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A city often has a warmer microclimate within a region’s USDA plant hardiness zone, resulting in a longer growing season. An inadequate tree canopy allows the sun to beat onto surfaces that retain heat, which then radiate heat even at nighttime, affecting daily temperatures and even first and last frost dates. Heat islands develop as a result of a diminished tree canopy, vast blacktop and concrete surfaces, and buildings and homes made of bricks and stones. Stone also points to the heat island effect as an overlooked urban-farming benefit. That’s around 8,000 square feet.” With intensive farming techniques, this can be enough land to turn a modest profit with small crops that make the most efficient use of small spaces. In cities and suburbia where land might seem scarce for farming, Stone explains that land is actually abundant. “We realized the egg market was saturated by us and that might not be a great focus.”īefore you start to farm, figure out where to rent. “When we attended our first farmers market in Vermont as a seller, we were one of five vendors (out of 15) who were trying to sell eggs,” MacLean says. But farmers need to balance passion for raising food with actual market needs. Stone suggests that beginner farmers “look for places where there may already be a field-to-fork culture: festivals and events that celebrate local food and farmers, grocery stores like Whole Foods, people who … generally are interested in health-conscious living.” “Then search an ever-widening radius around that central location until you find suitable land at the price you can afford,” Levatino says. Audrey Levatino, author of the book Woman-Powered Farm (2015), says to “first locate the markets where you’ll sell your products.” These could be farmers markets, direct customer targets such as farm-to-table restaurants and independent groceries, or people traveling through the area where you hope to farm.

Today, they support their family with Longest Acres Farm, which sits on rented land in Chelsea, Vt.īefore sourcing land, it’s necessary to identify your market-that is, your first potential customers. “We both came from desk jobs, but we quickly fell in sync with the mental rhythm and physical demands of farming.” “We started farming as interns on my cousin’s pastured pork operation in North Carolina,” she says. When Kate MacLean and her husband, Nick Zigelbaum, were ready to farm, they looked to family to begin their education. Curtis Stone, with his book The Urban Farmer (2015), encourages emerging farmers that the new farm can be as close as your grandma’s front lawn.

Second only to borrowing land, renting land is the most affordable way to participate in growing local food movements and sustainability and to engage with community through farming. To minimize financial risk and to get the farm established quickly, many new and young farmers are scooping up land by renting it. One of the aspiring hobby farmer’s greatest challenges is accessing land at an affordable price.