I have just finished the 3rd season of Amazon Prime’s show ‘Clarkson’s Farm’. Aside from the continued jibes at his local council regarding various planning permission infractions, the clear message is that traditional agricultural farming is becoming incredibly tough to turn a profit on. Spiralling costs of fertilisers, energy, fuel, and seed are challenging enough. When you add the extreme weather conditions we are currently experiencing, it creates an uncertain future with no sign of improvement in the short term.
Just in 2024 alone, we’ve had a spring that was both the warmest on record and the wettest in 40 years. 2022 and 2023 were the two hottest years on record, with the summer of 2022 being among the top five driest since the 1890s.
In the 3rd season of the program, Jeremy Clarkson experiments to try and make a profit by ‘farming the unfarmed’. Examples include making blackberry jam, growing mushrooms, and making nettle soup. However, these endeavours still faced issues such as increasing costs, red tape, and mould.
One area that Jeremy has yet to consider is using part of his land to start a self-storage business with shipping containers. With the growing demand for self-storage, diversifying part of your land for this could provide a guaranteed income with little initial outlay. This type of business is not affected by weather, energy costs, or escaping animals.
We have created a step-by-step guide to opening your own thriving self-storage business from as little as £1 a day. This guide includes the reasons for opening a self-storage business:
- Profitability
- Growing demand
- Spreading your risk
- Not Weather dependent
It also outlines the steps needed, from making a business plan to growing the business once it is thriving.
Would Jeremy have to speak to his favourite people, the West Oxfordshire District Council, for planning permission to open a self-storage area? In short, it depends. We have summarised this step in an existing article, ‘Do I Need Planning Permission for Storage Containers on my Farmland?’
So if you have spare land and wish to diversify for business, please fill in the form below and we’ll get back to you.