if you start with apple cider)
- painted barn quilt or hex sign
- harvest or clothespin aprons
- clearing land
- land tilling
- mowing service
- sell stock photos of rural or homestead life
- farmsitting
- petsitting
- childcare
- handyman
- certify as a permaculture design consultant
- harness making
- horseshoeing
- installing clothesline poles
- well digging
- solar power installation (battery bank, inverters, etc.)
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