Dear Expert:

My partner and I are in our mid 30’s, one from a business background and the other from a mechanical engineering background. We have no agriculture background but now we are trying to learn as much as we can from courses and later on-site jobs. Assume we are prepared to start, we would like to purchase a farm that is: 1) within 4 hours drive from Sydney; 2) under the budget of $550-600 K (including initial investment on sheds, machinery and etc.); and 3) source of our sole income. We don’t aim at making a lot of profit at the beginning but we would like to know if we can sustain ourselves in the first five year as we climb up the learning curve. After 5 years, we may re-evaluate the opportunities and see what we can get into with our knowledge and skills.

Now we are planning of buying a farm. The information provided by farmstyle.com is tremendously helpful. As it guides what kind of land we are going to aim for, we would like to know what kind of businesses we can potentially get into with this budget and geographical preference: Cattle? Poultry? Horticulture? We preferred a mixed farm so that we can try different things and learn but we do understand there are many limitations and we may need to focus on one thing first. Which products, for example, beef, nuts, or poultry, have a more promising future in the next 5-10 years (we have learnt that, for example, wine is currently oversupplied)?

Thank you very much!

Jane