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Most of my family are farmers. It's crazy hard work, requiring a massive amount of effort and know-how. Most of my farming relatives are better educated than me from a pure academic perspective. Making a success of a commercial farm requires deep knowledge of the crop, the land, the weather and the local pests. Gone are the days of doing things the way your forefathers did things. Moreso if you actually want to be competitive in the market that you are producing for. Please dont make the romantic mistake of thinking you will become this farmer and it's all sunshine and success. One bad crop (which could be because of no fault of your own) can mean financial ruin. My advice: rub shoulders with the locals in the area. Maybe theres a farmer interested in renting your land and trees. Alternatively, appoint an expert to manage and run the farm for you. Theres a certain romanticism associated whith owning land you inherited. But you have to be honest with yourself and look at the numbers. If it's not your expertise and the financials don't make sense you'll probably be better off selling the land. My dad and I had exactly this conversation recently. He has some land that he got from his father, that he's renting out to the farming relatives. My dad's at the age now where he needs to plan for what happens to his estate. We looked at the numbers and relaized me and my brother will be better off selling and taking the money. In my country you are liable to pay hefty taxes on inheritance. Neither of us have the reserves to pay those taxes on a piece of land we have no idea how to run or manage. You inherit an asset that you are forced to liquidate in order to afford the inheritance taxes on that asset.
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Farming is a hard and unforgiving activity. Most guys who have a dream to become farmers fail miserably since it requires a ton of grit, know-how, problem-solving and luck. With the help of science (measuring soil, pests, weather and so on) and capital input to buy tools (hand tools, sprays/pesticides (if really needed), farmhands, vehicles, watering systems, monitoring systems and so on), you might succeed. If you are willing to be honest with yourself, you might find that being a farmer is not for you and it might be better to sell. You can also run it purely as a business, aka being a kind of farm manager and not be too close to the ground but employ good people that knows the plants/cultivars and the local environment (weather, soil, pests), listen to your people, treat them well, treat your new neighbours extremely well, as they will assist with a ton of knowledge and sometime physical help. Most importantly, honour the land & the plants; take good care of them and your environment and everything might fall into place a bit easier. This is tough thing to be given/gifted, to be honest. Please prepare for the worst, emotionally and physically. It might also be the most rewarding and freeing thing you can do with your life and/or become. Do not discount alternative income streams: if there are more land available, plant some other low maintenance crops or small stocks like chickens and so on for cash flow. If there is a river/stream, forest, small mountains etc, it can be worthwhile to build a handful of cabins or a camping terrain (but small, you want to stay niche, have good ablution blocks, skip electricity, just supply clean water) and so on. Multiple income streams can do wonders for farms. All depends how much money you have upfront to invest into the property. Luckily, you already have the 8K trees. Good luck mate, hope that the journey ahead works out!
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Anecdotally, I spent the last two years trying to grow various stuff in planters on my balcony. I invested quite a bit of time and effort into it, including good soil, fertilizers, monitoring..etc. I kinda figured that while I might not get amazing yields, I have done as much as I could to at least get decent yields. Reality had a lot to say to the contrary. Between the various pests, weather and nutrient problems, I ended up with relatively unproductive gardens both years (Except the peppers, for some reason those ended up being both very productive and very spicy.) All of this is to say that your comments on farming are pretty spot on. Growing stuff is hard. Growing stuff so that you make some profit to sustain yourself is even harder.
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> (Except the peppers, for some reason those ended up being both very productive and very spicy.) Sounds like you need to look at your soil. What else did you try to grow? Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why "just stop growing fodder crops for livestock and grow things humans can eat!" doesn't exactly work.
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The farmer manager is likely how I will handle it. I have no interest in being a farmer (for now) but still want it as a business that I oversee, hence the need to learn at least a few things about how things work. I'll looking to hire people then. I realise it will be hard and will require a lot from me, but that's why I want to try, the new venture is exciting. Money is not a problem because I live in a third world country, labors and lands are still cheap.
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Hire a professional to do it for you. There's coffee as a hobby, and coffee as a professional business. 8000 trees is the latter.
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I agree. Running a small cafe would be daunting to me; a roastery even more so; a freaking coffee farm is something else!
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Planning to do that if I find someone competent enough. But that is hard when living a top 10 from the bottom poor country. Also, I still need to learn enough so I can still oversee how things go.
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I understand your dilemma, but I don't see a way around hiring a professional. Think of one of the simpler tasks. Say you need to fertilize the trees. When is the right time? What is the right amount? How many people do you need to fertilize 8000 trees in time? How do you finance that, including purchasing the fertilizer? Are you even allowed to purchase that much fertilizer (it's been often abused to make car bombs)? No idea whether fertilizing is even a thing with coffee, but other tasks won't be much simpler. If you can't hire one, is taking on a temporary partner (for a cut off the profit) an option?
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Well find someone you trust and have them manage it. Give them some equity in the enterprise so your incentives are aligned then ask them to teach you the business of farming coffee. Wanting to learn the business so you can micro-manage your manager sounds like a recipe for disaster. That or sell it to a big coffee producer and go about your life doing things you’re good at.
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Second the book recommendation below and can highlight one thing about having spent time on plantations myself: do NOT cut the trees. There will be folks who will tell you that by cutting the trees you will get more sunlight and hence more coffee production. I've seen first hand how hundreds of farmers (mainly in India) cut all the trees on their coffee plantation and a few years later lost most of their land due to water issues and landslides. Depending on where in the world you are, you also want to understand what companion plants (could be macadamia nut trees, banana plants, etc.) are best suited for your coffee plants. I would not try to compete with low-quality bean production. Not sure how much land you have but you most likely don't have the resources to compete at scale. There is, however, a massive specialty coffee market and people are willing to pay good money for good coffee. So besides my recommendations above, try to find some specialty coffee producers in your region and learn from them.
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How do you end up in a situation where your dad, knowing nothing about coffee plantations, ends up buying one and then leaving it to you?
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My dad likes to try random stuff out of nowhere, has been living like that for ever. It's no surprise to me anymore. But sometimes he realises he does not have enough time to take care off them, the projects is abandoned or given to any of his children.
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My father was the same. Bought a 1000 hectare farm and he was NOT a farmer. Hard lessons learned, I learned some of it as a kid. The most important one for me was, don't try to farm if your father/grandfather wasn't a farmer or lived that life. Farming requires a transfer of knowledge/wisdom unless ultra commercialized and brute-forced with cash.
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My grandfather took a trip west in 1945 after the war, leaving his wife and kids in Baltimore. He somehow ended up in what's now Rancho Mirage, talking to someone who was selling land. He'd saved up about $10k and sank all of it into a 10-acre grapefruit and date farm, basically a patch of desert with some palm and citrus trees and well water. Took my grandma and dad and aunt out there and they lived in an airstream trailer on the land. Sold the fruit to Dole mostly for juice. Barely made ends meet. When he died in the 90s, the patch sold for over $1m to a hotel conglomerate. So if nothing else... my family has a mantra: Never sell real estate. For your specific situation, my grandfather had a different saying: "Find yourself a teacher". He claimed this philosophy came from the Talmud, but I can't say. In any event, my grandfather had already gone from being a door-to-door cloth salesman to a cutter to a tailor, and he always found an expert teacher to attach himself to and learn from, and this usually meant someone humbly but seriously devoted to the work at hand. In the case of the ranch, it was a Cahuilla Indian man who had lived nearby, and who taught him how to take care of the trees. My grandfather employed him as a full-time caretaker and kept up his house on the land for the rest of his life. My advice with anything where you don't have the knowledge to do it yourself would be to find yourself a teacher by searching in the humblest of places for someone with that knowledge, and make them your mentor.
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I happily hire anyone that is that knowledgeable, but where I live that is rare, and they are probably running their own stuff. I wholly agree with you though, I won't venture into this alone or without a general view of how things work.
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There are roasting certificatations you can get. It might help knowing the work that is downstream of your coffee beans. If you have the cash and time, I recommend visiting roasters and other coffee farms. I took a 2 day roasting class on a coffee farm in Bali. Learned a TON in very little time.
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I'd diversify the plantation with many fruit trees, you get some seasonal workers (who collect and sell at market). As a fruitarian, I'd love to be in your position
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Amazing. No idea. If it were me I would hire someone experienced in both the growing, finance and marketing aspects of this. Then it becomes a question of how to pick someone good. You can be their apprentice. It might be simpler to sell it to someone else though!
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Yes I am, nice guess. Thanks a lot, will take a look into it.
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I don't know anything about it, but I'd suggest the first question (to yourself) should be do you want to learn/do, or do you just want to own it and have it be productive/successful?
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I want it to be successful, but for that it needs to be handled well. I'm from a poor country and people that can do that are rare and are probably running their own business. If I can hire someone, of course I would happily hand it over, but in the mean time I still need to learn enough to oversee how things go.
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This is very important. I've witnessed friends inherit land and businesses they had little interest in and they tried holding on to it just because it was "in the family". If it's not your thing, just sell it and carry on with your life.
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If it was me, I would focus on the business side, not the farming side. Farming is extremely labor intensive and largely a commodity business. Marketing and branding are largely where profits are made in the beverage business. As an example of a recent successful high grow beverage company, take a look at Liquid Death, which turned a low budget AD into a billion dollar company within years: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iXjhNZlqexs
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That's my plan too, I'm not a farmer. But it still requires me to know how things work on a high level. Thanks for the link.
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Short-term: hire someone to keep the trees alive. Longer-term: start reaching out to top agricultural programs for advice. Look for lists like this one & write to faculty: https://agronomag.com/best-schools-for-farmers-in-the-us/. You’ll probably be able to find people with expertise in coffee. I bet there are also conferences or industry associations that will help with networking. There are probably also government programs in your country. What happens to the coffee today? Is 8000 trees a lot (sounds like it to me)?
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Hiring to keep trees alive for te next 3 years (done). The second part is where I needed help. Thanks for the link. Yes that's a lot, around 2.5 tons of roasted beans per year apparently.
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Depending on where you are located in the world, find a local artisan coffee roastery and see if you can talk to the owner. It's the fastest way to gain access to face-to-face deep knowledge of the coffee industry because they typically work directly with the farmers. In the process, you may also find someone who is willing to work with you and buy all the beans you produce in 2026 and beyond.
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One important question, Do you want to do it? If not then sell or rent it to someone who does. Do what you want
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Yes I want to do it but not as a farmer, I will hire a farmer. I'm more business inclined and will handle it from a higher level.
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i am sure people have already reached out to you, but my wife and i managed a large plantation, permaculture (more work, better for the environment ((sustainable)))- in Nicaragua (Masaya area). We are looking to relocate from Berlin, and this could be an idea. send me a message to [email protected]
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A friend of mine had a similar situation. They retained a few acres around their ancestral home and run a homestay during tourist season. The bulk of the land was leased out to a large coffee company on a multiyear lease.
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This happened to me. I couldn't compete with the coffee berry borer and ended up chainsawing them down one by one. Coffee is surprisingly hard wood. I planted noni instead, but that turned out to be a fad, and those were removed next. Then I grew taro, and all was well.
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Depends on where it is, and what your ambitions are, but you can potentially make an awful lot more from agritourism (think vineyard hotels) than you can from agriculture directly, which is a brutal business in general.
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It's in Madagascar, will take a look into that, thanks. Any links to start with?
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