Lavender Farming & Products

Lavender farmers cultivate lavender varieties for fresh flowers, dried bundles, essential oil, and value-added products like sachets, soaps, and culinary items.

Lavender is perennial (planted once, harvests for 10-15 years), drought-tolerant, grows in poor soil, has diverse revenue streams, and creates beautiful agritourism potential.

Popular varieties include English lavender (culinary), French lavender (ornamental), and lavandin (oil production).

Success requires understanding lavender varieties and requirements, harvest timing for different uses, post-harvest handling and drying, value-added production skills, and agritourism or retail sales.

Pricing includes fresh bundles $5-12 each, dried lavender $15-30/lb, essential oil $80-150 per ounce, value-added products varying widely.

Small lavender farms can generate $20,000-60,000 from 1-2 acres once established.

Startup costs include lavender plants (perennial investment, $2-6 per plant, 1,000-3,000 plants per acre = $2,000-18,000), land preparation and irrigation, drying facilities, distillation equipment if extracting oil ($3,000-30,000 depending on scale), value-added production supplies, farm stand or agritourism setup, and marketing materials totaling $8,000-60,000.

Building customer base involves farm stand with fresh and dried lavender, farmers markets, lavender festival or u-pick events (agritourism), wholesale to gift shops and boutiques, online sales of dried lavender and products, wedding flowers and decorations, value-added products (soaps, salves, sachets, culinary items), and farm tours and workshops.

Revenue comes from fresh lavender bundles, dried lavender and bundles, essential oil sales (wholesale and retail), value-added products, agritourism and u-pick fees, plant sales and seedlings, or workshops teaching lavender crafts.

Operating costs include irrigation (minimal once established), equipment and facility maintenance, packaging and labels, value-added production supplies, marketing and farm events, potentially hired labor for harvest, and processing time.

Challenges include 2-3 years before full production, significant upfront plant investment, harvest timing critical (oil content varies), distillation equipment expensive if extracting oil, market saturation in some lavender-heavy areas, and perennial weather risks.

Success requires choosing appropriate varieties for intended use, perfect harvest timing (peak oil content or flower stage), efficient drying and processing, creating excellent value-added products, agritourism generating farm visitors and sales, potentially organic certification, building wholesale accounts for dried lavender, and diversifying revenue streams (fresh, dried, oil, products, agritourism).

Lavender farming combines agriculture with value-added production and agritourism.