Day 57: Income Generating Ideas On The Homestead

Dear Student,

Throughout this course, we’ve discussed countless ideas that might pique your interest as lucrative cottage industries (or even could be grown into large commercial enterprises) for you to pursue.

The only limiting factors are the thought and the amount of effort you wish to put into it…

Today, I’m going to do my best to list all the income-generating homestead ideas that you could undertake, though the list is far from exhaustive. Many of these will only provide a small income in their own right, but if they are simple and quick, several of these money-earning ideas can turn into an off-farm, job-replacing income. Some of these ideas will seem obvious and others will seem trivial, but there is a market in this world for nearly everything—especially artisan skills and high-quality products.

Pick money-making ideas that you like just to give them a try. Your chances of success (and happiness) are directly linked to your interest in the task you plan to undertake, so find out from firsthand experience what you like and don’t like before you make any big commitments.

Do a little reading on the ideas you like and estimate the amount of start-up capital you will need to start and consider the potential return on your time spent.

Remember, unless you are producing large commercial amounts from your efforts, always try to sell your products retail and avoid wholesaling to stores. More money is often made by the wholesaler than by the person producing the craft product itself.

(See the associated lessons that expand on the ideas given below.)

• Aquaculture:
  • Fish production and processing. Smoking a great value add. Tilapia and catfish polycultures.
  • Shellfish and crustacean production. Able to polyculture with the fin-fish in the same ponds. Freshwater shrimp and mussels.
  • Aquatic food plant production: water chestnut, taro.
  • Aquatic flowers for floristry, lotus, etc.
  • Ducks can forage some or all of their food.
• Aquaponics: A fun, easy and lucrative endeavor when you have got the hang of it. Produce all you and your neighbor’s protein, greens, and vegetables in a small space.
• Beekeeping: Requiring practically no space, beekeeping can be a great skill to learn and can be very rewarding. Honey, wax, mead, and fine quality candles can be made with little effort.
• Bonsai plants: An interesting specialty to consider in your garden, with local market potential.
• Brewing: Check the legality of selling homebrew in your area, but bartering beer for other products you want can be easy, social, and rewarding.
• Campsite: If you have a little space on your homestead, why not rent out space for campers to enjoy your natural farm?
• Childcare: Able to quit your job to be able to work from home and raise your own kids? Given the huge costs of creches and childcare, you can profitably care for neighbors’ kids while they are at work, too, assuming you like kids.
• Christmas tree farm: If you have low-quality land somewhere on your homestead, this can be a regular annual income earner.
• Compost: Becoming adept at producing high-quality compost for sale can be lucrative. Seek out free compost materials off-farm, like leaves and other biomass, and you could produce a significant amount of valuable soil amendment for sale locally.
• Coppicing: Coppice willows to supply whips for weaving or to burn for fuel.
• Dairy: Making cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream are tasty ways of raising the value of your dairy products.
• Distilling: Once again this is subject to the laws of your area, but producing alcohol for fuel from farm wastes or for consumption from on-farm products is an easy task.
• Dried herbs: Dried herb bundles of oregano, marjoram, and rosemary can keep a long time and can easily be a small earner over the entire year.
• Dog breeding: Breeding pedigree and mixed dogs in a humane and caring environment can be fun, exciting, and profitable.
• Dog training: If you take the time to learn the training techniques, people will pay over US$10,000 to have their dogs trained professionally to be work/guide/security dogs.
• Farm vacations/bed and breakfast: People will pay to come stay on and perhaps even work on your farm.
• Firewood: Any leftover lumber from your hardwood or carpentry operations can be sold as firewood.
• Education center: Once you have mastered these self-sufficiency skills, you can rent the forum for others (or yourself) to teach at your homestead.
• Fresh and dried flowers: For sale loose or made into arrangements.
• Fruit farming: Planting a small orchard or food forest now can pay dividends in perennial income for decades.
• Fish hatchery: Hatch specialty fish for sale to aquaponic and aquaculture growers in your area. Breed tropical fish for aquariums.
• Garden produce: This is a broad umbrella… Vegetables and fruiting plants, including berries, are the cornerstone of many self-sufficiency homesteads.
• Gun range or hunting school: If you have the space and the permits and don’t mind the noise.
• Hardwood lumber: A longer-term investment, but one that can be easily and lucratively managed over the years if you have the space for a wood lot.
• Landscape plants: Hedging plants, sentry plants, and trees will shield and protect your garden, and selling excess plants you have can be highly profitable.
• Poultry: Once you are keeping hens for your own use, you can easily expand to supply your friends and neighbors and get full retail price for your poultry products. (Organic commands higher prices.)
• Egg production
• Meat bird rearing
• Breeding chicks for sale
• Ready-to-lay birds (young hens or ducks)
• Other poultry: geese, ducks
• Specialty breeds: guinea fowl, quail, pheasant, heritage turkeys, even ostriches if you have the space and are feeling adventurous.
• Meat Animals
• Lamb
• Beef
• Rabbits
• Pork
• Cold smoking any of the meat above increases their shelf life, desirability, and value.
• Mushrooms: Producing specialty mushrooms for the local gourmet market can be achieved using simple waste products like logs, old straw, and animal manure.
• Seedlings for transplanting: As you will probably be starting seedlings for your homestead several times a year anyway, it will take little extra work to plant seedling starts to sell to friends and neighbors.
• Spice farming: If you live in warm or subtropical areas, and depending on the amount of land you have, spice farming could be a real income earner.
• Teach classes on the information and skills you have learned.
• Tours: Offer farm tours and open days to city folks and their children.
• Wool: Sheep and angora goat wool can be sold or spun into yarn, or even woven or knitted if you have the interest.
• Worm and BSF production for bait and feed
• Marijuana cultivation: If you have a valid license and marijuana cultivation is legal in your area.
• U-Pick crop fields: If you have crop space that you won’t use this year, why not grow a “U-Pick” pumpkin patch around Halloween, strawberry patch in summer, or blackberry patch in fall? All you have to do is plant and mulch, and customers pay you do the rest of the work.
• Bakery: Learn to bake your own wholesome bread and expand to supply your community, too.
• Stud services: If you have a pedigree bull, boar, or dog, offer these services to a small holder who hasn’t the space or funds to keep their own stud animals. With dogs, stud fees can be a fixed fee or the pick of the resulting litter of pups. Fixed fees are more common for bull stud services.
• Hunting access: If you have acreage or Zone 5 areas on your homestead, why not charge for hunting of invasive deer or farm predators and pests?
• Sewing: Altering and repairing clothes can be done in front of the TV.
• Farm restaurant: If you grow your own produce, capture much more value by catering or opening a small restaurant on your farm.
• Farm brokerage: If you are selling your own produce at the market or supplying restaurants, offer products that your friends or neighbors produce that you don’t and charge a commission.
• Juices: Got fruit? Sell organic fresh-squeezed juice.
• Jams: Make jams, jellies, and preserves.
• Home remedies, lotion, salves.
• Meal delivery: Deliver meals and salads to locals and businesses.
• Landscaping/permaculture design. Take a permaculture course from the Permaculture Institute and sell your knowledge.
• RV storage: If you have the space.
• Petting zoo: If you have friendly animals, get them together and open your farm to families for a fee.
• Organic pesticide production.
• Weaving: Baskets or blankets.