And there are ways to cut startup costs â?? by purchasing used equipment, for instance, or leasing land instead of purchasing it.
Dick Cates, director of the Agricultural Department and a director of University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s School for Beginning Dairy Farmers, teaches students these tricks. The school has trained more than 200 future farmers over a 10-year span, some of whom never grew up on a farm. Tapping into experts such as Cates for ideas on how to make it should spur the new farmer, not lottery money.