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What does it take to build a profitable farm without working more hours, burning out, or constantly wondering whether the numbers will work?
A successful farm needs more than good production. It needs a business plan that connects your financial goals, sales, labor, crop production, and quality of life.
The Profitable Farmer is a practical guide to building a financially resilient, well-run farm business that supports both your livelihood and the life you want to lead. Farm business experts Julia Shanks and Dan Brisebois provide a step-by-step planning system for turning a long-term vision into the financial, sales, staffing, and production decisions you make throughout each growing season.
Whether you're starting a market farm and want to build solid systems from the beginning, or you're an experienced farmer looking to improve profitability and regain control of your time, this book helps you see how the different parts of your farm business work together.
Inside, you'll learn how to:
- Create a five-year vision based on profit goals, meaningful work, and a sustainable schedule
- Turn long-term goals into practical annual farm plans
- Plan for profit and understand the numbers behind your farm
- Develop a sales strategy that supports your financial and production goals
- Make more intentional decisions about hiring and managing farm labor
- Plan production around what you actually need to sell
- Track key information throughout the season and make adjustments before small problems grow
- Review your results and use what you've learned to plan a stronger season next year.
At the heart of the book are four interconnected pillars of a successful farm business: grounded financials, strategic sales, a balanced team, and effective production. Rather than treating finances, marketing, labor, and growth as separate problems, Shanks and Brisebois show how to plan and manage them as parts of one farm system.
Practical tools and examples help you put that system to work, including planning templates, financial benchmarks, crop-yield references, sales forecasting, planting calculations, and a crop-planning system. The book also addresses business plans, financing, budgets, cash flow, and navigating a cash crisis, with case studies drawn from farms in the United States and Canada.
Julia Shanks has advised hundreds of farmers and food-business owners on financial and operational sustainability and holds an MBA in entrepreneurship. Dan Brisebois brings more than 20 years of experience as a market farmer and seed grower and is a founding member of Tourne-Sol Co-operative Farm in Quebec. Together, they combine farm-business expertise with the realities of running a working farm.
For vegetable and flower farmers - from sub-acre startups to established operations - The Profitable Farmer offers a practical roadmap for building a farm that is profitable, purposeful, and sustainable for the people who run it.
I've said it many times, and I'll say it again: growing great vegetables is only half the battle. The other half is selling them well, understanding your numbers, and building a business that gives you the life you set out to create. The best growers master both. The Profitable Farmer is a practical roadmap for getting there. Whether you're just starting out or have been farming for years, this book will help you become not just a better business owner, but ultimately a better grower. I highly recommend it.
— Jean-Martin Fortier, author, The Market Gardener and teacher, the Market Gardener Institute
So good to see Dan and Julia join forces to put together their decades of experience in creating effective plans for farms, and more importantly, including details on how to use and continuously improve those plans over the years! This is just as valuable for folks starting out and folks deep into their farm businesses making decisions about how to move forward. While it’s specifically written with examples for small farms, any business would benefit from their framework.
— Josh Volk, author, Compact Farms and Build Your Own Farm Tools
Julia and Dan really hit the nail on the head. They’ve managed to create an immensely workable step-by-step guide to methodically guide farmers toward profitability. The small farm world has needed this book for a long time! The Profitable Farmer is an easy read, with comfortable language and great examples. Actually “doing the work” of filling out the templates and following the thought flow will require exertion – and that’s what farmers are already good at!
— Ellen Polishuk, Plant to Profit and author, Start Your Farm
In The Profitable Farmer, Julia and Dan do a superb job of walking readers through what it takes to plan out and run a successful farm business, and why it’s so important. The business side of farming is not typically what brings people into growing food, but it’s definitely what keeps them able to do it—to feed people, care for the land, work outdoors, all of it. The Profitable Farmer is a book written by two people who deeply understand that tension and can help you navigate it successfully.
— Jesse Frost, author, The Living Soil Handbook
If we plant a seed, it can grow. How well it grows depends on the farmer, but how profitable the return depends on so much more. In this amazingly helpful book, longtime farm-business nerds Julia Shanks and Dan Brisebois take us through the critical steps of building farms that grow purposefully and profitably—from vision and financial planning to sales, teams, production, and reflection.
— Zach Loeks, author, The Permaculture Market Garden and The Edible Ecosystem Solution
Julia and Dan have created a farming manual that feels both instructional and personal. Reading it evokes the feeling of sitting around a kitchen table with a farming friend or mentor, dishes and egos pushed aside, with hopes, dreams and numbers shared honestly and openly. The pages are filled with helpful schedules and templates I wish I'd had as a beginning farmer, and the anecdotes and specifics I crave these days.
— Taylor Mendell, Footprint Farm
Creating a profitable farm is crucial to build a thriving farm. Julia and Dan guide you through the process of getting your financial goals down in writing, including worksheets and formulas that help you make sense of all the moving parts. If your farm is struggling, this book will help bring awareness to the financial drains and ideas for how to focus on increased profits.
— Corinne Hansch, author, Microgreens and Shoots and farmer, Lovin’ Mama Farm
As a veteran farm business consultant specializing in financial sustainability, I see The Profitable Farmer becoming an essential daily tool for my clients. The Profitable Farmer teaches you how to establish your own personalized metrics. It introduces powerful operational shortcuts—such as validating crops based on potential sales per bed and potential sales per harvest hour—allowing farmers to seamlessly bridge the gap between their financial office numbers and raw field production. Stop stretching yourself thin across unprofitable enterprises. Use this book to build a highly structured, climate-resilient farm that honors your profits, your purpose, and your quality of life.
— Jedediah Beach, Founder & CEO, FarmSmart
Where was this book when I was farming? Julia Shanks and Dan Brisebois have created the guide I wish I’d had—a practical, step-by-step roadmap for building a profitable farm without sacrificing the quality of life that makes farming worth doing. By combining sound business principles with the real-world math of farm profitability, The Profitable Farmer gives farmers the tools to build businesses that are not only sustainable, but truly viable.
— Rebecca Thistlethwaite, author, The New Livestock Farmer and Farms with a Future
Too many farmers believe working harder is the answer. This book is a refreshing reminder that working smarter with a clear plan, solid numbers, and a vision for the life you actually want to live is what creates a farm that lasts. Julia and Dan have written the guide I wish more farmers had from the very beginning. It's an encouraging and practical read, filled with the kind of wisdom that can change not just a farm business, but the farmer behind it.
— Lyndsay Mercer, Owner of Wildroot Flower Co. & Co-host of The Dirt on Flowers Podcast
This book is full of shrewd strategic planning advice from two experienced leaders in the field. If you want to increase profits on your farm, without adding work, pick up a copy and follow its advice.
— Ben Hartman, Clay Bottom Farm and author, The Lean Farm
Introduction
Part I: Five Years from Now
Chapter 1: Define Your Vision
Chapter 2: Map Your Five-Year Plan
Chapter 3: Track What Matters
Part II: This Year
Chapter 4: Grounded Financials – Plan for Profit
Chapter 5: Strategic Sales – Sell with Intention
Chapter 6: Cohesive Team – Manage for Balance
Chapter 7: Effective Production – Grow with Purpose
Part III: Next Year
Chapter 8: Reflect on How the Season Felt
Chapter 9: Dig into the Numbers
Chapter 10: Plan for the Year Ahead
Epilogue
Appendices