Teach a farmer to manage.....

[cakadu]

John, a fellow participant in the Canadian Agriculture Lifetime Leadership Program (CALL) and I were discussing the recent announcement regarding the changes about to take place at Alberta Agriculture. (See either the Western Producer or the article posted in the News section here at Agri-ville.) How services are going to be affected remains to be seen.

We both agreed that rather than trying to convince producers to move on to the next greatest thing, or tell them that money will only be available if you do....a,b,c.....why not teach producers how to become better managers and they themselves will see the opportunities. Producers are not immune to making money and they will be able to tell where a value-chain would work, where strategic alliances would make sense and so on.

Every year there are plenty of producers who see that they have lost money, but they're not sure where, don't realize costs of production and the list goes on. What if we were to teach them the skills that they needed to track all of this, along with risk management tools? What could be the potential end result?

It is sort of like the old parable of feeding a man fish, or teaching him how to fish. If we keep bailing out and paying money to do the same old thing, what is going to be learned? What would happen if we changed things and got a different result all around?

[ianben]

We get this sort of advise over here in UK also. All we need to do is be better at our job.
How do you manage the weather?
The variables are too numerous to make any figures we may produce on costs academic, most times.
You can fix costs and forward sell but you still have no control over your yeild or the yeild of your fellow farmers round the world which will affect you next year.
So just how do you know your production costs.
Do they vary from field to field? which they always do.
Do they vary from year to year? which they always do.
Which one should I be using today?
The optamistic one?
I will make a fortune next year.
The pessamistic one?
Not worth seeding anything
This is where farming is different we all have to have some LUCK
You can learn how to play poker for as long as you like, but with out the right cards you will never win.
I hope things can get better but teaching us be better managers will not help unless you think you can teach us to manage supply.

Regards Ian

[cowman]

You are basically right Ian. Most producers have a pretty good idea if they are making money and what their costs are. When you get hammered by a drought or disease what can you do? All the little management courses in the world aren't going to save your bacon. You get tough and ride it out or you fold. And in reality isn't this how it's always been?
Also, speaking of reality, we know the supply will never be managed! It's just not in the interest of the majority and farmers are just too independent(or dumb) to co-operate! You and me might agree to set a price but there are thousands waiting to take advantage of us if we do. It just won't work.