Diversify your farm business

There are a number of ways that you can generate extra money from your farm.

Farmers can utilise tourism opportunities, manufacture products or branch out from traditional crops.

Ideas to boost farm income

Consider the following farm business ideas:

• Livestock products - invest in goats, cows, or chickens for your farm so you can produce and sell milk, cheese and eggs.
• Crop products - consider growing and selling speciality flowers or vegetables that will attract the local community.
• Experience days - organise adventure days where you can take a group of people foraging for fruits or on outdoor pursuits/survival days to boost their skills, or organise arts and crafts events/workshops for the local community.
• Open a farm shop - sell produce from your farm and the local area, consider including a tearoom for visitors with home cooked food/baked goods from your farm.
• Provide tourist accommodation - if you have unused land, consider using it for camping or providing glamping facilities, for example, teepees, treehouses or huts.
• Become an open farm/petting zoo - family farm day experiences are very popular, eg you can provide an opportunity for children to interact with animals and ride a tractor.
• Use seasonal opportunities to open your farm to the public - piggy-back on seasonal opportunities throughout the year, eg Halloween pumpkin patch, Christmas wonderland, sunflower season and summer events.
• Venue hire - revamp barns and hire them out as a wedding venue/party venue.
• Leisure attractions - use scrubland, woodland or open country to create venues for activities such as paint balling, rope courses, mazes, off road driving or mountain biking.
• Festivals - farmland can be great venues for one-off music festivals, country fairs or other themed gatherings.

You can use our tool to find inspiration for diversifying your farm business by searching for detailed business profiles for 600 small business ideas.