Farmers Market Rental Application: Fill & Download for Free

When I was a kid, I was taught that if you didn't want to spend your entire life unemployed or working at McDonald's or in the military, there was but one path. You had to get good grades in school to be accepted into a university. Then, you had to get good grades to get a degree or some kind of occupational license. Then, once you had that piece of paper, you could take it to an employer and hope that it would convince him to hire you. If he was persuaded, he would give you permission to work for him. But really, despite all the working for good grades, polishing your appearance, and so on, it was an entirely passive process. It was up to the employer whether or not he'd allow you to work, and how much you'd be paid. All you could really do is hope really hard and have faith that this system would work as promised.It didn't, of course. For many people, it hasn't worked for decades. It seems to have been exclusively a Boomer thing, because before them, you didn't need college to earn a good living, and after them, it's been hit or miss as to whether this would lead to anything other than debt.As a sometimes unemployed, other times underemployed 20-something in the 1990s, I often found myself on welfare or unemployment. To be eligible for assistance, I had to demonstrate that I was working furiously at applying for jobs. Then, if I was offered one, I had to accept, no matter how bad the pay or conditions, no matter how bad the fit, no matter how sleazy the employer nor how high their turnover rate. It didn't even matter if I was likely to be fired the first day, making me then that less attractive to other employers. I had to work for anyone who'd have me.I suffered through this repeatedly until I realized something: I could make my own job. “Self-employed” was a thing.Previous to that revelation, I was distrusted to the point that I assumed that's just how the world worked. Nobody would take me at my word. A doctor had to sign a note saying that I was sick enough to take a day off work. A clinic had to test my urine and sign a form verifying that I wasn't a drug addict. I had to bring in pay stubs from my employer to verify my income and the number of hours I worked. Even getting turned down for a job had to be documented with someone else's signature. And of course, the job applications themselves were basically a long list of things I had to prove either with documents or with references whose word, for some reason, was considered more trustworthy than my own.But then I got it in my head to be a trapper. I borrowed traps and a gun, and got old men to show me how to make sets. I read books to learn the craft and about animal behavior. I spent my days running the ridges and my nights carefully fleshing, washing, stitching, and stretching pelts. I kept a log of how many hours I worked. When the day came to meet my caseworker for recertification, I brought that log.“Do you work?”“Yes.”“Where are you employed?”“I'm self-employed.”“What is your occupation?”“I'm a fur trapper.”“And what is your weekly income?”“It doesn't work like that. I work through the season. Then at the end of the season when the fur buyer comes to town, I sell my accumulated pelts and get paid one lump sum.”“Um…well, how much will that be?”“I don't know. There's no way of telling before then. It depends on how much I can catch between now and then, what the quality of the pelts is, and what the market is paying when I sell.”“Um…huh. Well, how many hours a week are you working?”“About 42.”“Do you have any proof of that?”“Here's a log of my hours.”And just like that, the clouds parted and the gates were opened. Where words that came from my mouth were regarded as no better than lies, the same words written on paper, by me, carried the same weight of authority as though a judge had vouched for me. I hadn't lied, but I felt like I was getting away with something. It still amazes me, 25 years later.The season was a bust, and the case worker's patience was wearing thin, but I found a job in the spring, so it didn't matter.In 1994, I had to drop out of HVAC vocational training— a program I enjoyed and was doing very well in— in order to comply with the new work requirement that previously had not been demanded of students. When I enrolled in the police academy in '97, I decided I wasn't going to let that stupid work requirement strangle a promising career in its crib again, so I once again became self-employed. I picked up odd jobs— babysitting, yard work, farm work, roofing, woodworking, and literally digging ditches. I set my own hours to work around school. I tracked all the money I made and the names and contact information of everyone who paid me. The caseworker didn't like it, mostly because it wasn't their usual routine of just photocopying pay stubs, but it was a rudimentary profit & loss sheet and provided all the information they needed. I managed to do just enough that way to keep them off my back and keep my family fed and housed while I worked at graduating at the top of my class from the police academy.I don't know why it hadn't been obvious to me before that making my own job was a legitimate option. My grandfather ran his own junkyard and didn't need a piece of paper to convince anyone else that he was qualified. My uncle taught himself home remodeling and building by watching “This Old House” on TV and went from renovating his first rental property to building mansions. But when I tried it myself, I felt like such an imposter, like a kid skipping school and getting away with it by declaring that he was homeschooling himself.In 2002, I met my wife, who was self-employed as a web designer. I felt like she was an even bigger imposter than I had been. She taught herself web design. She took no tests, earned no certificates, qualified for no licenses, but just declared herself to be a web designer. That, apparently, was enough validation of her competence for a few businesses to hire her to create websites for them. Then once she had assembled a portfolio of her work, the gigs came even easier. Never has she had to attend continuing education or had to worry about getting her license revoked, because there is no regulation of her industry. She's qualified simply because she says she is.In 2007, I once again found myself unemployed and facing the steep obstacle of “prove it” when it came to convincing prospective employers that I was worth hiring. Eventually, desperate for money, I started picking up odd jobs on Craigslist. Suddenly, I was being regarded as an expert on things I had never done before and had only learned to do by watching YouTube videos. That turned into a small landscaping business and eventually a part-time job as a groundskeeper.Then I read a book by Joel Salatin called “You Can Farm.” I had dreamed of living off the land since I was a kid, but accumulating enough money to buy land seemed like an impossibly distant goal, like throwing rocks at the moon. Salatin said that in farming, buying land should be seen as a wealth preservation strategy, not a wealth acquisition strategy. Wealth acquisition, he said, should be done by renting land to farm.The following spring, I did just that. I raised chickens, grew vegetables and sprouts, and sold baked goods at farmers markets. I was a genuine farmer just because I said so, never having spent a day sitting in an agricultural college. I was interviewed by media, my photograph printed in magazines. People asked me for advice like I knew any better than they did. I was invited to teach a class at the annual conference of a state agricultural organization. All this, just because I did the work I wanted to do instead of trying to first prove to some authority figure that I was qualified enough to be granted permission to work for a living.So that's the big “work secret” I discovered that changed everything, at least for me. I learned that you can make your own job without having to first get permission from somebody else.Whether the government will let you or not is another story. Municipalities and even HOAs have a bunch of ridiculously outdated rules prohibiting home-based businesses (as though it's any of your neighbors’ concern what you do at your computer), commercial vehicles, agriculture, and so on. But that's a rant for another day.

Elsewhere on QUORA I wrote the following, but it's applicable here as well:Well, this is very subjective but I'll give it a shot. Here in the Big Bear Valley of Southern California we've got two breweries that are pretty damn good. I won't get into specifics here but let me first state the case for the Big Bear Lake area in SoCal:Here in Big Bear, you'll find lots of great activities besides the breweries.Depending on the season, we've got:swimming, camping, mountain biking on the mountains, cycling races and predefined cycling routs around the lake and the valley, parasailing, boating, jet skiing, farmers markets, the Big Bear Renaissance Faire, Old Timer's Day with lumber jack competitions, several parades (including the world's shortest parade - the Doo Dah parade), Octoberfest, skiing & snowboarding at Snow Valley, Snow Summit, and Bear Mountain, 4th of July celebrations, including one of the best fireworks shows in California, guided overland tours of the historic areas of the Big Bear Valley, plenty of off-roading, paddlewheel and pirate ship tours of the lake highlighting Big Bear's connections with Hollywood movie making and movie star's homes, the only Alpine Zoo in the United States, golfing, horseback riding, snowtubing, go-carts, plenty of restaurants and nightlife if you're into partying and quiet cabin rentals if you're not. And there's plenty more things to do and see that I haven't listed.Now, what was your question?Oh yeah, breweries!There are two main breweries here.Big Bear Lake Brewing Company andBig Bear Mountain BreweryBoth are terrific!

The FaaS modelThese farm management solutions allow stakeholders to make data-driven decisions to boost productivity and efficiency. FaaS converts fixed upfront costs into variable ongoing costs for farmers, thus making the techniques more affordable for a majority of small farmers.For example, data regarding quality of supplies (such as seeds, and fertilisers), associated costs, soil quality and weather is collected directly through farmers, market agents, government agencies and high-tech equipments like drones and satellites. This data is processed and with technology, innovations and big data support- the shortcoming and problem areas are analysed. The information is then disseminated via mobile alerts or dashboards; and stakeholders are trained using assimilated data.Following this farmers are advocated to adopt precision farming practices to boost productivity; with data government, field officers are empowered to provide timely support. It enables corporates to optimise input application and they monitor the crop output in real-time. Further, information helps the financial institutions to facilitate loan provisions, asses risk management, and fast-track crop insurance claims. The advisory bodies allow experts to provide real-time advice to the farmers.Currently, FaaS services are available on a subscription or pay-per-use basis under three broad categories.Farm management solutions: Information sharing, analytics and precision farming tools. This involves information management between farmers, government, corporates, financial institutions and advisory bodies.Production assistance: On-site resources to aid production, such as equipment rentals.Access to markets: Virtual platforms that connect farmers with suppliers of seeds, fertilisers and other agrochemicals.The model also has a vast social impact on the rural agrarian economy in which small and marginal farmers are the primary beneficiaries.GrowthMany startups have adopted the FaaS solution. Total investor funding for FaaS in India is currently $105-115 million. More than 40 percent of funding rounds are at a “series stage,” indicating investors’ high level of confidence in investing more money in the growth stage.“FaaS-based startups have gained popularity as investors pump millions of dollars into them. Total venture capital (VC) or private-equity (PE) funding has increased about 5.5 times in the last three years,” the report adds.A few startups in this sector include AgroStar, funded by Accel partnerships; EM3, funded by Aspada; CropIn funded by Ankur Capital. Major investors currently include Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Aavishkaar, Ankur Capital, Aspada, Global Innovation Fund, IvyCap Ventures, Sophia Investment ApS and Infuse Ventures.Further, both the Central and the State government are actively promoting FaaS via funding, policymaking and direct provision of services.ImpactFaaS can help address inefficiencies across the agricultural supply chain, such as low productivity, lack of farm mechanisation, access to markets and data asymmetry. It encourages product innovations such as multipurpose agricultural equipment and tools for real-time data capturing and analysis.The whole model depends on robust coordination between all the direct stakeholders(startups, investors, governments and corporations) and the indirect stakeholders (local entrepreneurs, implement suppliers, agronomists and IT vendors). Yet, this solution has managed to address the key structural challenges such as the lack of infrastructure, technology and financing.In sum, FaaS hopes to push much-needed process and product innovations in Indian agriculture, including equipment, tools for real-time data capturing and analysis, aggregation of farmland and farm produce, and financial technology for farmers.