Does anybody have some ideas to bring in additional income to a farm in Maine?

Such as:
Fruit/vegetables to grow
Recreational ideas
Horse related activities

What KIND of farm is it? What does it already produce? What kind of customers are you already attracting, or selling too?

A small farm should have things that flow into one another, and become self sustaining.

Example:
My meat rabbits are raised in my orchard. The rabbits of course produce manure, drop food through their hutch bottoms, and atract flies.

The chickens that free range in the orchard climb the fruit trees and keep them bug free. They go under the rabbit hutches, and eat the fallen food, and scatter the rabbit manure. They also eat the fly maggots, and keep fly problems down for the rabbits. The chickens will also eat any mice that might be attracted to rabbit hutches in search of free food.

Around one hutch is a wood box, to prevent the chickens from scattering the manure. Worms live in abundance in the rabbit manure. That worm rich manure is spread on our garen areas where we grow our food.

The worms could also be sold to fishermen if I choose.

My customers who purchase the meat rabbits are from Central African countries. They eat a lot of corn, beans, mellons, and squash. So the extra my garden produces can be sold to them when they show up to purchase meat rabbits.

Extra vegtables, vines, stalks, and such from the garden can also be fed back to the rabbits, and chickens, which in turn produce more manure to fertilize further gardens.

See how everything flows neatly into the next farming venture? THAT is the way to have a truely productive farm. It also means you are not dependent on any one item to bring in all the money for the farm.

If you have a picture perfect farm, you can concider renting it out for family reunions, company picnics, and weddings. I cannot stress this next bit enough…before you even think about doing that, CHECK YOUR INSURANCE. Your current policy will not cover those things.

Horse related activities are a bad idea. You will not make enough money, and the insurance premiums will kill any profit. Insurance companies rank horses to be just as dangerous as a pit bull, or rottie.

How do I know? We own a small permaculture farm. I own 8 horses. The horses jack the insurance policy up, because I allow customers to come on farm. The customers are never even allowed near the horses, not even to pet them over the fence. But just having them on the same farm raises ones rates.

Grow local things that are prized in your area. In main, berries (especially blueberries), and potatoes are quiet prized. You cannot go wrong with mushrooms. Grow pumpkins, and corn stalks to sell in the autumn. Produce orchard mason bees to sell to other farmers in the very early spring.

Produce dried flowers, especially if you are near a tourist area.

~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

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