Making Your Small Farm Profitable: Apply 25 Guiding Principles/Develop New Crops & New Markets/Maximize Net Profits Per Acre Paperback – January 10, 1999

This book is easy to read, to understand and it is very informative. I was not interested in a book full of stats from cover to cover, or a book with PHD dissertation styled vocabulary, or a preschooler's primer version either. This is a serious book for those of us who are new to farming. We need this, because even some of the simple know-how is not as obvious as it would be to a born and raised farmer. I think this book is a must read for those who have a passion for gardening and seriously consider farming or owning one in the future. Knowledge is a good investment.

The author was very direct and blunt. Highly recommended for anyone considering a career switch to small scale farming. The only thing I didn't like was the use of pictures. They were of waste of space that were probably purchased off some mass portfolio of farm related drawings. Why even include pictures if they're don't do anything for the book except take up space?

The book has given some helpful tips on making a profit.

I am not us citizen. Not even from America continet. But i think its valuable expirience here. But probably marketing and labour related piece can be very different. However author mentioned that.

This is a great book with easy to read business insights that apply to more than just farming. It also had great advice for any type of gardening and small farming. I found it very interesting and have read it cover to cover twice.

I have been reading on the topic of family farming and sustainable small agriculture since the 1970s and I suspect that more than 80% of all the books that Amazon sells on these subjects grace my bookshelves. Ron Macher's book, Making Your Small Farm Profitable is a useful addition, although not a stellar one.Mr. Macher seems to have some degree of practical experience in small farming, which is good, considering that there are a number of books available from Amazon written by what appear to be armchair farmers and which offer nothing more than a collection of aphorisms and tropes, quite useless in the real world of putting spade to soil.This is not to say that Mr. Macher's book is free of unhelpful generalities--it has more than its share of wasted words and sometimes, wasted pages. Be that as it may, when you are done with the whole thing, there is useful information to be gained, and there is certainly some good advice offered in between the clichés and generalizations.So, while I would not recommend Mr. Macher's book as the first on this topic that you should buy, nor would I recommend it as a pivotal addition to your library, when you still hunger for more reading on the topic, Making Your Small Farm Profitable can still offer some small addition to your reservoir of knowledge.There is, however, an infuriating shortcoming with Mr. Macher's book that has as much to do with the company that published it, Storey Publishing, as with Mr. Macher himself. As is a common trait with almost everything Storey Publishing prints on the topic of sustainable, holistic and small family farming, the artwork that accompanies the text is largely useless, more just window dressing buttered between the pages of text than anything that significantly contributes to the purpose of the book or significantly contributes to your knowledge.This is because the artwork is all what is called "stock artwork"--that is, it is a combination of generic photos and drawings purchased from a "stock" artwork company that has tens of thousands of images for sale, artwork that is then dropped into the text to provide visual relief amid the dull pages of text, but really has very little to do with the actual content of the book. Further, the quality of the artwork itself, such as the maps showing climate zones or rainfall zones in America drawn from US government sources, are so poor as to be almost entirely useless.Last, Mr. Macher repeats himself way too much throughout his book, a failure again in the quality of the copy editing at Story Publishing. As someone with 12 years experience in the publishing industry myself, this is inexcusable on the part of Storey Publishing, and is quite amateur. Here's an example.Mr. Macher says in his text that, "agriculture has furnished children with a work ethic and a good set of values. Doing farm chores gives children a work ethic that will continue throughout their lives."Agreed.But then, Mr. Macher repeats the same thing, captioning a drawing with, "Children who grow up on a farm learn responsibility and reliability," then repeating himself yet again by captioning a stock photo in a different chapter with, "Farming furnishes children with a work ethic, a good set of values, and a true sense of family." This is a waste of paper and expensive book space and violates one of the cardinal rules of publishing, that if a caption repeats what's already been said in the text, it is a waste of space.In my opinion, the single best book on small, family and sustainable farming is Joel Salatin's, You Can Farm, and all of Salatin's books should be on your shelf and in your head before you spend a penny on any others. He's the real deal, and although the printing and artwork (and copy editing) quality of Salatin's books are not the greatest, it can be excused given that Mr. Salatin self-publishes and does everything himself.If you've got a well-stocked farming library, get Mr. Macher's book, too. It will add a small amount to your knowledge base. But, don't make it your first purchase.

Very readable. Makes a good start for understanding what it takes to build a sustainable business on a small farm. The author avoids the trap of too much technical jargon.

This book has a lot of good advice though some of it is WAY out of date, like the current types of crops and animals to raise. (considering it is 20+ years old) but the basic information is well worth the read.