Give me everything you got on agricultural loans. We want to start an alpaka farm and would like info on agricultural loans.

Okay.

http://www.google.com/search?q=agricultural+loans

That's everything I've got.

wow an alpaca farm. Definitely something you don't hear everyday. Just out of curiosity what made you want to do this.

My Mom wants to spin their fur and make it into yarn.

My personal opinion (based on first-hand experience) is that agricultural enterprises are best left to professionals. And even with professional management, I personally wouldn't invest. As evidence beyond my own experience, please note the plight of the American family farm.

Apparently you haven't seen any of the recent crop prices or farm numbers. Bio-diesel, ethanol, and every other bio-mass produced product has driven the demand for agriculture WAY up. Farming commodities are through the roof and farm istates are expecting giant economic boosts as more ethanol plants start to come online.

That’s great…too bad no one has developed an engine that burns alpaka wool

My Mom is big into spinning wool into yarn, she loves it, She knits and Crochets. She really enjoys doing it.

I won't pretend to be an expert on farming or agriculture, but what little I've read gives the impression that the small/family farm is struggling. Crop prices are not the same thing as farm profits, nor those profits realized from end-users such as ethanol plants. I'm not aware that farm commodities provide much more than subsistence living for the small/family farms which are being taken over by giant corporations, just as Wal-Mart is driving out the five and dimes. It may be well and good for the consumer and corporate investor, but many individual farms still suffer due to a harsh winter, wet spring, or dry summer.


I respectfully suggest that this is entirely different from owning and/or running an alpaca farm.

I grew up on a farm in the 1980's. I was, no pun intended, dirt poor. Farming is painfully hard work, pays very little, and is incredibly dangerous. I will never base my income on anything that turns grass into manure.

Exotic animal farming is incredibly risky, (for that manner, plain old animal husbandry is risky) and fails more often than succeeds. Many times, exotic animal breeders are something close to MLM status, they want to get you into breeding Llamas or Ostriches, or whatever and will be happy to sell you x number of animals for XXXXX dollars. There is no real market for their meat or their wool, so you will wind up trying to find the next sucker to buy your stock for outrageous prices... lather, rinse, repeat.

If your mom wants yarn to spin, she'd do better by opening up a specialty yarn store, which has a much better chance of success than an alpaca farm. If you're dying to have your own alpaca, get a house in the country and keep one as a pet.

Baker, I would wager that the crop prices you're seeing are representative of intensive factory farming, not family farms and hobby farms. The profit margin on family farms is razor-thin. Current crop production and pricing (and subsidies) favor the giants like ConAgra, ADM, and Cargill.

On the plus side, I hear that small co-op and organic vegetable farms are starting to make a rebound, based on people wanting food that was grown locally. That's encouraging. Profits are still slim, but if there is a sea change on how city people eat, I think there's hope for the small farmer yet.

I would highly recommend Micheal Pollan's amazingly readable book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma". It covers a lot of this stuff that's been mentioned. Even among large farms, it's not usually the *farm* making the money. It's usually the people who add value to what's grown (like food processors, food makers, and the dairy/beef industry, which is essentially a way to turn corn and soybeans into meat.