Agribusiness person or farmer which label is yours? . Identify yourself as a businessperson, not a farmer. A farmer grows fruits, vegetables, and grains and tends cattle, goats, chickens, and bees with a short-term sales outlook while a businessperson is someone who understands that these productive assets are cultivated, reared, and turned into quality consumer products that generate regular income.
The key words here are productive assets, quality products and regular income.
Assess your strengths and build on them. Ask yourself are you flexible to change; how amenable you are to using new methods. Can you utilize the space you have in a more productive way?
Are you using organic manure from your own cows to fertilize your crops? Are you diversifying your product lines to establish different revenue streams? There is strength in numbers, get out of your small space and join others who are building the future.
Always associate with people who know more than you do and listen to what they say. Often your neighbors will know more about what is happening than you do.
Ask others at church what is happening with irrigation systems, or disease prevention or crop rotation patterns; who is building processing plants that will ease the movement of raw materials into finished products.
Always ask, how can I be involved in what is happening that will make a difference in my productive capacity?
Understand the risks of farming and learn how to manage them. If unpredictable pricing is a risk, diversify into more stable product lines. If climate change is destabilizing your seasonal production or reducing quality outputs, reach out to agribusiness specialists to learn how to manage these risks.
Understand how research changes the dynamics of success in the field. This is the single largest issue confronting you now and everyone needs to be involved in finding solutions.
Become your own brand manager. Does your farm have a name? Can the consumer differentiate your products from others? Can you get your story in the local newspaper? Manage your farm like a product and trust your instincts when doing anything. continue
