Most Profitable Crops To Yield High Income
If you are short on money, time, and space, starting a high yielding and profitable garden may seem like an impossible idea. But hey, this is not true at all. There are a number of most profitable crops that can help you run a profitable small farming business.
Specialty crops are the best way to earn extra income through your gardening skills. Unlike commonly grown crops like vegetables and grains, specialty crops bring higher prices to the growers because of high demand and lack of supply.
The cash crops listed in this article are easy to grow and can produce more than average income on a small area of land. One good thing is, most of these crops can be grown whole year in every weather condition. All you need is a few hours in a week and hundred dollars for supplies, seeds, and seedlings to start your own profitable garden.
List of Most Profitable Crops
Here is a list of the best cash crops that you can grow with little effort.
Lavender
Lavender farming is one of the cash crops that can produce average profits for small farmers. Usually, lavender flowers are sold in bundles and are also used to make lavender oil.
One of the best things about lavender farming is that it requires very little investment and grows really quickly. Lavender crop farming can be done in almost any climate, and it can easily tolerate heat. However, these require well-draining soil, but the good thing is they are disease resistant.
Once you get into lavender crop farming, you will never look back once an acre of land is enough to produce more than 10,000 bouquets every year- cash crops alert! Farmers can even dry these flowers to sell florists and crafters for floral arrangements.
Gourmet Mushrooms
Mushrooms are another one of the most profitable crops suitable for urban farmers. This is indoor crop farming, which produces a high yield per square foot. Two most commonly grown gourmet mushrooms are shiitake and oyster, which are available in both dried and fresh forms in grocery stores.
Oyster mushrooms are producing crops that can be grown up to 25 pounds per square foot every year. Both types of gourmet mushrooms can be easily sold at grocery stores or in farmer’s markets.
Woody Ornamentals
These are popularly known as woody stems and are stems and shrubs sold to florists for use in a flower arrangement or craft wreaths. One of the most profitable woody ornamentals crops is curly willows. These are high in demand by nurseries that sell them further to homeowners and landscapers. Woody ornamental crop farming can be done all year round as long you plant different varieties.
Most types of woodies have colorful stems like red twig dogwood, curly stems with buds, berries, and flowers. Some of the popular woodies are pussy willows in spring, holly in winter, hydrangeas, and forsythia in summer and spring.
You can keep harvesting woodies over and over again for several years to produce year-round yield and income.
Trees and Shrubs
Trees and shrubs are cash crops that are suitable for small farmers with huge profit margins. These can be grown in large numbers in small spaces. For instance, 1,500 two-gallon potted shrubs will require only 1,000s square feet. You can easily get seedlings for popular shrubs and trees in dollar stores for less than one dollar each. You can buy soil and pot for another 50 cents, and voila, you have got yourself a $15 plant.
Bonsai Plants
Bonsai plants are becoming very popular day by day. From tiny finger-sized maple trees to 8-inch tall pines, the bonsai world is full of surprise. This ever-growing popularity gives the new farmers a great opportunity to sell bonsai trees to collectors and hobbyists.
Commercial bonsai growers usually specialize in one of these areas- untrained shrubs or trees, starter trays of young trees, trained plants, starters in individual pots. These bonsai plants can bring you hundreds of dollars from fancy collectors. You need very small space and 100-200 dollars of equipment and seedlings to do bonsai crop farming.
Japanese Maple
Another one of the most profitable crops is Japanese Maples. These have been grown by gardeners for years because collectors admire them for their unique beauty.
Retail garden centers do not usually have enough room to keep different varieties of Japanese maples, which makes it easier for specialty growers to thrive in the market.
Japanese Maples are small-sized trees that can be grown in small containers allowing chances to grow different varieties in small spaces. Limited supply and high prices will make these beautiful trees cash crops for growers.
Read More:- List of Small Farm Ideas With Big Profits in 2021
Willows
Willows are the easiest tree to grow and maintain. The shoots of willows are called rods, and the catkins are huge in demand. Florist demands willows to use it as stem arrangement and for wreaths. Crafters also make use of shoots to make baskets and other arts like rustic willow furniture and trellises. Growers can get a crop yield of 4-5 tons of willows in one acre of land.
Garlic
Garlic is one of the most profitable cash crops, especially for those who are into gourmet farming. There are three types of gourmet garlic, which are known as hard neck garlic with the name- Purple Stripe, Rocambole, and Porcelain. Once you give to try the superior flavor of gourmet garlic, you will never be able to go back to the original garlic.
This is one of the reasons why customers are always ready to pay high prices, up to $10 pounds, to buy their favorite variety. Growers and customers also like elephant garlic, which sells up to $6-$8 per pound.
Fertile soil in one acre of land can grow up to 15,000 pounds of elephant garlic. Garlic is a golden crop as it can tolerate most weather conditions and grow in a wide type of soil.
Bamboo
One of the most amazing plants from the grass family is bamboo, which has been a favorite of landscapers. Bamboo is among the most profitable crops worldwide, and it can be grown in small spaces. The diverse uses of bamboo make it popular cash crops. These can be used for fiber production, flooring, making furniture, etc.
You can get more than 600 bamboo plants in 5 gallons of pots of 30 x 40 space. An average bamboo plant can fetch you $45. Unlike other woody plants, bamboo takes only five years to get ready for harvest. However, it does demand heavy irrigation; you will need a lot of water supplies.
Herbs
Herbs are being popularly used for medicinal purposes, cooking and making herbal products like bath oils, teas, and candles, etc. This has positively affected the farming of herbs.
One of the biggest demands of herbs is for culinary purposes in restaurants and grocery stores. Some of the popular herbs are basil, saffron, and cilantro. Growers also supply regular and new customers at farmer’s markets.
Dried culinary herbs are also sold at good prices in supermarkets as well as farmers’ markets. There are more than 100 herbs in the market, giving you a wide range of options to grow and earn a profit.
Goji Berries
Goji berries have gained a lot of popularity in North America. These are also recognized as Superfoods, which is one of the reasons behind their high demand.
Goji berry requires an ideal growing condition and environment to grow rapidly. Goji berries are compared to tomatoes by gardeners because they both grow in a tall shrub-like pattern.
These require a minimum of 15 years to grow completely and produce yield for longer than that. Your goji berry crop can yield more than 7000 pounds of berries in one acre of land and is sold for $20 each pound.
Final Words:
These are some of our favorite most profitable crops that can produce good income every year. These cash crops are in huge demand and can be grown by anyone with a bit of knowledge about gardening skills.
These profitable crop farming ideas will bring both financial and personal rewards to new growers. So what are you waiting for now? Start your own profitable garden without any trouble and make lots of money.