here i will try to summarize important traits for a succesful farmer/farm
1)LOVE
if you don't love what you do, even achieving the sky is worthless. Do something you love and put love in everything you do - dedicate time and effort
2) MOTIVATION
without, it's hard to get far
ATTITUDE
-
Bill Mollison would spend 3hours to sharpen his axe and one to fell the tree, it's wise to well think and get prepared for what you are going to do, i agree, but the opposite is also true: the experience you get from felling that tree is extremely valuable, don't underestimate it. the experience of doing is what makes you grow... i suggest to constantly repeat this process: think/learn, act, think/learn, act
-anything you do, do it well, don't just try to make it as quickly as possible, and at the end of the work, make sure it is well done
-be patient, don't rush it
MARKETING
-understand who is your costumer, understand the target and what he needs, then you can understand how to fulfill those needs, if you are good at fulfilling somebody's needs you are in business
-understand your niche
-find the right costumer: having the most natural and Healthy produce is useless where people can't afford it and just look at the price.
-sell something that is worthy to be sold: if you can grow potatoes but you just have an acre, it's probably not worthy. Rethink the idea
FINANCIAL PLANNING
-use debt, only if you can multiply the value. some people are able to use good debt, they invest money they don't have and create infrastructure to generate more money than they have spent. Imagine you buy a cheap land, or a
tractor, or a
greenhouse... It's expensive, but It will repay if you can manage what you've bought
-ask for a loan only if it is easy to pay it back: I'm not feeling good at spending money i don't have, maybe I'm not entrepreneurial
enough, but if I ask for money i must be sure I can repay. sadly, the only thing I'm sure of, is that nothing is sure, so I ask myself: if my tractor get stolen, how easy is it too repay it? If i am not able to produce can I still pay back? So my strategy here is to ask for a loan if you are easily able to pay back anyways
-understand how to correctly trade time for money or money for time
-try to buy things that are inexpensive but effective
-personally I try to buy second hand stuff that are still good, and my rule of thumb is: will I be able to
sell this item back for almost the same price?
-invest time in learning how to make objects and fix them. Sometimes it's worthy, others, it's not and it's easier to bring your machine to a professional
ORGANISATION
-Planning helps stop mistakes, you'll still make mistakes but hopefully they will show up earlier.
-start small and grow both on area grown, plant types, customers and your expectations.
FOCUS
Curtis stone suggests to focus on few things even if we like too many and we want to do everything, he suggests to make few things with great care rather than the opposite (i keep mistaking right here)
SKILLS
invest in the right skills: make a
course, do internships, visit farms, read
books... Also understand what are the important skills, it's common to see a farmer at a course to learn farming. It's less common to see him attending a marketing
class... But in my opinion they have same importance
KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge is built after successes and mistakes, don't fear to fail, it's just part of the experience
SCALE OF PERMANCENCE
-some things are hardly to impossible to change, think to them twice
-Position, you can be a rock star farmer but if your farm is in the middle of the Sahara there's nothing you can do. and positioning is the one thing you can do nothing about after you start. - though - some people like to go very far for something they like, or they look for something far away different from what is familiar to them, they may also look for some exotic product or lonley place... others look for something convenient or familiar
- my general understanding is that if you are close to costumers, if you want, you can produce many different things to sell directly or even indirectly, if instead a farm is placed far from costumers, its average strategy is to get specialized at one thing, and probably that farm is getting some certification like "organic" to increase the market value of the produce
-think of soil, aspect, climate and most importantly access to customers.
REASONS WHY FARMS FAIL
(Curtis stone reasons)
-treating your farm not as a business, not managing it like a business, not getting datas, not doing analysis. If you want to farm, is generally not just for money, yet you
should be entrepreneurial to make it work and grow
-ideology sometimes goes too far, creating obstacles... Try to be practical first. In time you can fine tune with your ideology, but don't expect all at once. Sometimes you have to make trades. Sometimes even starting from conventional agricoltore is ok... I've personally seen people wasting a lot of money trying to start with
permaculture, with a lot of faith... I've seen them failing and I've seen them changing point of view and approaching farming making compromises between organic and conventional, they are now getting better and getting closer to their ideology.
-pursuing low-end market streams
-have the right equipment, don't think you can create a business out of nothing, evaluate what to invest in
-wanting to do it all... Yes that's me 🤣
I can't focus on one thing and doing that one correctly before doing a second thing. This is kinda embedded in
permaculture itself... It's an ecosystem, it's complex, it's "wholesome"(don't know if it's the right term)...
Permaculture is huge and amazing... But please start simple (speaking to myself)
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