Lots of farming tasks sound simple. Just move the cattle every day. Just make sure the sheep have water. Just butcher the old hens and sell them as stewing birds.
But ecological agriculture is complex, and making decisions — and making those decisions happen — takes real leadership.
Let’s take those old hens as an example. Should we try to sell them live? If we just cull them, who’s going to do it? Does the available workforce have the time? When is it going to happen, and what’s not going to get accomplished that normally would within that time? Would it be cheaper to hire someone to help? Who will that be, and when are they available? What resources will we need, and how much will those cost? Can we really assume that we can use that equipment for X number of years? Where can we do it? What do we do with the meat when we’re done? Can we really sell them all? How much extra time and marketing expense is that going to take?
But that’s only the planning step. The best-laid plans are just ideas until they’re implemented, and the enemy (the weather, the cattle, the 40-year-old tractor, etc.) always gets a vote. It takes real leadership to make plans happen.
Leaders don’t expect things to happen the way they intend. They supervise regularly. They inspect (instead of expect). They pay particular attention to the most important parts of the operation — on a farm, these are usually the operations that are most vital in generating revenue. Realistically, a leader of a crew employees should not plan to do much, if any, of the actual work of farming. They need to be overseeing tasks, assessing, and planning for the next task. They also spend a lot of time communicating with outside entities — ordering supplies, coordinating equipment repair, marketing, etc.
Leadership comes naturally to some people, but it can definitely be learned. When looking for a farm manager, value leadership ability above farming skills. Yes, subject matter expertise is essential, but it’s worthless if it isn’t deployed in the right manner. The person who can look at a steer and tell you what it weighs, how close it is to being finished, and what disease it might be suffering from is not necessarily the same person who can receive that information and can then prioritize which of a dozen different tasks needs to happen in what order, and which of the employees needs to do them — and can give decisive direction and effectively supervise the process of making those tasks happen. You can hire a consultant to tell you which steers to keep and which to sell; you can’t hire a consultant to actually run your operation smoothly.
In this issue of Acres U.S.A. we highlight a number of livestock operations that are applying leadership principles to successfully implement ecological agriculture. Kelly Mulville describes the sheep grazing system he helped implement for the vineyard at Paicines Ranch in California. Cherrie Nolden elucidates the principles of ecological grazing, specifically for horses. And Kelly Klober shares what he’s learned over the years about keeping feed prices manageable.
Farm leadership is difficult. But it’s even more important on ecological farms.
And that’s the view from the country.
