Here’s another farm we looked at during our trip. This one was outside of Pine Island, Minnesota.
The Good:
137 acres, one of the biggest we’ve looked at.
Good balance of tillable to woods.
Zumbro River flows through property.
One small barn in pretty good shape.
Land lays pretty well.
The Bad:
7 miles outside of an ok small town.
Not on a main road, poor prospects for on-farm store.
No well, no electricity, no septic.
The place is on a gravel road, which cuts through the lower part of the property.
The Zumbro river runs through the property parallel to the road. The river is pretty nice in terms of free water for the cows, and just being pretty and all. But it also means that there are some DNR restrictions, like you can’t build within 100 yards of the river; and there’s always flooding to worry about.
On the North side it’s all uphill of the road. Quite sharply uphill in some areas. I don’t quite know how they get away with cropping stuff this steep without terraces. The view from the top of the hill sure is pretty though.
I guess the big three criteria are farm productivity, market and quality of life. Those woods chew up a lot of land. What do you want to raise on your farm?
The big criteria are:
1. Location: the ability to have an on-farm store; access to markets and processors; community / quality of life.
2. Land: balance of woods / pasture for ag productivity and wildlife resources (hunting, timber, firewood)
We’re also keeping an eye towards sustainability concerns (wind, solar, hydro)