In 2015, I was in the backyard of our tiny suburban home in Melbourne’s Northern suburbs. Once a factory worker’s in the 1940s, it became the palace of a hardworking Greek immigrant. Our landlord grew up in this tiny house and raised his only family there before they outgrew it. The cottage garden and 10 x 5m lawn kept us sane in our three years living in the big smoke.
On weekends I’d keep abreast of bush happenings on the phone, often speaking to former clients who had merged into treasured friends and mutual mentors.
It was a sunny Saturday when one such character and I were talking about making money from farming, as we often did. I’d just finished reviewing several studies that had collected both physical and financial and social (people) data looking for insights into why some farm business made more money than others. The following sentence fell out of my mouth and has driven every professional thing I’ve done since.
“It’s not rocket science, if you’re good with people, good with money and good at growing crops, you can make more money out of farming”
That message has been refined over time to now describe Excellent Farming as a combination of being Highly Productive (Crops), Passionate Effective People (People), and Profit Focused (Money). This is essentially the point of this series on Fundamentals and the point of my book Excellent Farming.
The message is crops and people and money, not crops or people or money.
ALL THREE are essential.
Using the cricket analogy again, successful cricket teams are good at batting good at bowling and good at fielding. Many a test match or limited overs final has been lost because the team did not perform well in all three areas.
These principles not only relate to grain specialists, but to all codes of farming and business in general. For dairy farmers, if you are good with cows and pastures and good with people and money, you can make money; (Insert sheep, beef cattle, cotton, tree crops, vegetables or any other farming pursuit). These principles come back to Highly Productive and Passionate Effective People and Profit Focused. And the good news is we have more control over these facets than we think.
Stay tuned to learn more. Stay well.