The reasons why we compromise on buildings are almost too obvious to mention. There’s the expense, for starters, plus the “we can make this work” resourcefulness that we take pride in as farmers, and of course there’s also the way we inherit so many buildings when our landbase expands.
Yet Brian Holmes thinks he knows another, less obvious reason: we don’t count the costs of inefficient buildings.
“You can pay me now or pay me later… and you’ll pay me much more later,” says Holmes, professor and extension specialist in the Biological Systems Engineering department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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It’s also true that many of us lack good habits for thinking and making decisions about farm buildings and laneways.
Holmes believes the percentage of farmers developing farmstead plans has increased as the enterprises become larger and more complex. Even among those producers, however, the tendency is to focus on the current structure you’re erecting and to minimize immediate costs.
A scaled farmstead drawing with existing and planned structures will help you communicate with current and future partners, and also with lenders, building contractors, equipment suppliers and excavators.
Drawings can also help utility companies — electricity, gas pipelines, water, telephone, and wireless communications — tell at a glance where to locate their access points, and how much capacity to recommend.
And there’s more, Holmes says.
A farmstead plan also lets you communicate with the next generation, as well as with employees, not only so they see the bigger picture of how the farm is expected to evolve, but also so they don’t inadvertently close off future flexibility.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘what do you want your place to look like in 20 years?’” says Holmes.
It’s something that most farmers already do, although there’s a very good chance you’ve never shared those plans with anyone in any concrete way.
Holmes argues that farmstead plans should be part of busi-
