I recently read this article from Vic Tesolin Woodworking, and he talked about making a checklist. These are the steps to do in order for a sucessful project. So how about a checklist of your farm, in order, what you need to prioritize?
Here is my list. For each one, I will be going more in depth with a separate article, so check back for more information!
1. Quality of Life
Often the most overlooked aspect of a sucessful business, but by all means the most important one. If you have kids, are you able to go to their baseball games? Are you home in time for dinner? This, of course, excludes planting and harvest seasons, but if you are leaving a young family alone to haul grain in February to capture a $0.05/mo carry, is it worth it?
2. Know Your Costs
What does it cost you to grow a unit of crop? If you can’t answer that, how do you determine marketing costs. Simply looking at the tax return at the end of the year does not tell you how well you are managing your finances.
3. Asset Utilization
Are you constantly repairing old tractors that are really too small for the jobs you have to do? Or is that $400,000 tractor sitting idle most of the year? Make the most of your machines, and know what they are really costing you.
4. Labour Utilization
Do you hire people, but still think you are the only one to do certain tasks? Let’s think about that. I see it many times, the boss is trying to turn the planter around while talking on the phone, and has been at it all day while the paid labour is waiting in the truck. Not everyone can run a machine, but sometimes the less experienced operator is better than the stressed out boss.
5. Land Utilization
Now here is where it gets tricky. Most farmers wouldn’t think of land USE as something to improve on. But the assumption that because you own the whole farm, you should grow crops on all of it is false. Look at a yield map, there are areas that are consistant underperformers. Most notable is the area along treelines. Usually 10-20′ just doesn’t produce much crop, but you will break the signal light off the side of the planter to get that last row as close as possible…and it yields nothing. Why not leave a grass buffer? Good for the environment and even better, for your pocketbook.
6. Fertility
Some would argue that this should be tops, but let’s face it; you put a seed in the ground and it grows. There are few places on your farm that this won’t happen. Apply the rates recommended by the Co-op and you have a crop. Advanced fertility can give you gains of 10%. But if you have not got the first 4 steps in order, the gains will not mean anything.
7. Variety Selection
I always found this to be the hardest part of growing a crop, until I found my secret recipe; look at well replicated plot data, throw out the best and the worst and pick something in the high end of middle. Give that racehorse hybrid a couple of years to prove itself, and by all means test on your own ground! I liked split planter, to the point I rarely ever had the same variety in both sides. It also makes nice stripes on Google Maps.
8. Marketing
Yeah, I’m putting it at the bottom. While a good marketing plan can make you a lot of money, it has been proven that incremental selling at critical times can outperform the best players in the markets in most years. While you’re working out the quality of life, set a calendar reminder to sell crops at key marketing times from historic charts. As a general rule you can be in the top half most years if you sell on the spring weather scare before July 1.
9. Yield
The last thing to worry about is getting the top yield. Ignore the neighbors who always seem to do better. If they have a test plot with sky high yields, chances are it came from beside the old barnyard where all the manure went (manure effects can last over 100 years). Do the best YOU can do, don’t worry about the rest! I get frusterated at conferences only hearing about how to improve yield, when cutting costs or improving marketing can have a bigger effect on your bottom line.
Remember, we’re all in this together. Your neighbor shouldn’t be your competition. And when things get tough, when it all seems too much, there is always someone who will listen. Trust me.
519-784-4620
dave@42agronomy.com