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 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 will help farmland owners deal with both problems at the same time and do so without selling land or adding more debt at the farm level.
To be clear, our business strategy depends on building lasting relationships with trusted local investors who sit at the same table with landowners and farmers to build profitable local food systems.
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 consider the economic development potential of landowner-controlled projects that underpin development of farmer-controlled retail food brands for local food service and grocery 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. This is the first step in building essential local production capacity for farmers-owned retail food brands.
Production unit 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 production land, selecting production unit managers, and approving business plans.
Once a group of landowners agree 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
Our business plans will go through several drafts as we move from the farm to consumers. With letters of agreements in hand from interested landowners, planning starts by inviting local farmers to consider managing the proposed production unit.
My business partner and I will hold joint meetings on our business model with interested landowners and farmers. 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 with the participating landowners or with the farmers who might bid on the unit management contract. This first draft will show only aggregated numbers.
Draft Two: Preliminary Business Plan
If the landowners think our first draft looks promising, we will discuss volume, quality, delivery dates, and prices with local commodity buyers.
Depending on landowners’ desired crops and livestock combinations, we will also meet with local food processors to discuss the costs and timing of processing for product and market development research. These informal discussions could include any number of products that might be developed for retail consumers including grain products, beef, and fresh produce.
Local and Reginal Cooperative Marketing
As soon as two more production units are in operations in the same area, we will prepare new business plans to test commodity buyer for their interest in contracting for pooled field crops, beef, fresh produce, etc. Good relationships with commodity buyers are essential to building production capacity for farmer-owned retail food brands.
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, the data will be aggregated, and farm and production unit data will be held in strict 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 provide legal services to landowners and farmers. We support local attorneys. lenders, and financial advisors with suggested legal and financial structures that can be refined as needed. These 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.
Since landowner-controlled production units are a new concept in agriculture, we will not ask landowners and farmers to pay for our planning services, as described above.
Community Economic Development
We are asking city and county governments in the Omaha area to cover our out-of-pocket costs for production unit planning as described above. In time, our income income will be based on a negotiated share of increased net profits from commodity and retail sales.
We will not accept fees for real estate transactions and farm management services, or payments from vendors, lenders, and investors.
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: 06-24-2026