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Sponsored vegetable gardens

Image credit: https://www.joyusgarden.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/organic-garden.png

Spook Louw

Spook Louw Aug 04, 2021

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This is an idea for a small business where individuals with gardening knowledge and skills and the required land available plants vegetable gardens on behalf of those who lack those things. I imagine it being a success in cities where many people live in apartments without access to gardens. 

Customers would simply sponsor a piece of the garden and pay the farmer a fee, in exchange for this they get the vegetables grown in that garden. They would be able to request the veggies they would like to have grown depending on the season.

For this to be a success, the cost of sponsoring the garden should still work out cheaper than buying vegetables from a store, while also being profitable for the farmer. The produce from the sponsored section of the garden should only need to be enough for one household, so this doesn't need to be an industrial operation, people would be able to pay in accordance with their needs. 

In return for sponsoring the seeds, nutrients and poisons, as well as remunerating the farmer for his/her time, clients would receive delicious, fresh vegetables every couple of months. 

Anyone with gardening knowledge and land available would be able to make use of this business idea, but I imagine it being especially convenient for retirees or school children looking to make some extra money.

The price should be fair enough that a problem like disease or infestation doesn't cause huge financial losses and gardeners could keep a separate "insurance garden" for their own use and to have stock to give to their clients if something goes wrong with their sections. Alternatively, if one harvest goes wrong, the gardener could simply carry the cost for the next couple of months until their client gets what they paid for.

vegetable garden small business startup ideas

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Unstable crop yields

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Aug 04, 2021

Yields depend on many factors. Some seasons there could be drought, floods, disease, etc. which would surely disappoint the people that paid money and expect food. 

Maybe this could be explained to them before they invest. It still sucks having to disappoint your customers. The farmer can't subsidize the losses because they lost everything themselves.

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

I agree, I think this would be less of a problem on a smaller scale though. The cost of sponsoring such a garden should be minimal, it would be a fresh and tasty supplement to the goods you are going to buy from the store in any case. 
An agreement could be signed by both parties waving the responsibility of the gardener in cases of natural problems affecting the harvest. 
A successful gardener should keep enough funds in reserve to run the entire garden for at least one cycle, in this way, "investors" could be guaranteed that they will receive something for their money, even if it's a couple of months after a failed harvest. 

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General comments

Povilas S

Povilas S3 years ago

It's very unlikely that the cost of vegetables grown in such gardens can be made lower than the cost of the same veggies in the mass supermarkets. It's a known case that it's hard (impossible basically) for small farmers to compete with large supermarkets price-wise. The additional price you'd have to pay for garden-grown veggies would justify the quality/naturalness of the product though.

PS: I didn't notice the other comments below, before writing, so might be wrong as it seems xD

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

Povilas S Yeah it's much cheaper to grow your own garden or get from farmer's markets, and it's healthier and tastier. Supermarkets can get other products that have more complicated production for cheaper on a large scale, but meat and veggies will always be cheaper to produce yourself. The only benefit supermarkets have is reliability and convenience. Because they source their products from many large suppliers, the odds of them being affected by one bad harvest is minimal, and it's obviously more convenient not to have to go through the process of growing and harvesting your own. 

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Povilas S

Povilas S3 years ago

Spook Louw Well I don't know, I'd like this to be true, but from my experience, vegetables sold in street markets by local farmers are usually slightly more expensive than in mass supermarkets, I've also heard this notion many times that local farmers who want to sell their products directly can't compete with the supermarket prices, supermarkets will always be able to make it cheaper, they can afford lower prices due to large and constant flow of customers they receive and also just the massive scale they are operating on (to buy products in huge quantities from the producer is always cheaper)

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jnikola

jnikola3 years ago

Hey, we have this in our country! It's called "Gruntek" (https://mojgruntek.hr/), but the web page is in Croatian. You rent a 40 m2 garden for a year, choose 8 vegetables for 8 "rows" and get the vegetable. You can pick it up by yourself, pick up already picked vegetables at the site, or have it posted to your door! Really cool thing. You can also go there, check the progress of your garden, have a barbecue or camp. It costs 26.5 euro/month or 320 euro/year. It includes the preparation of the land, ecological cultivation, and daily care. They say that the annual expenses of having a subscription are 20% less than the market price of the vegetables for a 3-member family. 

Since it's a local business working only in the Zagreb area, your idea could work. Here you have already finalized product/service that you can use as a template :)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhcIrdTwIEQ

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Spook Louw

Spook Louw3 years ago

Juran That's really cool! I looked for similar ideas but couldn't find anything. 

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