First Bulgarian Member

We have our first Bulgarian Seller - Paul, who is selling his small dairy farm in the Yambol region.

This is an ideal opportunity for somebody looking for a ready-made business with accommodation on the premises. The main farm building covers an area of approximately 100sqm and is solidly constructed from concrete and brick with a tiled roof. This comprises of the milk area with sink and milk vat, the cow housing area (separated by a brick wall and double-glazed door for hygiene), and an additional sink and 80 litre electric boiler.



Annexed to the main building are two timber framed rooms with a total area of approximately 50sqm which are currently used for storing hay and housing new calves.

The milk area has been recently refurbished to meet EU requirements to Grade 2 standard and there is a current continuous contract with a dairy company who collect the milk every 24-48 hours. The milk is classed as top grade with a good high fat content. All taxes are up to date and all animals are fully registered.

The farm comes complete with:
13 adult cows (9 of which are in various stages of pregnancy)
4 calves
2 female adult goats
Horse and cart
Milking machine
Milk vat Own water supply complete with outside water troughs

Also included in the sale is a 4 roomed bungalow which sits adjacent to the farm itself and comprises of 60sqm, along with a small outbuilding which currently houses pigs. The house is accessed via some steps to the balcony area which leads to the entrance. It is habitable but the new owners may wish to modernise to include an internal bathroom/toilet and redecorate to their own tastes. At present there is an outside toilet available. The complete size of the land with house and farm together covers 1900sqm, and both the garden and farm areas are fully fenced with easy access from one to the other. The garden includes a well with electric pump and 20m pipe for irrigation etc, an outside sink, apple, apricot and cherry trees, and a grapevine over a trellis to the front.

For just 35,000 Euros this is a bargain!

Visit www.gofarmer.com, to contact Paul about this offer and start your own farm in Bulgaria.

New Improvements to Gofarmer Service

The Gofarmer website has recently undergone some behind the scene's changes to improve the way the site works.

One main change is that Buyers now only have to go through a simplified registration process and if viewing a product, they can quickly and easily register in seconds and then immediately view full product description and the Seller's contact details. It was thought that the original, longer Buyer registration, may put some people off from registering and thus mean Seller's could be losing out on potential customers.

Another big change is that Bulgaria has been added to the countries Gofarmer now accepts members from and the website will be marketed to the Expat community living here. So Gofarmer is now operational in the UK, France and Bulgaria.

Behind the scenes in the administration area, I now have the ability to see which email addresses are fake, invalid or no longer working. All members are required to keep their email address updated. Regular checks will be done through the administration area to ensure all members area 'real people' and members with fake or invalid emails will be removed. This will keep the membership database clean and more responsive.

The forum will soon be overhauled and promoted to make more active and other features are planned for 2008.

Rachel

Gofarmer - ownership changes

Gofarmer and thus this Blog have been fairly quiet over the last year or so. This is because in the summer 2006, John and I parted and I moved back in with parents temporarily, pending my planned move to Bulgaria, where I had become involved in the property market and had several investment properties, as well as a new house built. Myself and John did not want to see Gofarmer simply shelved as we had both put in so much work and felt that we owed it to our membership base to continue the website. We agreed to continue the business partnership with John fielding telephone enquiries back in the UK and I would oversee the generally running of the website from Bulgaria.

But life is never that simple and my new house was not ready until several months later and so my internet access was restricted. John started working other jobs outside the farm and had little time to devote to Gofarmer and so for the majority of 2007, Gofarmer just plodded on. I managed to keep a general eye on the site, answer email enquiries and in the summer of 2007 had several bugs fixed in the script.

In December 2007, John opted to sign over his share in Gofarmer to me and so I now run Gofarmer and am the sole owner. I am currently milling over various ideas to increase visitors to the site and achieve more popularity and thus more sales for advertisers. I have placed long running adverts in the Smallholder Magazine and The Rare Breeds Survival Trust Magazine - the Ark. I am now happily settled in my new home with 4 rescue dogs and a cat and so in 2008, you can expect Gofarmer to bounce back.

The philosophy behind Gofarmer was always to bring the farming community into closer contact nationally (and internationally) and in turn closer to the ordinary public as they are the usually the final customer, especially if farmers are doing bed and breakfast, holiday cottages, farm shops or even home deliveries. I want to create a portal for farming and rural communities in the UK and possibly elsewhere, somewhere to promote goods and services, meet others, find resources and hopefully benefit from being part of a wider community of users. Watch this space.......

If Financial Solutions

If Financial Solutions Sponsor Gofarmer

'IF financial solutions was formed on the back of five years experience within agricultural mortgages. We have helped many farmers source both long and short term financial solutions, dependant on their specific requirements. Alongside this we have also been able to develop our lending criteria to offer finance for the majority of commercial properties at the most competitive rates.

Agricultural Finance is an area that has become increasingly difficult over the past few years to acquire funding for. With decision making in many of the banks being removed from the local business manager to a centralized office, many farmers have been coming up against a brick wall.

Our understanding of the agricultural finance markets and specific legal requirements allow us to source viable alternatives even for clients with limited financial information available. With close links to specialist legal firms and surveyors we can ensure applications are dealt with quickly and effectively, with repayment options that suit your requirements.

The last decade has seen great change within agriculture which has required farmers to move with the times. Through our company we can provide fast and effective solutions allowing farmers to stay ahead.'

For more information visit If Financial Solutions

Recent Press Release About Banner Advertising

We have recently had a press release sent out by Pressbox.co.uk and PRWeb about our new banner and button advertising options. This press release is submitted to a number of different news services and we hope this will bring us some further publicity and advertising revenue.

To read the press release click here

Rachel

1/3 of sheep farms culled in F&M didn't have disease

Gofarmer News

We are continuing to improve traffic and visitors to our site. July showed over 170,000 hits with around 4680 unique visitors, while August showed a massive increase in hits to 290,000 although actual unique visitors stayed around the same. September brought 251,000 hits and a similar number of unique visitors.

The search and product pages show the most visitors. The forum is starting to get more visitors and also the links page is one of the pages showing lots of visitors. Visitors are then going to the main site from the forum and links page and also landing on the farm focus page. As expected most are leaving from the various product pages.

You will also notice some Google banner ads at the bottom of the main centre of the site. We hope to raise some additional income for advertising through these until we have established independent banner advertising.

Recent Listings

Yesterday's Farm by Valerie Potter - retrospective look at farming life up to 1960, celebrating a quintessential rural existence.



Crumble Cottage - Self catering cottage on a working smallholding 15 miles from Aberystwyth, stunning coastal views and beaches nearby.


Sheep Fleece Floor Rug - hand made floor rug made from raw washed fleece from Coloured Ryeland Sheep with a touch of white from a Border Leicester.


Forum Topics

The BBC reports that more than one third of sheep farms thought to have foot-and-mouth in the 2001 crisis did not have the disease. Over a million animals were slaughtered needlessly. Click Here to read more and discuss issue

Pale and white shelled eggs have caused a problem for one forum member - have you had similar problems. Click Here for forum post.

Business & Farm Focus

Business Focus: Institute of Organic Training and Advice - The Institute of Organic Training and Advice (IOTA) is an important new initiative supporting the work of advisers, trainers and others working in organic farming throughout the UK

Farm Focus: Bayhlam House Rare Breeds Farm - We keep four different breeds of cattle, White Park, Shetland, Old Gloucester and Highland and also seven flocks of rare sheep, Castlemilk Moorit, Norfolk Horn, Greyface Dartmoor, Llanwenog, Balwen, Ouessant and Herdwick. Our pigs include Large Black, Middle White, Berkshire and the exceedingly friendly Maori pigs from New Zealand called Kune Kunes. We also keep some very attractive pygmy goats and a variety of poultry including Buff Sussex, Ixworth, Scots Grey and Scots Dumpy.

New Banner Advertising Options

We have just started accepting banner and button advertising on the site. There are 3 options:

Large Vertical Banner

This is the large banner under the categories and as shown on the right here. It is 125 pixels wide and 400 pixels long. This banner option will be displayed permanently on every page in the Gofarmer website for however long you choose to advertise. It is NOT on rotation with any others.

In addition to this, you will receive:

• A 468 x 60 banner or a text ad at the top of the monthly newsletter to all Gofarmer members (currently around 700) for each month you buy the vertical banner.
• A 468 x 60 banner in the footer of the Forum and a link and short description of your business or product in the Forum under the Sponsors Section
• Your vertical banner will also be on this blog and you will be able to provide a full feature on your business or product for publication on the Blog (which will be archived and so remain accessible always)

Button Ads

This a 125 x 125 pixel button ad displayed permanently on the right hand side of all pages of the Gofarmer website. These button adverts are NOT on rotation with any others and there will never be more than 4 button adverts displayed at any one time.

In addition to this, you will receive:

• Your button ad in the monthly newsletter to all Gofarmer members (currently around 700) for each month you buy the button ad.
• A link and short description of your business or product in the Forum under the Sponsors Section
• Your button ad will also be on this blog on the right hand side

Bottom Banner Advertising

A usual 468 x 60 banner displayed at the bottom of every page on the Gofarmer website. This banner is on rotation with just 4 others (Maximum of 5 advertisers in this slot). The banner will show right under the search box for all category selections and at the bottom of search results, adverts and all other pages.

In addition to this, you will receive:

• A sponsor link and short description at the bottom of the monthly newsletter to all Gofarmer members (currently around 700) for each month you buy the button ad.
• A link and short description of your business or product in the Forum under the Sponsors Section
• Sponsor Link on this blog on right hand side

All advertisers will be provided with access to their own advertiser's admin area where they can see how many impressions and click-throughs their banner or button has received.

We have researched the prices other companies are charging for similar banner advertising and have kept our prices very low in comparison. Some companies charge between £25 and £50 a week for the 'bottom' banner position and your banner rotates with unlimited other banners. Often no stats are provided so you can not really judge how effective the advertising is. We have been quoted over £700 a month for banners similar to the large vertical banner for sites with similar traffic.

We wanted to keep prices reasonable and provide extra exposure with the advertising packages and so any banner or button advertising also includes newsletter advertising to all our members and advertising on the Blog and on our Forum under the sponsors section.

On average the Gofarmer site receives over 100,000 hits a month, with around 5,000 to 10,000 unique visitors each month so your banner or button will be seen by a lot of people. For more details please click the advertising link on the right.