Agriculture “planning” may be defined as the strategic management of some everyday resources put in place for a very specialized use to serve mankind in a most beautiful way to sustain humanity. This might seem to be a dramatic definition, but without a fed population history has shown trouble often leads to conflict. Farmers serve utilizing the natural resources of land, water and sky with responsible productive measures with an eye toward innovation and efficiency. The planning starts it all anew by making any necessary adjustments from the previous year.
It is good fortune when policy makers recognize the heavy investment our nation’s producers make to serve the population they lead with their legislative and regulatory responsibility. When those leaders work to understand and support the needs of farmers and rural communities, we all benefit. Expressing gratitude for those leaders in politics is important to maintain the cycle of planning. This is both a collective and individual responsibility we shoulder together.
The development of sound farm policy, whether in what we have come to expect in a Farm Bill, or independent stand-alone bills, can make, break, or cause a change in direction in both planning and planting. As your Farm Credit cooperative, GreenStone is also dependent on a functioning set of laws, regulations, and rules to fuel the engine of agriculture. We are grateful to those leaders across the spectrum that support the Farm Credit mission.
Evaluating the actions of planning, planting, and politics with concepts of success in contrast with pitfalls that lead to failure should help us preserve solid footings for business success for our farms, families, and communities. A joint focus on connecting in some of these ways will create positive results (“precepts of success”):
- Continuous improvement in small ways leads to big results
- Perseverance to overcome any hardship
- Purpose blending passion and skill
- Openness to new ideas
- Make progress over perfection
- Build consensus, collaboration for action
- Patient with persistent effort
- Financial order for peace of mind
- Allowing failures to build the foundation to learning
When weighed against the following fundamentals of failure, embracing the precepts of success and collaborating with likeminded people will help all of us in our mission to serve agriculture. The following should be considered to avoid (“failure points”):
- Ignore market needs
- Insufficient investment and not understanding costs and markets
- Rushing decisions
- Perfection paralysis rather than progressing
- Expecting instant results
- Thinking you know it all without an open mind to learn
- Giving up upon suffering discomfort
- Focusing on fame rather than value
Successful agriculture has been led with the precepts of success, and we should look to leaders who share these precepts in the planning, planting, and politics in our agriculture practices.
There is a lot of activity and constant work with shadows of worry about hurdles, distractions, and naysayers. Considering agriculture should be intelligently viewed as the bedrock of civilization providing food, wealth, and health as farmers steward the earth, let’s ring the bells in celebration of our collective successes and lead to assurance of great future results.
As Will Rogers said, “The farmer has to be optimistic, or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” Sharing in that optimism with hard work in planning, planting and politics is part of the job to achieve the mission and keep moving in a positive future.
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