Evaluating Your Assets

In the Holistic Resource Management Workbook (published in 1990 by Island Press), authors Sam Bingham and Allan Savory encourage farmers to ask themselves:

• How can I increase my yields?
• How can I reduce my costs?
• What risk is involved?
• How can I minimize the risk?

Bingham and Savory offer the following recommendations on how to plan changes to your farm. For more information on Holistic Resource Management, see:

• Holistic management a whole-farm decision making framework (340 KB PDF)
• Holistic Management® International

Involve others

An effective way to plan is to involve other people in the process. Your spouse, children, relatives, potential business partners and close friends may be able to contribute to this process. They can provide support, creativity and other perspectives. Also, if they have been involved from the beginning, people are more likely to keep working on projects and to be less frustrated when things don’t work out exactly as planned.

Brainstorming

Sit down with other people who are affected by the farm. As a group (or in small groups if there are more than five or six people), give yourselves five minutes to come up with the longest list of possible solutions to a simple challenge you face. Don’t be critical as you go; don’t even discuss the ideas. Write down everything no matter how absurd or unrealistic some idea may seem.

Then repeat the exercise with a more difficult challenge. For example, use this for deciding what crops to focus on, how to market your products, how to create more wealth (and this might go beyond monetary wealth). If needed, give yourselves more time, maybe 10-15 minutes, with the greater challenge.

After the brainstorming, identify which ideas have the most potential.

Preliminary research

Explore the ideas you decided to focus on. For example, if you are considering your sheep flock from conventional to organic, find out about the certification requirements for organic sheep production; the price you can get for organic lamb at the farm gate, the farmers’ market, or wholesaling; the cost of organic hay and feed; the cost of natural health care products. You need to get a rough sense of these factors before you can fully explore the different options.

Plan to plan

Set aside a few days to plan the change in your enterprise. Again, try to involve other people, family and friends, in this process if possible. Make sure that everyone realizes that this time is devoted to planning. Have the findings of your preliminary research handy, as well as access to the internet, lots of pens and paper, coffee and food. Write down the findings both rough ideas as well as the conclusions.