The YOLO "hollywood movie"/NYT best seller answer, however, is to drop everything you're doing, go to Madagascar, spend some time trying and failing (with hijinx!) to grow the crop yourself. Your neighbors at first are distant and doubtful, but slowly you gain their respect. 15 years from today, tsingy brand coffee is a household name.
[1] https://coffeelands.crs.org/2021/04/agroforestry-and-coffee-...
I stand to inherit a farm (of a very different sort: dry plains, mostly growing wheat) and I plan to do the same thing my father does now: lease it to a local.
If you want to get into farming get Wintgen's Coffee - Growing, Processing, Sustainable Production: A Guidebook for Growers, Processors, Traders and Researchers, 2nd, Revised Edition https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Coffee+Growing%2C+Processing%2C+... (You will get a way cheaper from other sources).
Depending on the country you have different options. You can think about leasing it to other farmers or a cooperative. Talk to a local Specialty Coffee Roastery for a different perspective.
If you are interested in more information I could make a follow up post
For your specific situation, my grandfather had a different saying: "Find yourself a teacher". He claimed this philosophy came from the Talmud, but I can't say. In any event, my grandfather had already gone from being a door-to-door cloth salesman to a cutter to a tailor, and he always found an expert teacher to attach himself to and learn from, and this usually meant someone humbly but seriously devoted to the work at hand. In the case of the ranch, it was a Cahuilla Indian man who had lived nearby, and who taught him how to take care of the trees. My grandfather employed him as a full-time caretaker and kept up his house on the land for the rest of his life.
My advice with anything where you don't have the knowledge to do it yourself would be to find yourself a teacher by searching in the humblest of places for someone with that knowledge, and make them your mentor.
Recap the facts:
- You've confirmed you have no experience ("I have no experience in this at all")
- You've confirmed your dad had no experience ("nor did he") ... so how do you know it's "good" land, or you dad did a good job until now ? Are you sure there are no "skeletons in the cupboard" ?
- You haven't got long ("around 2026"), we're entering 2023 now, 3 years will fly by. You have no experience, you have no coffee bean buyers lined up (in what is a very competitive market).
- Remember you are also taking on MORE financial risk by continuing because you will doubtless be required to incur CAPEX and OPEX expenses. So not only could it become a mental headache for you, but it could easily become a financial blackhole too.
I would not try to compete with low-quality bean production. Not sure how much land you have but you most likely don't have the resources to compete at scale. There is, however, a massive specialty coffee market and people are willing to pay good money for good coffee. So besides my recommendations above, try to find some specialty coffee producers in your region and learn from them.
Making a success of a commercial farm requires deep knowledge of the crop, the land, the weather and the local pests. Gone are the days of doing things the way your forefathers did things. Moreso if you actually want to be competitive in the market that you are producing for.
Please dont make the romantic mistake of thinking you will become this farmer and it's all sunshine and success. One bad crop (which could be because of no fault of your own) can mean financial ruin.
My advice: rub shoulders with the locals in the area. Maybe theres a farmer interested in renting your land and trees. Alternatively, appoint an expert to manage and run the farm for you.
Theres a certain romanticism associated whith owning land you inherited. But you have to be honest with yourself and look at the numbers. If it's not your expertise and the financials don't make sense you'll probably be better off selling the land.
My dad and I had exactly this conversation recently. He has some land that he got from his father, that he's renting out to the farming relatives. My dad's at the age now where he needs to plan for what happens to his estate. We looked at the numbers and relaized me and my brother will be better off selling and taking the money. In my country you are liable to pay hefty taxes on inheritance. Neither of us have the reserves to pay those taxes on a piece of land we have no idea how to run or manage. You inherit an asset that you are forced to liquidate in order to afford the inheritance taxes on that asset.
Next sign a 3-5 year contract with the contract farming company (WBS was to make sure you're not getting a raw deal). Get them to provide you technical help. The way this works is, they recommend and you execute.
All the best!
Two indisputable facts: (1) Most city dwellers like myself dream about a simpler life, working in a farm with their hands, raising up at 5am, harvesting crops, etc. (2) As most people commented farming is back braking work so (1) is just a fantasy for 99.9% of people who think about this.
Why not let people live the farming life, e.g. for 5 days, living on a farm and doing the actual work as well as paying for the experience. I would easily pay $200 a night to live on a coffee plantation during harvesting time to collect and process beans or help operate a combine or milk the cows, etc (am so ignorant about farm life it’s hard to give legitimate examples :-)
I don’t know if this idea already exists in practice. The colleague I propose it with excitement always gave me a bemused but incredulous look!
If you have the cash and time, I recommend visiting roasters and other coffee farms. I took a 2 day roasting class on a coffee farm in Bali. Learned a TON in very little time.
We don't have a minimum context. area?, rain?, acid soil?, market location?, variety? (early/season/late?), potential load of fruit?
Without data, we can't suggest you anything of value
Try the advice of an --independent-- professional consulting. Hear local sellers also but not only locals. Specially if they are local sellers also (Will try to sell you as many useless products as possible).
Remember this: Chemicals are not a magic wand. Is the number one mistake of a newbie. Sometimes are useful, but incorrectly used can do more harm than good. If your plants get ill, first discover the real problem. Your plants are alive beings in the Family Rubiaceae, try to understand their ecological needs and fix those first.
If you are newbie I would suggest to diversify your crops to reduce the possibility of failure. Some years are bad, other good. Do your location allows avocados? zapotes? icecream beans? plant a couple of trees somewhere to exercise your skills where they don't disturb the coffee plants or where they help them (If I remember correctly coffee plants need some light shadow to grow well, check it). Just an example, not need to be followed literally but, in resume, don't put all your eggs in the same basket.
Basically, you will either sell to the local processors or you will process it yourself. We are gearing up to process ourselves. We have about 10k trees, and we do all organic and no non natural fertilizers or pesticides. This year we are producing about 500 lbs of coffee after roasting. I think we can get to maybe 1000 lbs ( more with chemical fertilizers).
We will be making a boutique coffee with a story and a negative carbon footprint (we don’t do mechanized agriculture, and have solar charged electric vehicles for transport to the nearby, downhill port. and will be shipping on sail-only vessels to the USA)
If you are willing to be honest with yourself, you might find that being a farmer is not for you and it might be better to sell. You can also run it purely as a business, aka being a kind of farm manager and not be too close to the ground but employ good people that knows the plants/cultivars and the local environment (weather, soil, pests), listen to your people, treat them well, treat your new neighbours extremely well, as they will assist with a ton of knowledge and sometime physical help. Most importantly, honour the land & the plants; take good care of them and your environment and everything might fall into place a bit easier.
This is tough thing to be given/gifted, to be honest. Please prepare for the worst, emotionally and physically. It might also be the most rewarding and freeing thing you can do with your life and/or become.
Do not discount alternative income streams: if there are more land available, plant some other low maintenance crops or small stocks like chickens and so on for cash flow. If there is a river/stream, forest, small mountains etc, it can be worthwhile to build a handful of cabins or a camping terrain (but small, you want to stay niche, have good ablution blocks, skip electricity, just supply clean water) and so on. Multiple income streams can do wonders for farms. All depends how much money you have upfront to invest into the property. Luckily, you already have the 8K trees.
Good luck mate, hope that the journey ahead works out!
8000 tree coffee plantation could be 4 to 18 acres of land. Unless you visit Madagascar every 6 months, unless you have a trusty hand, better sell it. I don't know the prices in Madagascar, you can get at least $200K for it.
Longer-term: start reaching out to top agricultural programs for advice. Look for lists like this one & write to faculty: https://agronomag.com/best-schools-for-farmers-in-the-us/. You’ll probably be able to find people with expertise in coffee. I bet there are also conferences or industry associations that will help with networking. There are probably also government programs in your country.
What happens to the coffee today? Is 8000 trees a lot (sounds like it to me)?
I couldn't compete with the coffee berry borer and ended up chainsawing them down one by one. Coffee is surprisingly hard wood.
I planted noni instead, but that turned out to be a fad, and those were removed next.
Then I grew taro, and all was well.
There's coffee as a hobby, and coffee as a professional business. 8000 trees is the latter.
Well, very original post for HN. Even considering, I myself was deeply involved in beekeeping. I even now eventually consider to become beekeeper ;)
What I think, seriously, I started beekeeping from two hives (one initially was empty).
Unfortunately, this was initiative of my grandfather, but other relatives was not interested in this, so after his death they just sold all tools and forgot about it. And I was not successful enough, to save anything.
So, primary question, You should have strong enough income, to pay this business payments, and still have normal life and make adequate savings.
If You have bold answer on overall finance question, could proceed next questions (but will return there).
Next, as I read from Your answers, this planned to give wholesale amount of beans, this is not small business.
This mean, You need not only knowledge about gathering trees and keeping them, but also, warehouse management, marketing, and selling beans on agricultural stock exchange, and medium size business management.
So, that is list, of what to learn:
- gathering trees and keeping them
- warehouse management
- marketing
- agricultural stock exchange
- medium size business management
And the last advice, from my own business management experience - to maximize probability of success, You should start all these activities immediately, don't wait until Your own beans will grow. I mean, start just tomorrow, buy beans directly from other bean producer (buy on stock exchange is not so good for learning) and process them and sell.
As for the production process, it is very labor intensive. You'll most likely want to grow other plants for the sake of building an ecosystem and help diversify your farm crops. The other fruit trees can help provide shade to your coffee trees as well as offer other benefits.
It'd also be good to know what the variety and cultivar of plant you have and have a soil test done in multiple areas of your farm. It'd be most profitable to grow specialty coffee and the price is set based on quality. The higher the cup score, the higher the price (in most cases).
Good luck!
Do you have an idea which crops have been planted? Is the plantation in a favorable location (altitude, weather)?
Depending on both, you should become clear about whether you want to produce commodity coffee or specialty coffee. The latter is more difficult to produce, but also more profitable.
If you're going the specialty route, it may even be fruitful (hah!) to get in contact with content creators. They usually have useful contacts in the industry, and they might be willing to connect you.
In any case, try to get in touch with European roasters, as they usually value traceability and prefer to roast single origin coffees.
Best of luck! And enjoy the journey.
Oh, and if you had your first batch, please drop me a message. I know a few local roasters (Germany) that may be interested in new sources. :-)
The next few years should see coffee prices increase due to the losses this year in South America due to the prolonged / unexpected frosts.
All I could find for a starting point. This might not be totally applicable to your region, but I'd suggest you seek out coffee growers association in your area for further advice. Best of luck.
https://agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/1...
https://www.agrifarming.in/coffee-growing-information-beginn...
Nobody so far has mentioned the processing. Roasting is for roasteries; that's not really the farmer's business. But in most coffee-growing areas, the farmers organize into collectives, with shared processing facilities. A lot of the distinctive characters of coffees are the result of the way the cherries are processed. Since the collective's output is all mixed together, it's not single-estate; I assume that sales are handled by the collective, not by individual farmers.
Maybe there isn't a processing collective in your area; perhaps you could launch a processing facility, and encourage your neighbours to have a go.
1. You should not feel obliged to continue your father's work. You're a different person and I'm sure your father would prefer you to be happy above the farm staying in the family. If you think selling the land is a better option, do it. If you built your own career, don't sacrifice it for the farm.
2. Consider leasing it. I'm in the EU so I get subsidies (even if there's nothing there but grass), plus a lease from people who want to actually grow something there.
Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of places in New York that I believe are ran by diligent people. I could probably point you to their direction if that's of interest, but I am in no way affiliated nor interested in getting into that kind of business, just would love to see such a resource not go to waste.
What I'd do is find a local farmer in the area and lease it to them. You can probably set up something where they pay you something like 25% of the crop for rent.
They will gladly talk to you for hours and show you the ropes. If they like you they will give you carte blanche to come in to the property unannounced and speak to their employees, anytime.
Because in the end, its possible you buy their plants or seeds, and many farmers make money from that too.
My guess is there are coffee farms nearby. If so, lean on a local experts advice.
The bulk of the land was leased out to a large coffee company on a multiyear lease.
My FIL bought two farms as a hobby, and he essentially has two choices: selling to middlemen for peanuts or going direct-to-consumer. DTC is problematic for obvious reasons - you have to do last-mile delivery and "how do people buy when they don't know what's available."
Middlemen buy low from you so they can sell high from someone else, and have market-making ability.
So before you do anything, try to figure out who you're going to sell these crops to.
That’s it. Keep it simple. No partnership. No business deals. A simple employee arrangement.
That’s basically step one. However, it will free up your time to find a buyer for the beans when it’s time to harvest them and sell them. Rinse and repeat.
If there isn't a massive attachment to the land, that's what I would do. Bona fides: I manage a 7th generation family cork farm that I will one day inherit and promptly sell.
Haven't heard much about that since. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
I don’t have any answers about how to make coffee but two thoughts:
* start a brr.fyi blog about it, we love that here
* if Jason Mraz can do it, so can you!
Where you at? Hawaii?
Farming is extremely labor intensive and largely a commodity business. Marketing and branding are largely where profits are made in the beverage business.
As an example of a recent successful high grow beverage company, take a look at Liquid Death, which turned a low budget AD into a billion dollar company within years:
My understanding is that market for Robusta may be only for instant coffee production or to adulterate Arabica to make cheaper. I've only rarely seen Robusta sold green and there's good reason for that: it's distinctly unpleasant by itself.
How about events hosting? Weddings, parties, trainings, etc.
If not then sell or rent it to someone who does. Do what you want
aforesaid manager is also a person who would be essential if and when you choose to sell this farm.
just spend 2mi on machinery and you should be good to go.
If I got that, I'd look into either sell it flat-out, or try and run it as a company..
disclaimer 2: only had one company, was not terribly profitable
I'd try to hire someone in to run it for me
It might be simpler to sell it to someone else though!
If you try, you’ll probably end up with locust swarms.