4 Things To Consider Before Starting An Agricultural Business.
September 26, 2018 by Staff
Filed under Money/Business, Weekly Columns
(Akiit.com) Agriculture is a difficult business to get into because there are quite a lot of start up costs but once you get going, it’s fairly safe. People always need food so you’ve always got a market there for your products. However, that doesn’t mean agriculture is an easy business to find success in. There are a lot of things that you need to get right if you’re ever going to make it sustainable. These are the most important things to consider when you’re starting your own agricultural business.
Getting The Right Land
It’s no surprise that finding the right land is one of the most 
important steps when you’re trying to start an agricultural business. Without good land, you can’t grow anything to sell. When you’re finding agricultural land, always make sure you’re going through an estate agent that specializes in that area. Once you’ve found a couple of options, you need to pay for professional testing. They’ll be able to tell you whether the land is suitable for growing crops and which ones you’re most likely to have success with. Once that’s done, you can start preparing the land to grow on.
Licensing
You’ll need to get a license before you can start producing and selling food and the process can take a while so you need to start right away. Get in touch with the local authorities and find out what the rules and regulations for your area are. You don’t want to accidentally get caught on the wrong side of a law that you never even knew existed. Don’t try to cut any corners here either, it might save you a bit of time and money in the short term but if you’re found trading illegally, you’ll be in for some big penalties.
Get Good Quality Seeds
Once you’ve found the perfect piece of land, prepared it all and got all of the necessary licenses sorted, you can start growing some crops. It’s essential that you’re not cutting corners here, otherwise, you won’t have a good quality product to sell. Make sure that you’re using well established seed suppliers that have a good track record. Shop around a bit to find a good price but don’t let that dictate your decision entirely. It’s best to pay a bit more for quality rather than just going for the cheapest option.
Finding A Market
When you’re deciding what to grow, you need to think about finding markets. You might decide to grow a high yield crop thinking that you’re going to make loads of money but that might not be the case. If there isn’t much demand for that product in the local community (either because there is a lot of competition or it’s simply not that popular) you’ll end up with a lot of crops that you can’t sell. Do some research into the local markets and find out where the gaps are.
The agricultural business can be very difficult and there are a lot of risks involved but if you get these aspects right, you should be on your way to success.
Staff Writer; Sherry Brown