The Farmer’s Office: Tools, Templates, and Skills for Starting, Managing, and Growing a Successful Farm Business, 2nd edition
There are many books today for those looking to improve their business practices, including many focused exclusively on farm businesses. Few of either make it to a second edition, though. Publishers don’t do second editions of books that don’t sell, and only good books sell — ergo, The Farmer’s Office by Julia Shanks is worthy of consideration.
Shanks is a business consultant devoted to helping farmers grow their businesses. She is also a certified QuickBooks advisor and thus brings an excitement for the power of numbers — the ability to account for, say, the amount of labor and material required to grow multiple crops and to use that information to compute the optimal amount of how much of each to grow. In her words, “the only way to make informed decisions about your business is to have a solid grasp of the numbers. And to have a solid grasp of the numbers, you need a basic understanding of accounting and a solid bookkeeping system.” Yet Shanks balances the objectivity of numbers with subjective context-related factors.
Shanks begins with straightforward and simple-to-understand explanations of the basics of any business: the income statement, the balance sheet and cashflow. She has an in-depth section on bookkeeping, particularly focusing on QuickBooks. She discusses how to finance your business, the business planning process and how to grow and build resiliency in your farm business.
The real benefit of this book is that it focuses on the underlying principles of business. Just as an ecological farmer strives to understand the complex biological and chemical cycles that produce healthy plants — yet which are invisible to the eye — so farm business rests on unseeable economic principles the greatly affect the farm’s success. The Farmer’s Office gives aspiring and established farmers the opportunity to recognize and apply these foundational concepts.
The new edition includes a number of new and updated case studies of farm businesses that have succeeded by carefully considering the numbers and using them to make wise decisions.
As grower JM Fortier says in the foreword, “All seasoned growers will tell you that it’s not just about tending crops; it’s also about understanding the business aspect of running and owning a farm…. Our line of work demands economic literacy.”
If you feel like you lack that basic economic literacy — or if the mere thought of using QuickBooks makes you grimace — this book is perfect for you.
