Episodes
Friday Sep 28, 2018
Mushroom Farming! Interview with Ryan Creed of Life Cykel
Friday Sep 28, 2018
Friday Sep 28, 2018
Sam had a wonderful interview with the one of the co-founder of Life Cykel, Ryan Creed. Together with Julian Mitchell they co-founder Life Cykel in 2015 after discovering how to grow gourmet mushrooms from waste coffee grounds. Life Cykel on ABC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CbiW... Life Cykel website - https://lifecykel.com/ Be an urban farmer - https://www.nationalmushroomnetwork.com/
Friday Sep 21, 2018
Cultivate Farms TV episode 62
Friday Sep 21, 2018
Friday Sep 21, 2018
Welcome to episode 62 episode of Cultivate Farms TV. Sam Marwood takes you behind the scenes of what we are doing to help make your farm dreams a reality.
The topics we cover in Episode 62 of Cultivate Farms TV:
- Freeland Pork Business Planning Day
- Farmer Friday Frothy
- A message to Mayors across Australia
- 4. 20 Farm Opportunities
Saturday Sep 15, 2018
What sort of aspiring farmer should you be?
Saturday Sep 15, 2018
Saturday Sep 15, 2018
I spoke with an aspiring farmer the other day who is in NSW and going through the drought. They have setup a lease arrangement and are cropping.
They discussed that things are really tight this year and that they might struggle to break even.
He was a bit disheartened because of the possibility of failure.
But do you know what I saw? I saw a motivated, clever and proactive aspiring farmer who is ready to be backed onto their own farm with a retiring farmer or investor.
Sure they might struggle to get through financially, even they may have to end the lease, but do you see what respect they will get from a retiring farmer or investor for what they have done? Off their own bat they have found a way to get farming in trying a situation and in a business that is really expensive to get going.
I saw a man who has established a business model that will work when backed onto a farm that they can run with appropriate resources. I saw a top quality farmer who is driven to realise his dream and someone that an investor would be completely confident would work for their best interest and would work hard for them, no matter what happens.
This aspiring farmer was proving his ability to run a farm and to be a steward of money and the land. I was so excited to chat with him because of the potential he has and the proven track record of initiative.
He is building his story which will open many doors for him. His story will be one of initiative and struggle and persistence. A story everyone will love to listen to and people will want to back him to see him succeed.
What are you doing to demonstrate you are farm ready? Are you out looking for leased land? Are you trying to build your wealth and be a good steward of money? Are you proving that you are worthy of being backed by a retiring farmer or aspiring farmer.
Yes you may fail in your endeavours, but your goal is to open doors to the people who will back you onto your farm and it isn’t dependent on you being able to get through an impossible drought, or being subject to commodity price crashes.
Friday Sep 14, 2018
Cultivate Farms Weekly Episode 61
Friday Sep 14, 2018
Friday Sep 14, 2018
The topics we cover in Episode 61 of Cultivate Farms TV:
- Discussions with premium members
- Hunting for NSW farm for an investor (you could be the farmer)
- National Farm Succession planning day
- What you should do if you have just found out about us?
- 19 Farm Opportunities
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
2nd Farmer Friday Frothy
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
We held our first farmer Friday frothy in Kyneton Victoria and it was a lot of fun. We had aspiring farmers and retiring farmers and people from the ag industry. Lots of mingling and discussing farm ownership plans.
It highlights just how valuable face-to-face discussions are with like-minded people. I got to unpack farm ownership plans with a few aspiring farmers. It was really inspiring to hear the stories that these farmers have of striving to own their farm, and they just need a bit of support and to throw them some ideas and they’re on track to realise their dreams.
We hold it with our mate Melissa Connors from This Farm Needs a Farmer. We are both based in Kyneton and have the same vision to rejuvenate regional communities through good farming.
Please come along and mingle. We know sometimes it can be hard to get out and might seem awkward, but you know me now and we can connect you with everyone who comes along.
Our plans is that this becomes the must-go-to-event for farmers in the district and we’d love to replicate across the country.
Wednesday Sep 12, 2018
Building relationships between investors and aspiring farmers
Wednesday Sep 12, 2018
Wednesday Sep 12, 2018
We have signed up a couple of new investors for Cultivate Farms. This is very exciting and we are already underway in matching these investors to aspiring farmers.
Our focus with investors is the same as with aspiring farmers and retiring farmers. We get to know what you want in your farm and then focus on finding the right farmers to build a relationship with. So we are focusing on finding the best aspiring farmers to have a coffee with the investors, get to know them, see if values align and if they do, you go off together to hunt for your farm.
This is an amazing opportunity for aspiring farmers. It is the goal we have been aiming for since we started. To get investors to back aspiring farmers and it is all starting to build.
If you are an aspiring farmer and haven’t signed up as a member then you could miss out on being matched to an investor. Our premium members have been hand selected from our database by these investors and are now in with the chance of owning their own farm.
Friday Sep 07, 2018
Cultivate Farms Episode 60
Friday Sep 07, 2018
Friday Sep 07, 2018
Welcome to episode 60 episode of Cultivate Farms TV. Sam Marwood takes you behind the scenes of what we are doing to help make your farm dreams a reality.
- Aspiring farmers registered
We have 434 registrations, 12 more aspiring farmers signed up the past week.
What you get as a member:
- You get to chat with us and priority access to realise your farm ownership pathway
- Mecardo market analysis membership (valued at $300)
- We directly notify you of farm opportunities (some are only promoted to members)
- We need your support to keep build momentum
This is a call to our aspiring farmers. If find any value in what we do at all, we ask that you do sign up as a premium member. It is $150 a year and this money allows us to keep the lights on while we really get Cultivate Farms cranking. Help us to help you.
What we are doing is new and will take time for us to get to scale to have a lot of amazing farm opportunities for you. We need your help to keep us going. Your money goes to keeping our website updated, supporting our social media and allowing us to travel around the country to spread the word. We aren’t making any money off this yet as we are ploughing it all back into the business.
Please do consider becoming a premium member, you get lots of benefits including discussions with the Cultivate Farms team and free Mecardo market analysis membership.
- Weekly Update
We made the Financial Review. They did a piece on us, our partnership with DomaCom and how we are crowdfunding farms.
https://www.afr.com/real-estate/commercial/fractional-investing-platform-domacom-expands-into-rural-property-20180629-h1215j?btis
We are in the process of developing a master brand under which all of our farms will sit. This is really exciting stuff and we will be exploring how we can create a name for ourselves which benefits every single farm that we setup
Matching retiring farmer and aspiring farmer in Gippsland. I caught up with the retiring farming couple and the aspiring farming couple on one of the farms we are matching.
I asked if I could film the discussion but they said no for some reason, but they were excited to be part of the Cultivate Farms matching process. We worked through potential options for transitioning ownership over the long term. There is intent to make something work and we are working through our list of actions for the next meeting. It is mainly focused on whether the new farmers are able to work on the farm for 12 months to build a relationship and to determine the financial model so they can earn their way into ownership.
Loading our first farm investment proposal - we are getting legal advice so that we can start promoting farm investment opportunities on our platform. We have a yabby farm that we are about to load and can’t wait to start promoting this to potential investors.
- Farm-ownership pathway program
We have develop a farm-ownership pathway program which will get 20 farmers ready to pitch their investment to an investor. This would happen over 12 months, with the 6 month point being the pitch. We have lined up an investor who is keen to invest in the best farm. We are just waiting from government organisations across the country to confirm who might be able to fund the program. Please let me know if you are interested
- Freeland Pork our first farm match
Our first farm match with and investor and aspiring farmer is moving along well. We are now cranking up the marketing side of things for Freeland Pork. Our model is to supply into restaurants as the farm grows production - so we had a filming day on the farm taking photos of the family and also making awesome meals with the pork. We are finalising the 1819 business plan and the budget for the year for sign off by both parties.
- Refining what Cultivate Farms does
Over the past 6 months we have been working in the background to unpack how we provide the most value to the most farmers and it is looking like we will need to tweak our model. Which is to be expected given what we are doing is pretty unique.
We believe that getting on your farm is centred around relationships. We match you with a retiring farmer but the first step is to get to know them, to build trust and then you can work through an ownership transition. We think we need to start doing the same thing with building relationships with investors. How can we make it possible for you to get to know an investor who can then back you to go find farms to invest with them in?
To make it easier to build these relationships we have been thinking that we need to have a farm mentor who works alongside aspiring farmers to help them on the farm ownership pathway. We are now thinking of getting these farm mentors, agronomists who understands our model, from all around Australia who you can select to work with.
These mentors would help you work through a long term farm ownership pathway program and also provide a third party independent verification of an aspiring farmers farm-ownership readiness. This validation will be of great benefit to retiring farmers and investors, who want to be confident that they will be working with someone who is ready to get going onto a farm.
So we are going to be unpacking the role of farm mentors in our model and using them to verify our aspiring farmer’s farm-readiness. This will be an optional component of your membership but one we think will be a great way for you to get on your farm quicker.
- Farm opportunities
We have 19 farms that you could own with retiring farmers tomorrow. We want you to check these out and pass the details on to friends and family. These are red hot live opportunities which could set you up for life.
The process will be that you do a basic pitch and then we give it to the retiring farmers to decide if they want to take it any further. If they do it's then a number of conversations to find the best solution for you both.
www.cultivatefarms.com/farms
- Manildra NSW
- Free Range Pig Farm in Wagga Wagga
- Lime farm Cairns
- Chestnut farm in WA
- Beef cattle enterprise in southern Qld
- 20 acre vineyard south of Bendigo Vic
- Dairy farm ownership pathway in NE Vic
- Intensive aquaculture in Rutherglen Vic
- Rare vegetable seed farm SW Victoria
- 44 acre market garden on outskirts of Sydney
- 100 acres NE tassie mixed
- Market garden in NT
- Beef in NT
- Olive grove and Tasmania
- Olives in Victoria
- Mixed farm in Terang, SW Vic
- Achacha in Qld
- Mixed organic in Tansey Qld
- Flower Farm in Qld
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Sam's Presentation to Wodonga's Victory Lutheran College
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Sam presented to students from Wodonga's Victory Lutheran College about leadership and how right no is the best time in history to not know what to do with your life.
There are so many take aways here for anyone with a dream to be a farmer. It is possible. If you have a passion there are so many tools available to you right now.
What Sam talked about are:
1. What he is doing now
2. His history
3. His alternate history (if I was your age)
4. Dabble, document, patience
Friday Aug 24, 2018
Sam's Presentation to UNE
Friday Aug 24, 2018
Friday Aug 24, 2018
How this can work for a retiring farmer
A retiring farmer or farming couple would think – am I ok with sharing my farm? If so, they send us an email and let us know what they're thinking.
We then write down their plans and vision for the farm and get them to discuss with their family and advisors
If they want to go ahead we then promote their farm and get aspring farmers to pitch.
The aspiring farmers get filtered and they meet 3 on farm. The best comes back 3 times and they are now ready to commit.
We all sit at the farm table and work through a 10 year strategy, unpacking all the issues and making sure they have the right advisors.
They setup a bank account where all savings go to buy the land
The aspiring farmers work for the first 12 months, and then the ownership model kicks in which happens over 10 years. They share the profits and these go into the bank account.
When there is enough savings they then get debt and buy the farm and the retiring couple do whatever they want.
Friday Aug 24, 2018
Interview with Leon Carter of Ag Skills Victoair
Friday Aug 24, 2018
Friday Aug 24, 2018
Ag Skills Victoria is set to provide training and information to people in Ag across the state! School Age to Old School, we are the team to give you the skills you need. Check their website: https://agskillsvic.com.au/