Profitable Farm Enterprises
for the Future - in the Dungog Shire

ORGANIC MEAT CHICKENS

Organically grown meat chickens can be grazed on pastures, with supplement organic feed mix using moveable cages on wheels or fenced free-range areas. The results highlighted that an organic meat chicken farm could be financially profitable if husbandry practises were effective and at least 4000 meat chickens were produced and sold, each year. Given the assumptions used in this analysis the enterprise could generate a $25,000 gross margin, each year. This analysis assumes that the 700 hours of estimated labour is already available.

COMMERCIAL RABBIT FARM

Rabbit farming is one of the most exciting alternative enterprises for people who wish to generate an additional $10,000 to $40,000 per year in net cashflow, for an investment of approximately $20,000 to $70,000. The number of breeding does, rabbit sale price and the successful husbandry of the rabbit farm will determine the profitability of the business. This business is for the farmer/producer who has excellent skills in animal husbandry, it requires low capital inputs, relatively low labour requirements, low impact on the environment, numbers can be bred up very quickly and small acreage.

SILVER PERCH

Silver Perch is a hardy, white flesh, native freshwater fish that is an efficient feed converter and grows well in earthen ponds. However, the sale of poor quality and unpurged Silver Perch has tainted the reputation of the product. Effective quality assurance programs and cooperative marketing schemes are required to lift the image of the fish and hence the demand for the product. Otherwise smaller scale operators may become no longer viable as large-scale production reduces the commodities price. Profitability for larger scale operations (150,000 fish per annum) was possible when $750,000 to $1,000,000 was invested. The cost to produce a kilo of fish was $6.78.The estimated return on a $760,000 investment was estimated to be 8.83%.