Division of Extension
Labor shortages are widespread, workers are expecting higher starting wages, and after farms hire and train a new employee, there is a risk that they will jump ship for a better-paying job. Improve the retention odds on your farm by putting a plan in place to improve the employee onboarding experience.
Cyclical lows tend to be a time of greater anxiety for many and include increased exit from the industry. However, even in cyclical lows, some farms are making profits. For these farms, it is also a time of opportunity as capital asset prices for machinery, land, and cows are often lower as well. The question is: What do these successful farms look like at the end of cyclical highs that enable them to continue that success during cyclical lows?
Whether it’s fire, flood, wind, or injury- a disaster on your farm can cause devastating loss and requires pre-planning to minimize the disruption.
As the harvest season approaches, put on your pilot’s cap. Get your team together. Pull out your manuals, checklists, and protocols. Be purposeful. Make the changes that need to be made, and make sure all of your team members have their wings! It’s a lot of work, I realize. But as we see from our friends in the airline industry, it does make a difference!
Part II of this article series discusses how to clear obstacles that litter the path to implementing important decisions on the farm through the use of Fishbone Diagram and Forcefield Analysis.
Business strategies are practical actions that communicate how a business plans to reach its goals. Thinking strategically about the farm business as a whole helps determine emerging themes, issues, patterns, and opportunities. Learn how to complete a SWOT Analysis for your farm.
Part I of this article series introduces “The Memory Jogger” booklet and how brainstorming and nominal group technique can help generate your farm’s next great idea.
Host Katie Wantoch and Bill Halfman, Professor and Extension Agriculture agent in Monroe County, discuss an alternative to renting more farmland – buying high quality forages from their neighbor.
Organizational (org) charts are a visual depiction of your farm’s staffing structure. They define roles and clearly illustrate “who reports to whom,” with connecting lines showing accountability and reporting relationships. An org chart for your farm can help keep things running smoothly and efficiently by providing several benefits.
Used extensively as a source of nitrogen fertilizer due to its relative ease of application and wide availability, the obvious downside of anhydrous ammonia use is the serious hazard it presents to workers during transfer and application. The word “anhydrous” comes from the Greek, meaning “without water.” Because of the chemical’s strong affinity for water, […]
Many commodity farms face a fork in the road at some point. The status of their physical infrastructure, labor availability, size, age, or other factors create a time where they must decide to invest in economies of scale or use their resources they have in a more value-added way. Those who invest in economies of scale are […]
Host Katie Wantoch and Ben Jenkins, Agriculture Extension educator in Green Lake County, discuss considerations for a farmer to consider with a future land purchase from his uncle.
The top strategies include conducting regular educational meetings, promoting open employer-employee communication and acting in ways that create a workplace culture where safety is accepted, valued and viewed as key to business success.
Farmers track and plan for evolving market conditions only to have a something like a global pandemic further disrupt markets and raise concerns of worker safety. Wisconsin farm leaders have adapted, and they continue to make decisions amid increasingly complex circumstances making it necessary to lead from a well-constructed strategy. Most farm leaders stay on […]
Risk and farming are two sides of the same coin. Like many industries, the farm business lives with and deals with risk daily. Further, the number of risks and their costs are increasing. These increases make the management of risk a vital component for successful long-term profitability. Risk is the probability that some event will cause exposure to […]
Whether on the tractor, in the barn, or at the farm office, farm managers are always mulling over some change to their operation that might improve profitability. It might be employing a new technology, launching a new enterprise, buying or leasing machinery, altering a production practice, or some other possible change. Occasionally, one of those ideas […]
As people who live in rural areas, we are all use to the potholes that jar our vehicles and rattle our teeth. Likewise, the financial statements that measure the position and performance of our dairy businesses have potholes too that are sometimes difficult to navigate.
The Balance Sheet is a financial statement that measures the financial position of the business at a point in time.
