Small Business Stories - Vintage Alpacas Video

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Small Business Stories - Vintage Alpacas

Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on Small Business Television. We are coming to you from Cleveland, Ohio at the site of the 2008 COSE small business conference. COSE that is a council on smaller enterprises This is Kim Rassi, Kim I appreciate you being here today. Kim Rassi: Nice to meet you. Alex Fees: I can tell you for certainty that after 22 years in television, Kim is the first Alpaca farmer that I have ever interviewed so congratulations. Kim Rassi: Okay. Alex Fees: So how does this happen, you have an Alpaca farm somewhere in northeast Ohio? Kim Rassi: Alright I have a farm in Brooklyn Heights, which is just around the corner from here, and it actually happens that we are third generation family farmers. Alex Fees: Really? Kim Rassi: So that is how I came across the property. Alex Fees: For those people who do not know what is an Alpaca? Kim Rassi: Alpaca is, kind of similar to a Llama but a lot smaller, originated in Peru and South America and it just ruminant, an animal like a sheep that just grazes the land doesn’t hurt the land, it is very gentle on the land and we take the fiber off the animal as its product every year. Alex Fees: That is the product for using clothing? Kim Rassi: For using clothing, right to make yarns. Alex Fees: Like the socks you are wearing today right? Alpaca socks? Kim Rassi: Right the yarn. Right, felts material─really it is up scaled clothing. Alex Fees: Oh really? Interesting. Well Kim how many alpaca do you have? Is that a fair question to ask a farmer? Kim Rassi: It is, well I have 70 which is a lot of alpacas so— Alex Fees: It is a herd? Kim Rassi: I have a herd, I have a big herd of alpacas and I specialize in black and grey colored alpacas. Most farms; most alpaca breeders have small amounts like three or four animals per farm only because they are very expensive. Alex Fees: Yeah. Kim Rassi: So to get seventy, it takes you either a long time or a good investment of money. Alex Fees: Talk to me about approaching alpaca farming as a small business. Kim Rassi: Well I think it is a really good choice for small business if you have the land and the love for animals and you like to be outdoors then it might be something you would be interested in. The initial investment might seem like a lot but when you are starting to sell the babies for nearly the same amount that you have sold the mother for or the father for that you bought them for, then you can see your investment returned to you pretty quickly. And there is also a huge tax advantages to being in it. Like a property taxes, your going to go on CAUV which is in Ohio is our, our state program for farm taxes. Alex Fees: Okay. Kim Rassi: So your property taxes are really low. In Brooklyn Heights I do not pay very much and I should be paying like a six figure property tax on 12 acres. Alex Fees: Yeah. Kim Rassi: But I do not, I pay three figures. Alright there is a huge difference there. Alex Fees: Well that is good. Kim Rassi: Then also your income taxes. If you are paying taxes on income, and you are an alpaca farmer, you are really stupid. Alex Fees: Really? Kim Rassi: Because yeah, because your investment is your alpacas so that is your machinery. So you are allowed to depreciate them over five years just like a piece of machinery. So that comes off of your income and I’ll always be at a negative income which again is a benefit for me because I have three girls in college. So that allows them to get all the scholarships and grants and everything to pay their tuition. In the meantime, I got my investment out in the field and when they graduate from college I can cash that and put it back to my pocket. Alex Fees: So Kim, as far as the daily operation of harvesting alpaca what, wool? Is that what you call it? Kim Rassi: Yup, the fiber. You take the fiber off the animal once a year. Alex Fees: Once a year? Really? Kim Rassi: Yeah, and just in the spring. Alex Fees: Oh yeah? Kim Rassi: Right and then the fiber doesn’t really give you a lot of profit money. I sell mine on eBay; the people that spins yarns or make felts or cloth. But what makes the money is selling the babies. Alex Fees: Oh yeah? Kim Rassi: So eventually 20 years from now when we have enough animals in the United States, we might be able to have a fiber industry and that is the kind of the goal of the whole alpaca market out there right now, is to get enough animals in this country. So we are trying to breed them and breed them and make more but it is hard because they only give you one baby every 11 and a half months, and out of that about 25 percent of them die. So they are very fragile. Alex Fees: And you sell the babies to what, other alpaca farmers like you? Kim Rassi: Sometimes other alpaca farmers that are looking for specific bloodlines but mostly to people that don’t really want to go like, to a nine to five job. They want to just stay on their farm, out in the country, raise some animals and be able to make a six figure income doing it, and not pay taxes. Alex Fees: Wow. Interesting. Kim Rassi: So they just want to have a very farm and country lifestyle. Alex Fees: So Kim tell me about your involvement with COSE. Kim Rassi: Well we have been a member of COSE for 26 years. Alex Fees: Have you really? Kim Rassi: This is the first event I’ve ever been to I sadly have to say that I have never shown up at one event. Alex Fees: Well I just assumed to be at somebody has been for like 26 years and he has never missed one. Kim Rassi: Oh wow isn’t that funny? Alex Fees: And like goes like 15 a year. Kim Rassi: Well, since I am a farmer I really never saw why I would want to come to anything in their description of why, you know─come to this business event. Well business event for what? A farmer? What are they going to tell me, where to buy fertilizer? I do not think so. Alex Fees: Well what’s been your experience? This is your first one? Kim Rassi: I thought this was wonderful. I mean I ran in to and talked to about ten people that I got positive feedback from. Not just AT&T but other people here. Business contacts for my land because yes I am raising alpacas in Brooklyn Heights. Who is doing that? I am letting them graze on property that is hundreds of thousand of dollars an acre. I can sell that property and put my alpaca farm somewhere else in Northeast Ohio, pocket that for. Alex Fees: There you go this could be life changing for you this conference. Kim Rassi: That is right, this could be life changing. Alex Fees: Interesting. Kim Rassi: But raising alpaca is a lot of fun. Alex Fees: Where can people go to get more information about vintage alpacas? Kim Rassi: Well, I’m on a site called “alpaconation”. So it is www.alpaconation.com/vintage.asp. Alex Fees: Okay. Alpacanation.com/vintage.asp. Clear as a bell. Kim Rassi: Or you could just search out alpaca farms in Ohio and you would see thousands. Alex Fees: Are there really? Really wow. Kim Rassi: Oh yeah, there is more alpacas in Ohio than any place in the country. This is called little Peru. Alex Fees: I had no idea. Is it really? Well I’m learning something I did not know. Kim Rassi: And our national conference is going to be right here at the IF center in May of 2009, it will be our national show. So people will come in with their show animals from all over the country. Alex Fees: How many do you expect for that? Kim Rassi: Maybe 1500 alpacas here. Also it is going to be the world alpaca festival so people from South America and all the major fiber markets like Milan, where the fashion industry is they will all be here researching the fiber and getting big lots sold and bought and there will be a huge fashion show, it will be a big event here. Alex Fees: An alpaca fashion show. Kim Rassi: Yeah have you ever heard about alpaca? Alex Fees: Oh yeah I have heard about alpaca, and I figured it was a wool that, that is was used to but I had no idea it was used in the— Kim Rassi: Its better than wool. Alex Fees: Fashion industry in Milan Kim Rassi: Oh yeah. Alex Fees: That is pretty much top notch, is it not? Well Kim you have taught me something I did not know today. Kim Rassi: Okay. Alex Fees: Alright thank you very much, I appreciate you being here. She is Kim Rassi with advantage alpacas. I am Alex Fees with small business television where the CPSE 2008 small business conference. COSE, that is the Council of Smaller Enterprises, but small I might add, only by name. Kim, thank you.

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Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on Small Business Television. We are coming to you from Cleveland, Ohio at the site of the 2008 COSE small business conference. COSE that is a council on smaller enterprises This is Kim Rassi, Kim I appreciate you being here today.

Kim Rassi: Nice to meet you.

Alex Fees: I can tell you for certainty that after 22 years in television, Kim is the first Alpaca farmer that I have ever interviewed so congratulations.

Kim Rassi: Okay.

Alex Fees: So how does this happen, you have an Alpaca farm somewhere in northeast Ohio?

Kim Rassi: Alright I have a farm in Brooklyn Heights, which is just around the corner from here, and it actually happens that we are third generation family farmers.

Alex Fees: Really?

Kim Rassi: So that is how I came across the property.

Alex Fees: For those people who do not know what is an Alpaca?

Kim Rassi: Alpaca is, kind of similar to a Llama but a lot smaller, originated in Peru and South America and it just ruminant, an animal like a sheep that just grazes the land doesn’t hurt the land, it is very gentle on the land and we take the fiber off the animal as its product every year.

Alex Fees: That is the product for using clothing?

Kim Rassi: For using clothing, right to make yarns.

Alex Fees: Like the socks you are wearing today right? Alpaca socks?

Kim Rassi: Right the yarn. Right, felts material─really it is up scaled clothing.

Alex Fees: Oh really? Interesting. Well Kim how many alpaca do you have? Is that a fair question to ask a farmer?

Kim Rassi: It is, well I have 70 which is a lot of alpacas so—

Alex Fees: It is a herd?

Kim Rassi: I have a herd, I have a big herd of alpacas and I specialize in black and grey colored alpacas. Most farms; most alpaca breeders have small amounts like three or four animals per farm only because they are very expensive.

Alex Fees: Yeah.

Kim Rassi: So to get seventy, it takes you either a long time or a good investment of money.

Alex Fees: Talk to me about approaching alpaca farming as a small business.

Kim Rassi: Well I think it is a really good choice for small business if you have the land and the love for animals and you like to be outdoors then it might be something you would be interested in.

The initial investment might seem like a lot but when you are starting to sell the babies for nearly the same amount that you have sold the mother for or the father for that you bought them for, then you can see your investment returned to you pretty quickly. And there is also a huge tax advantages to being in it. Like a property taxes, your going to go on CAUV which is in Ohio is our, our state program for farm taxes.

Alex Fees: Okay.

Kim Rassi: So your property taxes are really low. In Brooklyn Heights I do not pay very much and I should be paying like a six figure property tax on 12 acres.

Alex Fees: Yeah.

Kim Rassi: But I do not, I pay three figures. Alright there is a huge difference there.

Alex Fees: Well that is good.

Kim Rassi: Then also your income taxes. If you are paying taxes on income, and you are an alpaca farmer, you are really stupid.

Alex Fees: Really?

Kim Rassi: Because yeah, because your investment is your alpacas so that is your machinery. So you are allowed to depreciate them over five years just like a piece of machinery. So that comes off of your income and I’ll always be at a negative income which again is a benefit for me because I have three girls in college. So that allows them to get all the scholarships and grants and everything to pay their tuition. In the meantime, I got my investment out in the field and when they graduate from college I can cash that and put it back to my pocket.

Alex Fees: So Kim, as far as the daily operation of harvesting alpaca what, wool? Is that what you call it?

Kim Rassi: Yup, the fiber. You take the fiber off the animal once a year.

Alex Fees: Once a year? Really?

Kim Rassi: Yeah, and just in the spring.

Alex Fees: Oh yeah?

Kim Rassi: Right and then the fiber doesn’t really give you a lot of profit money. I sell mine on eBay; the people that spins yarns or make felts or cloth. But what makes the money is selling the babies.

Alex Fees: Oh yeah?

Kim Rassi: So eventually 20 years from now when we have enough animals in the United States, we might be able to have a fiber industry and that is the kind of the goal of the whole alpaca market out there right now, is to get enough animals in this country.

So we are trying to breed them and breed them and make more but it is hard because they only give you one baby every 11 and a half months, and out of that about 25 percent of them die. So they are very fragile.

Alex Fees: And you sell the babies to what, other alpaca farmers like you?

Kim Rassi: Sometimes other alpaca farmers that are looking for specific bloodlines but mostly to people that don’t really want to go like, to a nine to five job. They want to just stay on their farm, out in the country, raise some animals and be able to make a six figure income doing it, and not pay taxes.

Alex Fees: Wow. Interesting.

Kim Rassi: So they just want to have a very farm and country lifestyle.

Alex Fees: So Kim tell me about your involvement with COSE.

Kim Rassi: Well we have been a member of COSE for 26 years.

Alex Fees: Have you really?

Kim Rassi: This is the first event I’ve ever been to I sadly have to say that I have never shown up at one event.

Alex Fees: Well I just assumed to be at somebody has been for like 26 years and he has never missed one.

Kim Rassi: Oh wow isn’t that funny?

Alex Fees: And like goes like 15 a year.

Kim Rassi: Well, since I am a farmer I really never saw why I would want to come to anything in their description of why, you know─come to this business event. Well business event for what? A farmer? What are they going to tell me, where to buy fertilizer? I do not think so.

Alex Fees: Well what’s been your experience? This is your first one?

Kim Rassi: I thought this was wonderful. I mean I ran in to and talked to about ten people that I got positive feedback from. Not just AT&T but other people here. Business contacts for my land because yes I am raising alpacas in Brooklyn Heights. Who is doing that? I am letting them graze on property that is hundreds of thousand of dollars an acre. I can sell that property and put my alpaca farm somewhere else in Northeast Ohio, pocket that for.

Alex Fees: There you go this could be life changing for you this conference.

Kim Rassi: That is right, this could be life changing.

Alex Fees: Interesting.

Kim Rassi: But raising alpaca is a lot of fun.

Alex Fees: Where can people go to get more information about vintage alpacas?

Kim Rassi: Well, I’m on a site called “alpaconation”. So it is www.alpaconation.com/vintage.asp.

Alex Fees: Okay. Alpacanation.com/vintage.asp. Clear as a bell.

Kim Rassi: Or you could just search out alpaca farms in Ohio and you would see thousands.

Alex Fees: Are there really? Really wow.

Kim Rassi: Oh yeah, there is more alpacas in Ohio than any place in the country. This is called little Peru.

Alex Fees: I had no idea. Is it really? Well I’m learning something I did not know.

Kim Rassi: And our national conference is going to be right here at the IF center in May of 2009, it will be our national show. So people will come in with their show animals from all over the country.

Alex Fees: How many do you expect for that?

Kim Rassi: Maybe 1500 alpacas here. Also it is going to be the world alpaca festival so people from South America and all the major fiber markets like Milan, where the fashion industry is they will all be here researching the fiber and getting big lots sold and bought and there will be a huge fashion show, it will be a big event here.

Alex Fees: An alpaca fashion show.

Kim Rassi: Yeah have you ever heard about alpaca?

Alex Fees: Oh yeah I have heard about alpaca, and I figured it was a wool that, that is was used to but I had no idea it was used in the—

Kim Rassi: Its better than wool.

Alex Fees: Fashion industry in Milan

Kim Rassi: Oh yeah.

Alex Fees: That is pretty much top notch, is it not? Well Kim you have taught me something I did not know today.

Kim Rassi: Okay.

Alex Fees: Alright thank you very much, I appreciate you being here. She is Kim Rassi with advantage alpacas. I am Alex Fees with small business television where the CPSE 2008 small business conference. COSE, that is the Council of Smaller Enterprises, but small I might add, only by name. Kim, thank you.

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