Start an Ag Business Turn your green thumb into a different kind of green.

(YoungBiz.com) - So you've got this amazing greenthumb. Every plant you touch turns to gold (well, green anyway),while your friends could kill a cactus. Your family's lawn,which you cut and manicure religiously, looks better than anyoneelse's in the neighborhood. Care to turn your talents into adifferent kind of green? Then take a hint from these savvyagpreneurs.

A Little Help From YourFriends
Many agpreneurs, like sisters Deanna and Jana Thies of Glasgow,Missouri, are getting help from organizations like FFA. Formerlycalled Future Farmers of America, the FFA has, since 1988, addedscience and technology to its curriculum and has really begun tofocus on entrepreneurship training through local projects andnational contests.

The FFA, along with the U.S. Department of Education and theKauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, offers the annualAgri-Entrepreneurship Awards, which award prizes on a local, stateand national level to students who have planned and/or startedtheir own businesses. Ten national winners are chosen each year atthe FFA's national convention and receive $1,000 for themselvesand $500 for their chapter.

Deanna, a former national winner, started The Veggie Patch in1996 as part of an FFA business project. "I was trying tothink of an idea for my Supervised Agriculture ExperienceProgram," explains Deanna, 20. "I knew I didn't wantto work for someone else--I wanted to be my own boss. That'show I came up with gardening."

A little ingenuity and a lot of research helped Deanna furtherher business idea. She convinced relatives and neighbors to let hergrow fruits and veggies on their unused land for a portion of thecrops. She also talked to local farmers. "I already knew a lotof things I wanted to grow--tomatoes and watermelons--but I talkedto farmers in the area about where I should sell my produce andwhat sells well."

Deanna, later joined in the business by her younger sister Jana,17, decided on 30 to 40 varieties of fruits and veggies that shebegan selling at two local farmers' markets. During a goodsummer week, they can rake in as much as $1,000.

Necessity Is the Mother ofInvention
Like Deanna, ingenuity and research are two things Jared Milarch ofCopemish, Michigan, knows a lot about. Milarch, a NorthwesternMichigan College student who wants to eventually get an MBA, begangrowing sugar maple trees at age 13. His plan was to sell them whenthey got big enough to raise money for his college tuition.

At 16, however, he decided that the trees weren't growingfast enough, so he did another kind of digging at his locallibrary. He discovered Azomite, a "magical" clay thatsome farmers used to make plants grow faster, and ordered some.Conducting his own experiment, he discovered that the trees treatedwith Azomite grew much faster than those untreated.

Still not satisfied, Milarch enrolled in a program that allowedhim to take college-level science courses at Northwestern. Aftermany hours in the lab and greenhouse, he developed his own soilconditioner by adding different substances to Azomite. He calls itAdzsumPlus.

When people in his hometown heard about the amazing growth ofhis trees and vegetables, they wanted in and asked Milarch topackage his magic formula. "I wanted people to be able toafford to try it and see how great it works," he says,"so I priced it at under $20 a bag."

PublicityHound
Soon the local grocery store was selling thousands of bags ofAdzsumPlus, and Milarch incorporated his company, Earth PlusProducts LLC, with his brother and dad. He also got a lot offree advertising through his customers, who were so excited abouttheir huge plants that they called the local newspapers.

Larger papers like The Washington Post soon picked up the story."The media will give you plenty of publicity if you go afterit," Milarch advises young business owners. "Don'tignore your local newspapers either. The national media looks tothem for stories."

Find YourNiche
Deanna received a lot of publicity for her business as well, mostof it through the FFA. But what really helped her business, shesays, was discovering a niche market right under her nose. "Mymom bought these mixed gourd seeds, and the only ones that grewwere these long, green ones," she recalls.

When she displayed the gourds at the farmers' markets, shewas flooded with requests for similar gourds that were soft andedible. She noticed that most of the requests came from herarea's large Asian and Indian communities. After more research,Deanna discovered that her customers were looking for the cucuzzisquash and began growing them. The cucuzzi, as well as eggplant,okra and other squashes popular with the area's ethniccommunities, have earned Deanna a loyal following.

Don't GetDiscouraged
For Katie Beeman of Duluth, Minnesota, who mows lawns in the summerand sells Christmas trees in the winter, perseverance is the key toany ag business. Beeman, 20, started mowing her neighbors'yards and ended up with so much work that she had to hire severalemployees to help. But it didn't happen overnight. "Ididn't get 70 lawns the first year of business. It took fiveyears, but it paid off," she says.

How did she grow her business? By keeping her eyes open. Beemansays she noticed that houses for sale were often vacant and had noone to maintain the lawns. "I printed a flier and faxed it toevery [real estate] agent in town. Soon several major firms hiredme to mow their lawns."

Perseverance, assistance, niche markets, ingenuity andresearch--almost as important as good soil, irrigation andtop-notch plants are when it comes to growing your ag business. Sowhether you want to get started on a future career or just want toput that green thumb to work now, start an ag business, and you,too, could be rolling in a different kind of green.