Financing Your Farm
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Creative Ways to Get Growing (Presented at Florida Local Food Summit 2015)
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Financing Your Farm
- 3. . . . not to mention lawns!• turf grasses are the single largest irrigated crop in the u.s. (11.8.05 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/lawn/) • nation-wide we use 9,000,000,000 gallons of water / day for irrigation (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pubs/outdoor.html) • 800 million gallons of gasoline is burned / year maintaining lawns + 17 million gallons spilled from
- 5. - February ’14 started pilot - July ’14 received 5k grant from Healthy Central FL Foundation - January ’15 received 10k grant from 1% for the Planet - Engaged and trained over 125 volunteers - Scaling to 15 farmlettes by ’16 - Over 200 inquiries from future farmlette hosts
- 6. Donated land
- 7. Volunteer
- 9. Grant
- 10. community
- 11. 1. Start small 2. Partnerships 3. Multiple distribution streams
- 12. MORE INFO, TOOLKIT AND VIDEOS AT: www.FleetFarming.com fleet@ideasforus.org @FleetFarming
Editor's Notes
- About + Fleet Farming is a Urban Farming program of the non-profit IDEAS For Us, which utilizes lawns and bike-power to grow organic food in Orlando, Fl.
- The idea was proposed by John Rife at a monthly think and do tank that an environmental non-profit hosts at our event space. We were trying to address the environmental impacts related to food production and distribution. We quickly built on the idea and started the pilot of the program in Jan 2014.
- With this solution, we also address the negative impacts of lawns, which is the largest irrigated crop in the US, using almost 80x as much gallons of gasoline per year than that which was spilled in the Exon Valdez.
- So, the way the program works…*and volunteer power…*and to local distributors.
- So, to give you a little background and inside scoop on our startup funding… …all the money we profit goes back into the organzation…there is a common misconception that nonprofits can’t make money. They can, it’s just that it has to be funneled back into the org somehow.
- By no means do I think Fleet Farming is perfect for everyone (there are a lot of resources that have contributed to our profitability in the first year…however, I do think the following aspects of our model contributed to our success.
- Labor is probably one of the biggest costs of operating a farm. The program is 100% volunteer run, except for our part-time Farm Manager who received a monthly stipend. Volunteers manage almost every aspect of the program from maintaining the plots during our biweekly SWARM bike rides, processing the produce and marketing. Just be careful because if you are not set up as a non-profit, there are laws that prohibit you from using volunteer farmwork. The difference for us is that we focus more educating our farmers than we do on our profits and way pay our volunteers in produce.
- Rollins TapRoot Foundation Lawyer drafted our host agreements and waivers
- What’s great is that funding is out there for so much and growing food can be linked to so many causes-environmental, health, education, etc.
- What has contributed to our success Starting small – low startup costs Partnering –community resources. For the future of Fleet, I see campuses taking on the project as an organization. In this case, the University or High School is the partner and a financial resource in terms of funding. Thousands of dollars are allotted to these organizations, and growing food for the community can help further the school’s community engagement goals. Consider your time and resources and whether you are capable of handing distribution. You lose some income by selling through a distributor, but it can be worth it if the mkt gets rained out, etc, so it’s important to have diverse outlets to secure an end-point for your product and therefore sales.
- And if any of you are interested in knowing more about the program or starting your own branch….NOW WE HAVE A TOOLKIT!