The Business of Farming

Many of us like to imagine the perfect family farm as a quaint productive landscape unconcerned with the hustle-bustle of an outside world defined by bottom lines and return on investment.

It's a nice picture, but we actually do small-scale, sustainable farming a great disservice by constructing our limited conception of it around a bygone ideal.

Farming is a business that does indeed exist in a world dictated by the marketplace. DTN/The Progressive Farmer, "the leading agricultural information services provider to the North American corn, soybean, and cattle complex," points out that marketing is an important feature of success in farming nowadays.

Even a small business like a family farm needs to orient itself toward the market's realities as best it can, approaching its business as systematically as do the industrial mega-corporations. Just as a mom-and-pop convenience store must plan at least as carefully as a big-box retailer, a small farm must plan every aspect of its operations with an eye toward efficiency and effectiveness.

Various courses and clubs help farmers approach marketing, including the vital process of crafting and sticking to a business plan. The resources out there include Texas AgriLife Extension's Master Marketers course, Annie's Project from Iowa State University (a farm-management course for women) and the University of Minnesota Extension's marketing workshops and clubs.

While the business side of farming might not be as romantic as a charming image of a farm girl in a bonnet or a field of happy Holsteins, those of us interested in sustainable food must be careful to understand farming in its proper context — as a business with its own requirements and realities.

Photo: chefranden via Flickr