Farming is one of the peaceful businesses, but it involves a lot of input expenses.
Since the expenses have to be made for every crop, the farmer always needs input capital and sufficient gains from harvest to continue his farming.
Even if there are losses due to calamities or poor natural conditions, still the operating costs for the next crop will remain the same or more.
Hence many countries offer risk management policies, subsidies, and tax waivers to farmers.
They also encourage them to apply for insurance to overcome severe financial losses.
How Much Does Framing Cost
Land purchase
If you do not own land for farming, first and foremost is to own land by buying or hiring on a rent basis.
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Land costs are higher in most places of the world and it varies based on the region, size and demand.
♣ Initial inputs
Land makeup
Once the land is acquired, it is important to make the land flat and fit for cultivation.
Besides the source of water, borewells or wells are to be arranged for proper irrigation.
These are the expenses to start a crop in the field. This involves machinery, seeds, fertilizers, etc.
Tilling the soil
- This is to make the soil soft and suitable for sowing seeds. It is done in both dry soils and moist soils.
- This requires tilling with suitable tools or wheels. In the case of horticulture, it involves making beds for plants to grow in pots.
2. Irrigation
- Water is essential for the growth of crops or plants.
- This requires pumping water sufficiently using irrigation pumps or other means.
- The cost involved will be the equipment, labor charges, and power supply.
3. Sowing the seeds
- Seeds must be purchased as the seeds grown in previous crops will not yield much.
- Hence there are many seed companies offering seeds with the potential for better yield.
- So they are expensive but worth the cost in terms of yield. Sowing also requires tractors with suitable sowing machinery.
4. Adding manure
- Along with seeds, manure is added to the soil to aid germination and speed growth.
♣ Maintenance costs
1. Fertilizers
- Once seeds grow into seedlings, they require fertilizer to continue to grow healthily.
- The more fertility, the better the yield and benefits.
- This fertilizer is applied by natural or chemical methods.
- Natural methods can last for a longer duration with greater benefit to the soil and crops. But it could be a cumbersome task.
- The chemical fertilizers are short-acting but less cumbersome. However, they can be expensive and have damaging effects on soil biology.
2. Pesticides
- As the seedlings grow further, there are prone to infections and pests.
- So proper pesticides are required to control the infection or pests to get better yield.
- If this step is not done, heavy losses and all the previous investments will be lost. This process requires suitable sprayers, pesticides, and insect ides.
3. Removing weeds
- Along with the desired crop, there is the growth of weeds in between.
- They eat up the manure and hinder the growth of the crop by depleting fertility and soil moisture.
4. Irrigation or water supply
- Water is an essential factor than manure. So regular irrigation is needed for better crop growth and yield.
- This requires cost in terms of power supply or fuel to run the water pumps.
♣ Harvesting and sales
1. Harvesting the flowers, fruits and seeds from crop plants
- Once the crop is grown, the collection of fruits, flowers and seeds requires a good amount of labor or machinery.
- The collection should be exhaustive and without damage to fruits or seeds.
2. Clearing unnecessary remnants and other waste
- Most seeds, flowers and even fruits will have some remnants to be cleared for appeal in the market.
- This requires labor and machinery again.
3. Storage
- If the sale price is low or one is interested in selling all the yield at once, then storage of the seeds or fruits is needed.
- This requires one to rent godowns with air conditioning and other storage facilities to keep up the quality of the product.
4. Transport to the market
- The cost of the harvest is high in different places due to demand.
- In such a case, the transport of the harvest to that market would yield more money.
- The yield may be needed to be transported to the place of sale.
- This requires renting trucks, trains, etc.
5. Security
- This is generally required for large farmers. Farm security helps to keep the farm equipment, crop and other farm-related objects safe.
- The farmer can stay tension-free and confident about his farm.