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| Farm Business Planning II |
Question:
What we are looking at is the business
and economic side of farming. Farmers
in America and around the world are
excellent production specialists but
do not plan the whole business. Marketing,
finance, and management are areas
where farmers do not excel.
Our sponsor has been disappointed
in the extension work and publication
that other universities have published.
They do not feel that farmers
will use those publications. We
are trying to develop a process that
farmers can use.
We have initially decided on eleven
steps in the business
planning process.
1) Available Resources - Taking an
inventory of resources available on
the farm
with respect to quantity, quality,
and alternative uses.
2) Operating Environment - Documenting
the expectations of prices, yields,
rates, and other factors that affect
their farm
business.
3) Opportunities - Likes, dislikes,
interests, disinterests of all farm
managers and family members
that make up the farm business.
4) Goals - Personal and business
goals.
5) Feasible Alternatives - Have the
farm managers identify potential enterprises
that they would consider in their
operations.
6) Strategic Plan of Action - Have
the farm managers select the enterprises
that will make up their farm business.
7) Feasibility Assessment - Have the
farm assess the feasibility of the
strategic plan they have developed.
8) Constraints - Identify factors
that could prevent the implementation
of the strategic plan.
9) Benchmarks - Identify factors to
shoot for.
10) Control Mechanisms - Identify
systems and sub-systems that need
to be controlled.
11) Plan Revision - When do we revise
the plan.
This is a short outline of the project.
If anyone has suggestion for
a section, please leave a message.
Answer:
-I would think that "a process
that farmers can use" ought not
to be limited -to materials published
on paper. Some things that come
to mind are videos -- -both training
and historical case studies, and perhaps
computerized tools -and simulation
games. There's no shortage of
up-to-date information from -the UDSA
but no guide on using it. --- I agree
with this poster. Another part of
the `process that farmers can use'
could be a revised and/or simplified
set of legislation which will allow
farmers to make fiscal decisions easier
If farmers worked within a marketplace
that was driven by `competition' (as
the economists call it) then things
would be closer to the ideal but they
do not.
Governments at all levels have introduced
many rules and regulations which were
designed to regulate/protect/support
agricultural production but Government
intervention and regulations impose
a myriad of problems. Marketing boards,
quotas, restrictions on trade of specific
commodities, tariffs, subsidy programs
and international quarantine regulations
are a few examples that come to mind.
The net effect of all this is that
a farmer isn't at all free to just
make decisions (especially financial
decisions) as he/she sees fit.
Since a farmer must work within the
legal framework of society, and since
so many key aspects of his/her industry
are out of his/her jurisdiction, I
can't help but feel that many of the
alternatives that *should* be possible
are not. If the USDA and their counterparts
elsewhere were to consider providing
farmers with a comprehensible guide
to this type of bureaucracy (as the
above poster suggests), then perhaps
they could get somewhere.
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