Joel Salatin Reveals the Best Place to START A FARM or Homestead
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
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In this video Joel Salatin answers the question: Where is the best place to start a small farm or homestead? I hope Joel Salatin's answer helps you as you start your small farm. Be sure to subscribe to my channel for more on how to start a small farm! Joel Salatin also gives valuable advice on how young farmers can get their start.
I hope you enjoy this regenerative agriculture podcast with Joel Salatin!
-the Shepherdess
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In this video:
How to Start a Small Farm
Where to start a Small Farm
The Best Place to start a Small farm
Regenerative Agriculture Podcast
Start Where you are at
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." Isaiah 40:8
I have a micro farm we're going to be putting in the market in the next year. We're in south Texas on high ground with a water well that is situated between two great water sources. We have a robust solar system supplying power, good garden soil, producing fruit trees, irrigated pastures. And an established community bakery with farmers market type setup at the end of the driveway. We're going to be selling it mostly furnished since we are going from a 4/3 to a 1/2 next. Low tax and sort of reasonable insurance makes this ideal for homeschool family set up. We're closing on the next property next month. Then we'll start prepping it for our move.
Why are you moving? What part of Texas?
@ we are in south Texas about midway between Houston and Corpus. Outskirts of Victoria. Our son lives in Branson and we love Arkansas so we're moving after my husband retires. We love it here and have a tremendous community, perfect neighbors... we hate to go on one hand but know we need to. This is a farmhouse with 4 beds 3 baths, and small acreage so we'd rather have much smaller house and much bigger pastures. (I won't dust bigger pastures or mop them either) 😉
Good to see you darling. The best place to start is right where you are at. You will know your area markets and whats out there. Start small and test the waters over time. As you grow your talents so will your customer base and your name. Above all keep your reputation.
Yes! So often the greatest opportunity lies right under our nose...
-the Shepherdess
I’d be interested to know how to find these farmers who are writing letters looking for people to buy their farms. Very interested.
Same!!!!
Same here. I'm about to pick up two more jobs just so I can hopefully get some land to start in another year or so.
Add me to the list, too!!!!
Me too!!
I've been around farming and farmers all my life . And the farmers I know would be more than willing to lut someone come in and work their butt off . Maybe kinda lead them to believe they will sale it at some point . But that time will never come.
Well… the farm that’s been in my family since 1871 is in Missouri… so starting next year we are going to do our best to make it work… we are an hour and half from St Louis and 3 hours from Kansas City
Good for you! I love that area (not the city though). If you or a friend nearby is looking for a church, Calvary Baptist Church in Belleville is one of the best places you could possibly go (to my knowledge). :)
Ughhhhh love me some ole Joel wisdom 😍
You said it. 🙌🏻
-the Shepherdess
Many a true word said in this video. Home is where you lay down to sleep and a farm is anywhere that you can grow stuff that you need and can sell. Thanks for posting
Can’t tell you how glad I am that you are back!!
@@theShepherdess Thank you for those kind words
Maine is the same as Missouri in that aspect. Everyone and her sister is moving here from the city and starting a micro farm by buying up all the medium-sized farms and putting a 5 acre ranchette on it. It’s very frustrating because it’s driving the price of land through the clouds
One can always move to the county an try farming up there.
I agree. What Joe preaches sounds good. But for us people that have always lived in the country it isn't good for us. These people move out here and just screw up things for us
Yes we in Missouri are getting a lot of people from CA and other regulated states driving our land prices way up and making land hard to come by.
They're like locust that come in and destroy an area. They've done it to Oregon, Washington, Idaho. I know they're now branching out from the NW because they've destroyed our way of life and made it impossible to live. I'm not saying all of them are bad but they're destroying economies regardless
I'd love to do a lease purchase arrangement for a farm.
Ultimately would like to retire from finance to farm. Started as a farmer as a kid
Once again, good advice from Mr. Salatin. While I live in a hurricane possible area, we almost never have any droughts. Location, location, location.
YES!
Where is such an area?
@@experimenthealthyketo83 NW Florida.
Good verse..one of my favorites. Your so right. Distance from a customer is a big deal.
Having the market is so important. I’m a fairly easy drive for over 10 million non local people and a percentage of these people are “status eaters” with an understanding and desire for quality.
EVERYBODY is a prepped homesteader farmsteader in MO, and outside a couple of suburbs, their aren’t many buyers.
This is really, really helpful advise.
He could start a community posting, of people looking for someone to take over a farm, and of people looking for a farm or land.
I’m not super young but if a farmer wants to leave me their farm or even a couple acres, I’d happily be an intern to learn
North and Central Texas!!!!
❤❤❤ two of my favorite people
Well Texas of course!! LOL...... seriously though, you sometimes have to go where God sends you. Great advise from your guest.
Haha! I’d have to agree about Texas... but I’m biased. 😂
@@theShepherdessI have a question. I’m not sure what state to look for any advice?
My farm's demons are -35°F winters, and winters that last 6 months of the year.
What do you farm in the cold weather? What happens to the chicken and cattle then?
I'm fairly familiar with Minnesota also.
Man I wish we get -45 weather where I'm from
Watch growing in the snow on TH-cam
Good information. I love it. We moved from California to Kentucky. California was too many laws what you can have on your property. Plus the property is crazy high
Kentucky is beautiful!! Was it an easy transition for you?
-the Shepherdess
@@theShepherdess well the tradition was a little difficult. Yes Kentucky is very beautiful. The crazy part was the drive from California to Kentucky with 23 chickens 40 racing pigeons 8 dogs 3 kids a grumpy father in law and hubby. Haha 😂 it was a pretty interesting trip. I have to do a video on it maybe one of these days 😂 2200 miles
@@LadysFarm we have traveled the country for 3 years and finally felt called to TN. The Cumberland Mt range….I explored Kentucky last week, beautiful!!
We haven’t purchased home yet, waiting for the market to come down a little, hope you the fall. Welcome to the area!
*hopefully in the fall.
@@xkitchick thank you so much. Yes we did as well. We traveled all over and searched for years. Kentucky is home for us. Tennessee was one we wanted to move to. But it was really expensive for land. And the growth of Tennessee is moving fast right now. For us Kentucky was where we landed and it wasn’t even in our top 5 places to move to. If you ever visit Kentucky and want to look for cheap property let me know I can hook you up with our realtor who is amazing. He found our property for us. It wasn’t even on Zillow or anything else we were looking at.
So much making sense, I think I'm going to have to lie down!!!
Very good points ! I am ordering his new book !
Thanks for your informative questions and answers.
We too are looking for that Goldilocks zone.
Joel hits it right on the nail. Gotta have markets for your products. That's why I'm not located in Alaska or Montana. Love 'em, though!
Great advice, spot on!!!
but I live in Missouri! 🤯 My 5 year plan is to get a Homestead/ Hobby farm so hopefully it'll be okay
I think you will find that another source of income is needed or some other kind of passive income(stocks, pension, social security etc.) unless you plan to live completely self sufficiently. Think about what your costs will be and I’ve heard Joel say before, save at least enough money to last you 6 months if not a year in case nothing works out as planned. A homestead is more than just where you grow food. How will you pay for heating cooling etc. I’m sure you’ve thought of a lot of this before but no homestead survives on just animals and vegetables. You need heat, power, plumbing, water source etc. if you aren’t willing to do all of that(firewood, well water, electricity if you need AC) then you will need some sort of income. If you are in a good area of Missouri though (near people) I think you’ll be able to work it out
What’s he sayin? Toll hold? Tow hole? I can’t understand it…
I love Joel!! Thank you for this info!!
He’s saying “toe-hold” 😅. He was telling us that you can start smaller than a foot-hold... get a toe-hold in whatever industry you want to go with and go from there!🦶😄
-the Shepherdess
@@theShepherdess I thought he was telling me to get a "toll road". Strangely enough I was like...okay that makes sense.
Lol, I'm just kidding, sorry. (not sorry)😄
@@Digger927 I know... it took me 1/2 of the 1 hour session before I finally understood what he meant. 😂
Bahahahaha
Thank you for clarifying !
my husband and I are full time Rvrs , looking to start a farm in Tennessee, this sounds like the perfect idea for us since we are so flexible. I would love to help someone transition, while learning the ropes from an elder!
My own direct-market farm although not at either extreme is more like what Salatin describes as being preferable, in an area with more "elite foodies" than an area like those parts of Missouri he talks about with all the homesteaders, but if I were starting over again I'd like to be an area with a lot more homesteaders.
I think that's especially true if your goal is to have a diversified homestead as opposed to just having a vegetable farm or meat/poultry/egg farm or dairy, etc., and to growing all (or most) of the above plus things like grains (at least for personal consumption) that are more challenging to do on a small (relative to conventional) scale for market, plus doing lots of homestead things beyond producing food like building a house or farm building with trees from one's own woods, restoring your own old tractor or training draft animals, tanning hides from one's own animals...
If you're wanting to homestead in that way, then (1) you may be able to meet a lot more of your own needs, which should mean that you don't need to sell as much product and earn as much money to make a living, and therefore don't need to find as many customers, besides which you'll be spending more time providing for your own needs so won't have the time to grow as much for market, (2) other homesteaders may be potential customers, either because they're more specialized and aren't growing everything you're growing or because they're just getting started and their fruit trees aren't producing yet or they still travel enough that they can't practically keep their own dairy animal or they don't have enough land to raise their own beef, etc., and (3) being in a community of other homesteaders opens up lots of potential for cooperation: buying/selling/trading/sharing livestock (especially unrelated male livestock for breeding) or finding someone in the area that already has a liquid nitrogen tank and can artificially inseminate your animals for you or teach you how to do it yourself, having neighbors that can milk a cow for you if you want to leave town, having neighbors with small tractors that can help you if your own tractor breaks, having neighbors that can go in together with you on a bulk purchase of something, being able to borrow a trailer from a neighbor to transport livestock instead of having to buy your own livestock trailer just for the very limited number of days you'll use it each year...
Exactly. You basically just described American history, backwards. Yes we had homesteads (in the purest sense of the word), but we had a huge number of developed towns and villages that people seem to forget! That was agriculture cooperation at its finest. If you read some of Adam Smith's work (the famous early American founder of capitalism), you'll see some of the ways things can really work together.
Solid!
Show me where to look and teach me the trade and I'll be happy to take over a farm from someone!
Better chance finding a unicorn or leprechaun
ThankQ
This eas an amazing episode. #Bravo #KeepUpTheGreatWork
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for commenting.
-the Shepherdess
Great vid. THANKS!!!
Thanks, Dwight! Glad you enjoyed it.
-the Shepherdess
People who complain about states that regulate don't truly understand the damage that can and will be done to land if it is over populated. You can't have more livestock then your land can realistically support them. Those regulations help to keep individuals from using harmful chemicals and polluting the ground water.
Do you mean over populated by our species. 😮😉🤣
We are having weather here in our area in Mississippi we've never had before! Very disturbing! We have no storm shelter.
I’m sorry to hear that, Darlene! I hope you can build a storm shelter soon!
Al go rithm ❤️
Where on earth can we find one of those lease to own farm from an older farmer?
I've got a video coming that's going to show you exactly how to get your hands on some land!
@@theShepherdess perfect! Thank you so much!
I’m in Missouri with a small farm and pray to God the people moving here vote red to keep things from being micromanaged like they were in the states people are fleeing from.
So was Missouri the state or do I need to pay and watch the podcast.
He said “bloom where you are planted”. …wherever you’re at make it work.
The full length is free if you want to access it using link in description!
@@theShepherdess Thank you for the reply.
I liked Joels statement.. there's no paradise this side of eternity. LOL. Isn't that the truth. Interesting statistics on the average age of farmers now. Sobering thought to realize that in the next 15 years, 50 percent of farming operations will change hands. In my time here on our farm, I have been approached by gas line people, marcellus shale oil and gas drilling people, the logging industry and most recently the solar power people wanting to plant solar panels on 12-15 acre parcels. I can see how easy it is for farms to break up and become a thing of the past.
Yes!! Pros and cons regardless of the area you choose. Interesting to think we could be on the brink of a lot of change with such a transfer of land ownership.
-the Shepherdess
My 9 year old (since 4 actually) wants to be a homesteader, loves the old fashion way of doing thing (like broom-making). I, unfortunately- live in the city and just as we were in a position to move to the county to establish at least a place for her to learn and grow- Californians came rushing in and knocked us out of any kind of acreage, including 1 acre- property. E- TN is not the place to buy post covid.
I at to go for your 9 year old! Use the waiting period to learn! There are so many skills that don’t require land (leather working, canning, broom making, etc)
Awe this was a little teaser!!! 😂
Haha! Yes, new news video is still in progress. 😂
@@theShepherdess sweet. I will wait for it to come out. I love your videos. Very informative. I definitely want to get into sheep. But I really need to learn more before jumping on that one
Backyard in suburbia on 0.29 acre?
Maybe it's changed in future videos, but the clicky sounds when your Subscribe button animation runs are pretty distracting. The visual is ok and the sound is ok, just distractingly loud.
It's supposed to be that way
Joel is right about cost of land in New Mexico--it can go for $500/acre if it's out in the desert. If it's near water, say in the Rio Grande valley, it can go for $250,000 an acre where wealthier people in the community use once agricultural land to build dream homes.
This always hurts my soul to see.
How do I get a hold of these older farmers that want to teach what they do or have someone to take over for them in some way????
See Joel's daughter's website.
@@parkburrets4054 You wouldn't happen to know what that website is called would you?
@@parkburrets4054 what is Joel's daughters name?
They don't exist
Great question and channel! Just subbed. We are in Utah now and it's as expensive as CA at this point. Looking to relocate but there are so many options. Looking at MT, MO, TN, NC, TX.
Personally, I'd stay far from the Southwest. I live in Northern Maine. The downside here is long winters and far from a really profitable marketplace.
If there is 5 Fish&Chips shops in one street, what business do you open in that street?
.
.
.
FISH & CHIPS shop.
Cause it works there.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
The best place to start growing food is 5 feet from your houses door. It’s where you live.
Where the heck are these people giving away farms!? I'll take two lol
Haha! There aren’t any giveaways for sure. But there will be a lot of changing hands over the next 20 years. Be ready to secure your patch. 🌱
-the Shepherdess
It's not happening
So
You seriously underestimate Missouri farmers markets. I’d go with Missouri any day over New England.
Hell yeah
I hate California, it takes 12 years to accomplish here what it would have taken 5 almost everywhere else, and I don't feel like busting my ass to support the ever growing number of people out here who won't get off theirs and earn a living. This place makes me sick in my soul and I am wanting to escape and pursue my freedom.
Good luck.
I hear you, just moved to Florida after 30 years loving it here !
Its all about property tax!!! Best place is , countries where you dont pay property taxes
🥰🥰🥰
If we lose small farms we lose our health, freedom and country.
I have 8 million people within 100 miles.
Sounds like you’ve got a great market!
-the Shepherdess
@@theShepherdess southern New England. I'm very small and just starting grazing 2 steers to build up my pasture. Not sure if I'll ever sell anything, but I love regenerative agriculture. I'm 59 so just under the average age of the America farmer lol.
You’re work and willingness to start small is more valuable than you know right now!
-the Shepherdess
@@theShepherdess it's mostly a hobby for me. I'm a semi retired meat cutter I have a butcher shop in my walk out basement. Hoping to do some processing for family farmers. I would love to raise sheep but predators are crazy here.
@@davidhickenbottom6574 Look into livestock guardian dogs. Our GP guards our goats and poultry from the coyotes. We also have black bear, bobcats, etc. We only have 16 acres so we use a hot wire on our pastures to keep our dogs from wandering. Only took a few contacts and the dogs respect the fence.
Old farmers are looking for cheap labor