I know I’m a broken record on this subject, and that I’m forever saying that if there’s anything I’d like consumers to really understand about today’s farmers, it’s how they excel at decision making.
It’s foreign to consumers, who excel in their own way at making choices, such as which pairs of jeans send which signals, or which restaurant is the right place to be seen in.
In such a context, choices are utterly different from decisions. It’s a difference that can be captured by listing the attributes required for effective decision making, including courage, analytical capabilities, and the ability to simultaneously hold multiple factors in your mind so you can anticipate how a change in one part of your management will integrate with all the other parts of your operation when you begin implementation.
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I admire too the ability of great decision makers to know how to stagger and pace their decisions.
Yet there is a also a change underway in how top farmers are managing that pacing.
Most farms have a work regimen that uses the winter to ensure their equipment, inputs and workforce are all perfectly prepared for peak performance the day they can hit the field in the spring.
Now there’s a counterpoint in the business cycle too. It emphasizes using the summer to ensure the farm is primed to make maximum gains from its business management opportunities once the fieldwork slackens.
Today’s farms are evolving faster than we are able to quantify. It isn’t just a matter of acres or equipment; there’s also the harder-to-measure matter of business growth and sophistication.
The speed of this evolution also varies between farms, and I’m reminded of a 2015 Ipsos study that looked for commonalities among farms with strong financial performance. Ipsos found that such farms:
- Commit to continual learning.
- Make decisions based on accurate financial data.
- Select and use excellent advisers.
- Know their business plan.
- Aggressively manage costs.
- Understand and manage risk.
- Set clear budget objectives.
Wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to key this list into your phone and set it to pop up periodically through the summer?
Then you could use those reminders to ask yourself, which three categories offer the most room for growth on your farm? What would be your action plan?
Whatever system they use, it’s exactly the sort of process that many farms will undertake this summer, and every summer from now on.
We’re all fond of quantifying how our field productivity is steadily climbing. Could you compete with your neighbours for land if your yields were still where they were a decade ago?
And can you expect to compete if your business productivity doesn’t progress even faster?
Are we getting it right? Let me know at [email protected].
