The Profitable Farmer

I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again: growing great vegetables is only half the battle. The other half is selling them well, understanding your numbers, and building a business that gives you the life you set out to create. The best growers master both. The Profitable Farmer is a practical roadmap for getting there. Whether you’re just starting out or have been farming for years, this book will help you become not just a better business owner, but ultimately a better grower. I highly recommend it.

Julia and Dan really hit the nail on the head. They’ve managed to create an immensely workable step-by-step guide to methodically guide farmers toward profitability. The small farm world has needed this book for a long time! The Profitable Farmer is an easy read, with comfortable language and great examples. Actually “doing the work” of filling out the templates and following the thought flow will require exertion – and that’s what farmers are already good at!

In The Profitable Farmer, Julia and Dan do a superb job of walking readers through what it takes to plan out and run a successful farm business, and why it’s so important. The business side of farming is not typically what brings people into growing food, but it’s definitely what keeps them able to do it—to feed people, care for the land, work outdoors, all of it. The Profitable Farmer is a book written by two people who deeply understand that tension and can help you navigate it successfully.

If we plant a seed, it can grow. How well it grows depends on the farmer, but how profitable the return depends on so much more. In this amazingly helpful book, longtime farm-business nerds Julia Shanks and Dan Brisebois take us through the critical steps of building farms that grow purposefully and profitably—from vision and financial planning to sales, teams, production, and reflection.

As a veteran farm business consultant specializing in financial sustainability, I see The Profitable Farmer becoming an essential daily tool for my clients. The Profitable Farmer teaches you how to establish your own personalized metrics. It introduces powerful operational shortcuts—such as validating crops based on potential sales per bed and potential sales per harvest hour—allowing farmers to seamlessly bridge the gap between their financial office numbers and raw field production. Stop stretching yourself thin across unprofitable enterprises. Use this book to build a highly structured, climate-resilient farm that honors your profits, your purpose, and your quality of life.

Where was this book when I was farming? Julia Shanks and Dan Brisebois have created the guide I wish I’d had—a practical, step-by-step roadmap for building a profitable farm without sacrificing the quality of life that makes farming worth doing. By combining sound business principles with the real-world math of farm profitability, The Profitable Farmer gives farmers the tools to build businesses that are not only sustainable, but truly viable.

Too many farmers believe working harder is the answer. This book is a refreshing reminder that working smarter with a clear plan, solid numbers, and a vision for the life you actually want to live is what creates a farm that lasts. Julia and Dan have written the guide I wish more farmers had from the very beginning. It’s an encouraging and practical read, filled with the kind of wisdom that can change not just a farm business, but the farmer behind it.

This book is full of shrewd strategic planning advice from two experienced leaders in the field. If you want to increase profits on your farm, without adding work, pick up a copy and follow its advice.

Julia Shanks brings a broad range of professional experience to her clients; from pilot, to chef, to serial entrepreneur, she combines the practicality of an accountant with the creativity of a chef. Julia’s career started at the FAA as an aviation analyst, and quickly took a turn into the culinary arts. Julia worked as a chef for 15 years, launching several food businesses. After earning an MBA in entrepreneurship, she taught graduate and undergraduate accounting at Babson College. As a business consultant and coach, she supports owners of small- and medium-sized food and agricultural businesses to achieve and maintain financial and operational sustainability. She is the author of The Farmer’s Office, Second Edition and together with Brett Grohsgal, she co-authored The Farmers Market Cookbook. Julia lives in Cambridge, MA.

Dan Brisebois is a founding member of Tourne-Sol co-operative farm, which supplies weekly farm baskets for 500 families and operates a thriving retail and wholesale seed business. He earned a B.Sc in Agricultural Engineering from McGill University and has over two decades of experience as both a market farmer and a seed producer. Dan is a founding member of the Eastern Canadian Organic Seed Growers network, former board member of SeedChange, and past president of Canadian Organic Growers. As well as writing and teaching extensively, he mentors farmers in the art of effective planning, systems design, and time management at the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy, and hosts the popular Seed Farmers podcast. Dan is author of The Seed Farmer and co-author of the COG Practical Skills Handbook Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers. He lives and farms in Les Cèdres, Quebec.

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