Profit as a Homesteader

Shared with permission from MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends

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From being open-minded but honest about what you can and can’t provide to consumers, to finding and keeping customers, to looking at your homestead as a place for new, potential resources, the urban homesteading business can be a lucrative one. Not to mention the joys you can find by promoting healthy living and having the opportunities to assist a growing community. There are great ways to find support, learn valuable skills, and get as well as give help from and to other farmers. If you’re eager to hear this wisdom and more from the mouths of Hank and Becky themselves, listen on! They both have thriving sales. And their tips for creating client bases and staying afloat in the saturated marketplace of homegrown goods are straightforward and useful.

Hank Will (Oscar H. Will III) is a business leader, academic, and agricultural practitioner devoted to conservation and small-scale, sustainable agriculture. He currently serves as editorial director for all brands and MOTHER EARTH NEWS Editor-in-Chief at Ogden Publications in Topeka, Kansas. Will’s small-scale, high-cash flow farming experience spans more than four decades with projects as varied as native perennial plants and heirloom laying chickens. His current project, Prairie Turnip Farm in rural Osage County, Kansas, is home to a direct market Highland beef, Will’s landrace lamb, and a small broiler business. Will has authored or co-authored seven books and hundreds of articles, and he enjoys maintaining the open-pollinated corn varieties his great-grandfather developed. He enjoys making Finnish-style puukko knives, in his spare time

Becky Tipton and her husband, Steve, own Country Creek Honey and have been producing and selling honey for 30 years.  Becky is past president of the NE KS Beekeepers Association, VP of the Kansas Honey Producers, and a master beekeeper.  She teaches beekeeping and using products of the hive for skin care by making soaps, lotions, and balms.  Their farm is just north of Topeka where they raise broiler chickens, laying hens, heritage turkeys and corriente cattle. They farm in partnership with their son and daughter-in-law, John & Tammy Tipton.

Check the links below for topics mentioned in the podcast that may have piqued your interest:

Glass Gem Corn
Urban Bees Keep Dallas in Zip Code Honey
U. of Minnesota Bee Project

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