My children and I own two small farms in the Omaha area. Like millions of other small farms, ours have been losing money for years.
According to the USDA, 93 percent of small farms bring in less than $1m per year. This amounts to just 36 percent of the U.S. total gross cash farm income. The bigger farms, the other 7 percent, earn over 64 percent of the total gross income.
Why the big income difference? Because small farm income, including commodities (corn, beans, cattle etc.) plus the income from Internet and local food venues, has never enough to buy land. Although there are exceptions, grants and loans have not helped. In fact, most small farmers need side jobs just to stay in business (ERS, USDA, charts 7 and 8).
To turn this around, small farmers need lower operating costs and far better markets. Our company can help producers deal with both problems at the same time – without selling land or adding more debt at the farm level.
Our business strategy depends on building lasting relationships with trusted local investors. Building profitable local food systems requires local investors who sit at the same table with landowners and farmers.
To reach these investors in large numbers requires carefully planned cooperation among local landowners and farmers. Although city and county governments cannot fund new farms and food processing operations, they can and should focus on the economic development potential of landowner-controlled projects that will underpin development of farmer-controlled retail food brands for local markets.
Massena Farms Business Model
In order to reach local investors in large numbers, my company is inviting retired farmland owners and experienced farmers to organize efficient regenerative and organic production units. These incorporated entities will combine contiguous and nearby farms to form efficient regenerative and organic farms. Once two or more units operate in the same area, they will contract to supply similar products to farmer-owned retail food brands. Marketing is discussed below.
Production units are the backbone of our business model. As used here, they are strictly service companies controlled by farmland owners who work together to organize land and then buy professional farm management, marketing, legal, and financial services. Except as explained below, these incorporated entities will not own or lease farms. They are limited to organizing farmland, selecting production unit managers, and approving business plans.
Once a group of landowners agrees to consider forming a local unit, we will draft a preliminary business plan to test the economic viability of the proposed unit.
Draft One: Preliminary Business Plan
Farm and production unit business plans will go through several drafts in order to reach local consumers with the right products and price points. With letters of agreements in hand from landowners, planning starts by inviting experienced farmers to consider managing the proposed production unit.
Our company will advertize for unit managers and answer questions before information meetings are scheduled. Landowners will host these meeting. Thes meeting will conclude by asking interested farmers to call me or one of my partners to schedule farms visits.
These visits will allow potential operators to learn more about our company and understand how different farm sizes, soils, terranes, and distances between farms will affect capital and operating costs and income. These differences require separate leases for each farm.
As the confidential agent for each landowner, we will use the bidders’ lease terms to draft a business plan for each farm and a separate plan for the unit as a whole. This partial draft will include capital, operating costs, and income estimates using publicly available crop and livestock data.
We will NOT share farm-level data among participating landowners or with the farmers who might bid on unit management contracts. First drafts will show only aggregated numbers.
Draft Two: Preliminary Business Plan
If the landowners think our first draft looks promising, we will discuss the results with local commodity buyers. Depending on landowners’ desired crops and livestock combinations, we will meet with local food processors on the costs and timing to prepare new products for local consumer market tests. These informal discussions could include grain, beef, and fresh produce.
Local and Reginal Cooperative Marketing
Lasting relationships with commodity buyers are essential to building production capacity for local farmer-owned retail food brands. Once two or more units operate in the same area, we will prepare new business plans. These plans will ask commodity buyers about their interest in pooled field crops and beef cattle from nearby units. Page 2 on this website explains why beef cattle are important to regenerative production units. We will also look for volume buyers of fresh produce for local food service, restaurants, and grocery stores.
Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting
Our company will provide market information, accounting, and audit trail services for each farm, production unit, and pool. As above, aggregated data will be held in confidence.
As it is now, unmanaged consolidation and speculation have driven up land prices and turned millions of farmers into low paid farmhands. However, big farmers and food companies are not the cause of small farm failures.
Smaller farms are unprofitable (ours included) because the owners and operators lack retail market access. Lower costs, more volume, and better commodity prices, will set the stage for profitable farmer-owned retail food brands. Without extensive local consumer support, smaller farmers will continue to go out of business.
More Young Farmers?
For those who say, “wait a minute, combining farms means fewer farms and fewer farmers.” That’s true if production unit farm managers raise only corn and beans.
But diversification within and across production units is essential to support a variety of specialty grains, fresh produce, and beef for high-valve commodity buyers and nearby urban consumers. All this will require many more farmers with specialized skills in regenerative and organic production and retail marketing.
Our production units will help experienced and young farmers increase ownership rates by increasing farm profits and household incomes from farming. This new money will come from production unit economies, regenerative and organic farming methods, and from better upstream sales.
Incorporating Smaller Farms
Farms must be incorporated to keep local ownership chains intact from generation to generation. Production units will also be incorporated.
Briefly, incorporating family farms, 1) Helps landowners decide who will run the farm, 2) Creates rules on distributing farm profits to operating and non-operating family members, and 3) Requires shareholders to decide who will represent the farm corporation on the production unit board of directors.
Production unit bylaws will govern how the unit operator is selected and define the duties of the operator and board members. The bylaws will also govern how multiple production units work together to compete in commodity and retail markets.
Our company does not offer legal or financial services. Instead, we work with landowners’ advisors by suggesting legal and financial structures that can be refined as needed. Local professional services are a critical part of maintaining family farm ownership within experienced farm families and farm communities.
Public Information and Local Risk Capital
With preliminary business plans in hand and with our support, landowners and production unit managers will host public meetings to attract trusted local investors. These meetings will be followed by private meetings with each landowner and family to evaluate the results of public meetings. The family meeting will include legal and financial advisors.
With sufficient investor interest, preliminary business plans will be refined prior to contract negotiations. These negotiations will include landowners and farmers (with their local advisors) along with commodity buyers, direct sellers, and of course, investors.
Community Economic Development
Our business strategy depends on building lasting relationships with trusted local investors. Profitable local food systems require local risk capital investors to sit at the same table with landowners and farmers. Our job is to facilitate these relationships.
Since landowner-controlled production units are a new concept in agriculture, we will not ask landowners and farmers to pay for planning services, as described above.
We will not accept fees for real estate transactions, farm planning, marketing, accounting and related services. Nor will we accept payments from vendors, lenders, and investors. Our goal is to support our services by negotiating a share of the net profits from commodity and retail sales.
In the meantime, we are asking city and county governments in the Omaha area to cover our out-of-pocket planning costs.
Page two on this website explains our marketing program in more detail.
Page 3 summarizes my qualifications, introduces my business partners, and outlines my family history in farming.
Please contact me for an appointment.
Jim Steffen, President
Massena Corporation
402-317-2639
jim@massenafarms.com
Revised: 06-25-2026