Customer Reviews

Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business

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3 star:		(4)
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This book is basically a business/marketing plan with a farming slant. If you're looking for a "how-to" book about farming, this is probably not it. However if you are a farmer, looking to start/run your farm as a business, and you've never had a business class in your life - this study would help you. I'm a marketing consultant who would like to have a small farm. I thought I was getting a book teaching me about soil condition, rotating crops and irrigation. Instead it's Business 101. I could have written this book myself. There are true life vignettes inserted between each business chapter, but it's really a plain vanilla (though solid) business planning treatise. The true stories are motivational.

So - it's a great book for farmers who don't know much about business, but not a good buy for business people who don't know much about farming.

I had read some of the other reivews before purchasing so I was prepared. The examples of other business was great and gave me some new ideas. But the nuts and bolts of really running the busy were a bit vaugue in the book. A lot of the focus was on getting ready to start a business but not as detailed as I had hopped for running a farm business. Since I had a gift certificate it was ok, but don't know if I would buy it again.

While beginning the process of starting my first business, I was referred to this book by my colleague. The information presented was very helpful and insightful. Ms. Aubrey seems to have a lot of first hand knowledge to offer others. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to start a small agricultural business.

I've read part of this book, and so far like it, mainly because of the success stories. It is well-done and seems to have some solid ideas for a small farm business plan. If you already know the basics about running your own business, this is pretty much the same with a farming slant. It will not be anything new and it won't teach you how to farm ... just how to run a farm business, just like the title says. I'm told the author does have another book more about farming, though, and I look forward to reading it. There are a ton of other great how-to-farm books out there.

The book is full of useful information for the new farmer, the dreaming farmer and I suspect the seasoned farmer. A great reference book.
I'm a dreeaming farmer and plan to purchase one soon.

This book is wonderful and inspiring. Very informative. Gives lots of insight into different industries. Really gets you thinking too. Wonderful.

This book comes from an interesting perspective. She clearly runs a very large, high-income farm of her own that does wholesale, so she has a lot of experience of farm business on a big scale (not a megafarm, but not a small farmer by ANY standard). However, she writes as if she believed her production small, and offers advice to similarly small farmers... which seems a disconnect from the farmer who just wants to bring some garden produce and eggs to market, and not get in trouble over the business tax side of things.

Unfortunately, while all of her suggestions point to the right steps one has to take to legally run a business, the author really gives very little concrete information. I can understand avoiding state-specific details, but she could touch on Schedule F taxes, how to set up proper farm receipts and keep track of cash income and expenditures, etc. The name and description imply that she will explain the key parts of running a small business. In reality, she gives a brief and distant overview of how to secure financing and wholesale customers if you want to run a large farm with your family.

I would have appreciated more information on the money end, such as:
Taxes, what constitutes legitimate tax write offs for the IRS, business checking accounts, expenditures, profit/loss, etc.

I also would have liked to see more variance in the types of businesses that the author used for her case studies-most were based on large livestock produced for meat. What about poultry, rabbits, and fiber animals? Heirloom and organic fruits/vegetables, etc.

Great book for the small farmer. Beginneer or older farmers will benefit from this book!