I’ve mentioned once or twice in past that I’ve toyed with the idea of Country Guide publishing a series of business books based on the strategic insights we glean from the farmers in our stories.
And just to be clear… I don’t mean books for farmers to read.
I mean books that would be of great value because of the fresh thinking they could bring to readers in just about every other economic sector.
Of course there’s a big perceptual problem, because the public doesn’t actually associate farming with smart business.
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Partly, farmers themselves can be blamed for this because of the way too many agriculture groups deliberately focus their public communications on the stereotype of farmer as gentle neighbour rather than the highly professional, highly scientific food producer.
As you’ve heard me say before, the typical farmer makes bigger decisions in a year than urbanites make in an entire lifetime, although those city cousins have little real idea that you are doing anything of the sort.
There’s another perceptual problem too. In my view, farmers consistentily undervalue the quality of their business thinking.
It’s a bit counterintuitive. We know from some pretty good research both in Canada and the U.S. that the more business training and the financial literacy farmers get, the more confident they become, so you’d think farmers would be ranking themselves higher all the time.
We also know from psychologists that entrepreneurs in any field tend to overestimate their intelligence. It’s just an attitude that goes with the self-confidence it takes to run a business.
Yet I get emails from highly successful farmers telling me that they’re trying to position their farms for the future, but they’re uncertain about all the additional work they feel they have to do.
In part I think this is down to all the uncertainty in agriculture.
You may be interested to know that we have been trying for a long time to write meaningfully about ways to lengthen your planning horizon. We’ve been asking: beyond having good vision and mission statements, and beyond building your own business skills, what can you do to set out concrete, actionable 10- to 20-year plans so you can measure your progress?
It turns out we were waiting for the wrong people to give us our answer. If you missed it, go back to this article from our March 1 Country Guide, and read again how Robert and Angela Semeniuk have set up their 10-year capital acquisition plan.
The experts weren’t in three-piece suits. They were on the farm, as happens so often.
I could come up with other examples from every issue, including the Glenn family in our March 28 issue of Country Guide, explaining how good buildings create business opportunities. Great stuff.
I guess maybe there should be a book in it after all.
Are we getting it right? Let me know at [email protected].
