Coffee Plantation? Farming Simulator 3.5?

[ekarney]

I have a player who wanted to buy a section of a jungle that had a high concentration of coffee plants so that he could sell the coffee beans from it. I sold him 4.5 acres of jungle land for 6,000gp. (1 acre per 1k with a +30% to price from Stronghold builder's pricing)

However, he wants to be able to sell the coffee from the plantation as a business style thing.
Now I know a bag of coffee as per arms and equipment is 50gp/lb.

Withotu going into too much maths (1lb = 50gp, how many lbs does a coffee tree produce per year, how many trees in the jungle section etc) how would I work out what his gross income would be? not including anything like labour or additional expenses.

[Andreaz]

Math is literally all you have. Compare with an actual cofee business, scale down by whatever plant density his land has compared to an actual modern business, then scale down again because a modern farm is far, FAR more productive (to many farms, "over the century we doubled your production forever twice" isn't an exaggeration).

[ekarney]

Math is literally all you have. Compare with an actual cofee business, scale down by whatever plant density his land has compared to an actual modern business, then scale down again because a modern farm is far, FAR more productive (to many farms, "over the century we doubled your production forever twice" isn't an exaggeration).

That's a shame, I'm absolutely abhorrent at maths. I was in the bottom 2% of my year group in fact.

However what I have come up with. In a modern day coffee farm not wild jungle, is that 6,448lbs of coffee beans are produced annually, however that includes excess beans, which coffee plants apparently produce a lot of and can spoil/make the coffee worth less than it should be.

Since the player specified part of a jungle as coffee farming isn't a thing yet, i estimated density at a ratio of 1:10, should I go lower?

Vague approximation takes me a usable output of 400lbs/annual. Not including any expenses at all other than what I've specified.

Should I lower it or what?
The player is currently a hemisphere away from the closest jungle that can support coffee beans so logistics and labour will be factored in later.

[Fouredged Sword]

You don't have to be that complicated. He just needs to hire some commoners to run the place. They produce based on their craft (farming) and Prof (farmer) checks. Subtract their wages and you get how much gold they produce each week.

[Telonius]

You could probably pay each of the laborers another 2sp per day (triple the wage for an untrained hireling), then call it "Fair Trade" and sell it to Elves at double the price.

[DrMotives]

You could also rule that civets infest his plantation, and eat all the coffee cherries before his farmers can get to them. He won't get any money until he finds fantasy hipsters who will pay a premium for civet-processed coffee.

[Gnaeus]

Or you can use the PF downtime rules. Say that his plantation is essentially a number of "farms". That each "farm" costs 2090 gp, which includes basic livestock/seed, the wages for the workers, the cost of infrastructure, cost of transport to market etc forever. Then it produces gold and goods as per the downtime rules.

[Sacrieur]

Some things to consider about coffee plantations:

-Coffee trees grow really big, but that makes them difficult to get to the delicious berries, so they're kept smaller.
-Caffeine is a natural insecticide. No bug infestation should be any problem since the berry part doesn't matter.
-Coffee beans must be separated from the red berry.
-They have to be roasted at a precise temperature.

To make coffee you have to grind the beans, although most people likely have a mortar and pestle, so you could sell them as whole beans to preserve freshness. They would have to be packaged in glass jars since plastic and metal manufacturing doesn't exist.



You could also rule that civets infest his plantation, and eat all the coffee cherries before his farmers can get to them. He won't get any money until he finds fantasy hipsters who will pay a premium for civet-processed coffee.

Civet coffee in our modern world costs up to $100 a cup. You'd be doing him a favor.

[Aergoth]

You could also package them in waxed cloth and seal it with the wax. That would make it relatively water and air tight without the breakability of a glass jar.

[Rubik]

I'd "hire" help for the farm by borrowing a few days of the party wizard's time and either using Planar Binding to get some powerful guards and workers, or Polymorph Any Object out of some rocks to do the same. There aren't going to be many jungle critters that will take on a small army of archons and 12-headed celestial cryohydras, after all.

[Cirrylius]

-Coffee trees grow really big, but that makes them difficult to get to the delicious berries, so they're kept smaller.

Hire local climbers/brachiators. double/triple/etceteraple your profits.

[DrMotives]

Hire local climbers/brachiators. double/triple/etceteraple your profits.

Tasloi seem like they'd work cheap. They're like feral goblins with a racial climb speed. You can relive Earth history with your PC as the wealthy Westerner and the primative tasloi as the native people reduced to following the civets around to scrounge for beans.

[Liodre]

I, possibly unfortunately, get too interested in these kinds of questions.

A quick Google found, "about 623 trees per acre (http://www.blairestatecoffee.com/ourstory/howtogrow.html)" and "450 to 900 lbs per acre using 'traditional methods'. (http://www.britannica.com/plant/coffee-plant-genus)"

Seems like a decent starting point anyway.

Though using the craft and profession rules can be a good short cut.

[Rubik]

Though using the craft and profession rules can be a good short cut.Assuming you don't really want to make any actual money, sure.

Though I suppose if you do it through some serious skill optimization, you might be able to make a barely noticeable dent in the local economy.

[Inevitability]

You could probably pay each of the laborers another 2sp per day (triple the wage for an untrained hireling), then call it "Fair Trade" and sell it to Elves at double the price.

I don't think elves would be too interested. After all, they don't have to sleep and presumeably never feel sleepy in the morning.


Also, mandatory picture. (http://www.stephaniegehring.com/wp-content/uploads/coffee-you-can-sleep-when-youre-dead.jpg)

[Eisfalken]

If you're not going to do an essay on the economics of fantasy coffee farming, and just want something that'll do in a pinch, there are two "official" sources:

Stronghold Builder's Guidebook: This gets into your PCs building their own base of operations, but there is an option early in the book about building your stronghold on an "income source", which generates (IIRC) 10% of the stronghold's value in income every year, and requires 20 people to work it. This is the easiest and most inattentive way for PCs to get income: it requires no rolls, no checks, nothing but building more stuff with their loot money. However, if they are far from civilization, then it costs more to build things, and the DM may decide to screw with you out of hand. (I mean... it is a jungle, everyone knows there are dinosaurs and other stuff out there...)

Dungeon Master's Guide II: This has actual rules for starting a business, which includes running a farm. There's a lot more rules involved, so if you want to make this kind of a "secondary game" to the main dungeon-crawling stuff, this may suit you more. It's nothing too convoluted. You basically just pay money for starting the business, make skill checks periodically, and the DM rolls some random stuff to happen to you. You can even pay more money to enhance the operation (i.e. permanent bonuses to rolls), and do a few other things there. It's much less overhead, and if you don't want players getting gobs of money without any real effort, this one is the way to go.

I hesitate to say it, if you're willing to work with players, this might be a good way to allow Leadership, with the strict understanding that the cohorts only come along to "fill out" a party when one of your players can't show up. The best choice is bard: they have very great skills for running things, can boost followers to help them out in a situation, and provide useful magic for healing, divination, and other tasks that might be slightly tedious for fiddling over. I personally got a DM to allow me to do this, and it seemed to work amazingly great for both him and the rest of us; it cut down on tons of details nobody really cared about in the end.

[P.F.]

I, possibly unfortunately, get too interested in these kinds of questions.

A quick Google found, "about 623 trees per acre (http://www.blairestatecoffee.com/ourstory/howtogrow.html)" and "450 to 900 lbs per acre using 'traditional methods'. (http://www.britannica.com/plant/coffee-plant-genus)"

I came across those same figures and ran quick ball-park estimate and came up with 48,000 gp per acre per year gross. I calculated scores of 1sp/day laborers for four months (the approximate harvest schedule) and a handful of 3sp/day farm managers and assistants year-round ... the number I got put labor cost of under 2000gp per acre per year, which struck me as a bit low for the end profit. It also doesn't account for the rather long crop cycle of coffee plantations (coffee trees take years to grow form seed) or the costs of buying saplings/seed, clearing the land, etc.

I think the 10% return on investment is a good starting point. Since you charged him a premium when he bought the land, perhaps a higher rate of return, 15, even a 20% wouldn't be out of hand. Honestly if he can recoup his investment in 5 years he'll be doing a lot better than most farmers in the world.

So on the low end that's 600 gp per acre net, less the aforementioned 2000gp labor costs, so to produce that much he would have to gross 2600, or have a 52 pound yield of roasted coffee per acre. Now that doesn't sound like much, especially compared to the 500+lbs of a modern farm under intensive cultivation, but the un-hulled fruit is 80% water weight/inedible product, so the total yield would be 260 pounds of coffee cherries, possibly about half what a modern farm produces (not sure if the britannica numbers are for processed or initial harvest).

The more generous 15 and 20% return rates would net 900 or 1200 gp, for a gross of 2900 or 3200 gp, and final yield of 58 or 64 pounds of roasted coffee per acre per year, repsectively.

[ekarney]

I don't think elves would be too interested. After all, they don't have to sleep and presumeably never feel sleepy in the morning.



Apparently Drow spend half their lives hopped up on stimulants. Which is partially responsible for all their crazy, since Elves still need to trance for a few hours Drow outright refuse to trance for weeks on end out of narcotic induced paranoia.
Don't ask for citation on tat, I read it in a post a while ago, but they referenced a book.

Also he wanted to import via trade caravans.
What I came up with was close to 6000lbs for 4.5 acres ona modern coffee farm.
I calculated it down to 400lbs which is 20k of pure coffee.

Using Arms and Equipment I used Millers as the base workers 5 of them for a total of 1gp/day
an Apoctherapy for 1gpp/day
Construction of housing and processing 3k
Mercenary Leader 605gp/Caravan and 23gp/day while on expedition.
Mercenary guards 70 - 100gp/Caravan and 5sp a day while on expedition.

Wilderness guide for caravan 3sp/day
Cook for caravan 1sp/day
Driver (Valet) for caravan 2sp/day
Expedition leader for caravan 3sp/day
Interpreter for Caravan 4sp/day
I put horses down for rental as 5gp per caravan per horse with 2sp upkeep/day
Hazard pay (total) 10gp/Caravan

There's various fees and taxes associated with the town he's trading in that amount to a total of 30ish gp/Caravan
2sp for toll gates.
Obviously the more caravans he sends the annual haul in the safer it'll be but the less returns he'll get.


I really wish I read this thread before doing all that math last night though.

[Threadnaught]

I'm absolutely abhorrent at maths. I was in the bottom 2% of my year group in fact.

No wonder I'm so much better at understanding games than you. And also a bigger munchkin than you could hope to be.


However what I have come up with. In a modern day coffee farm not wild jungle, is that 6,448lbs of coffee beans are produced annually, however that includes excess beans, which coffee plants apparently produce a lot of and can spoil/make the coffee worth less than it should be.

Okay, what kind of setting/world? Is there Magic? If so, do the players have access to the Spells that can preserve food?


Since the player specified part of a jungle as coffee farming isn't a thing yet, i estimated density at a ratio of 1:10, should I go lower?

It'll be easier to do the maths if you keep the numbers at something easy to multiply by 6.


Vague approximation takes me a usable output of 400lbs/annual. Not including any expenses at all other than what I've specified.

Looks good, 20,000gp per year minus expenses, which would include labour, shipping, preserving and protection. There's also a potential tax on imports in certain places.


Should I lower it or what?

Let's see, if you have the business as 24/7 shift work, one guard and worker per acre per shift, full crew for a Sailing Ship and two warehouse workers per shift one to sell, the other to pick and pack.
That's 44 people total, bringing us to 44gp/day in expenses, 1sp/day is along with subsistence farming when close enough to civilization that they can just spend it all willy nilly, these guys are out on the frontier, they need paying above average.

From these assumptions I calculate the total yearly expenses in wages to be 13,180gp. In addition there's tax of possibly 2,000gp, a warehouse needs renting or purchasing I can't find any values on this for now and a Sailing Ship costs 10,000gp. Other transportation may be required depending on how far from a dock the warehouse is.
The first year would be a net loss of more than 5,000gp, not after that your player should be able to make about 5,000gp/year.


The player is currently a hemisphere away from the closest jungle that can support coffee beans so logistics and labour will be factored in later.

I'm seriously low-balling the amount of hirelings you'd need, in order to make the calculations more convenient and in order to allow room for profit.
This is all based on your 400lbs/year estimate however, the numbers will change depending on the exact volume of product.

Also see if you can introduce a monster that eats the coffee beans and poops them out as hipster flavoured coffee beans. Hiring an additional person per shift per acre to sift through all the waste matter would cost an extra 8,590gp/year, but what would amount to maybe an extra 10% of product, could double income. Because people who only buy product X when product Y exists, are stupid and deserve to be ripped off. It's a joke mods, through the magic of Poe's Law, this can become a negative statement about every member of giantitp. Let's keep it in an Antimagic Field.

[Rubik]

Funny thing -- if you're a wizard, the above costs basically dwindle down to taxes, and that's it. Everything else can be done via magic, with no actual expenses beyond that.

But just like with everything else, magic does it better, faster, and cheaper. Spend 20,000,000 gp on a keep, not including furnishings, or spend nothing beyond your spell slot load-out for a few days? Decisions, decisions.

[elonin]

My thought is in a world with magic magic like any commodity looses much of its inherent value. Sure magic can make production and guarding easier taking away the struggles of producing the product. At the same time magic can be used to make the actual product a niche item. I'd use the profession check to find out how much is made.

[Rubik]

Do note that the lowly Prestidigitation can be used to turn low-grade, flavorless coffee into extremely delicious magiccino.

It's like McDonald's coffee, except it's not 95% artificial additives.

[DrMotives]

Do note that the lowly Prestidigitation can be used to turn low-grade, flavorless coffee into extremely delicious magiccino.

It's like McDonald's coffee, except it's not 95% artificial additives.

Magiccino has been shown to cause Bigby's Shaky Hands in test subjects. I only drink fair-trade Obad-Hai special organic blend coffees.

[Rubik]

Magiccino has been shown to cause Bigby's Shaky Hands in test subjects. I only drink fair-trade Obad-Hai special organic blend coffees.MagicDonald's reserves the right to file a lawsuit for slanderous accusations. Prepare to be subsumed and corrupted.

Resistance is futile.