Category: Uncategorized

It’s easy to think that you need to do it all on the farm! I mean, of course, you can do just about any job on the farm faster and better than any employee. However, the creation of a farm that fully supports the lifestyle you would love to live demands that you build a team and fully step into your role of captain and business owner.

Many of us make the shift from being employees to being self-employed… but the time has come to make the shift from self-employed to entrepreneur.

Find out what your superpower by asking the questions below. Remember to leverage your time by doing the one thing that only you can do that no one else can and yet produces or dictates the course of the farm. An example would be finding connections that would benefit the farm’s supply pipeline for raw materials or choosing the best applications that will fit your farm. Whatever it is, you have a superpower within you and each of your team member has their own superpowers too.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What do you do best on the farm?
• What is your unique ability?
• What do you love doing the most?
• How can you use your time in the most leveraged manner possible?

Here is a chart you can fill out to help you reflect on which tasks would be easy to delegate, which tasks would be harder to delegate, and which tasks are really your superpower. It’s a google spreadsheet, so just click ‘save a copy in my drive’ under the ‘file’ menu and you can have your very own version to edit!

What would become possible in your life if you spent most of your time focusing on your superpower?

If all else stayed the same on the farm this year, which task could you delegate that would have the greatest impact on moving you towards the lifestyle you would love to live?

As farming nerds, we love talking about crop rotations, low-till/no-till methods, cover crops, composting, community-based marketing systems, alternatives to agro-chemicals, mechanical weed control, irrigation, food hubs, cation balancing, locally adaptive seed varieties, composting, and so on. We can spend hours and hours just going through these exciting subjects.

But, have you ever considered that all this rests on the shoulders of humans? It’s all well and good to design the most awesome regenerative farming systems, but it’s all for naught if we’re exhausted and burned out. It breaks my heart to see so many great farmers burning the candle at both ends and experiencing burn-out, exhaustion, relationship breakdown/separation, and the feeling that the farm is running their lives. Not to mention, that all this doesn’t do much good to inspire the next generation to step in and continue building on all the great work that has been done up until now.

So let’s take a deeper look:

1. ‘Certified Organic’ is no longer enough. While it’s a great baseline (and a huge improvement over traditional chemical farming), it’s time to set our sights on systems that are not only toxic-free but rather, on systems that regenerate the health and wellness of the ecosystems and overall well-being of the humans sustained by these ecosystems.
2. Implementation is the key: In order for a regenerative system to be implemented, it requires a human (you and me) to do it.
3. Building Sustainable Lifestyles. You and I are so much more effective when we are energized, well-rested, fulfilled, nurtured and stimulated by our lives.
4. Building Sustainable Farming Practice. This requires our farm systems to not only regenerate the ecosystems but also to fully support a regenerative and expansive lifestyle for the farmer (that’s us). Rest, play, family, and time for your other interests are a key part in creating the internal conditions within you that are necessary for you to be in a state of peak performance when it comes to implementing

Questions for you today:

• What are the key activities and routines that regenerate and re-energize you?

• What is one such activity or routine that you are willing to integrate into your week in a non-negotiable manner?

• What’s it like for you when you are in a state of peak performance… in the flow? What are the key elements that reliably get you into that state of being?

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P.S: Have you heard of John Kempf? Originally from an Amish background, John is the founder of AEA and the host of the regenerative agriculture podcast. I met John while we were both taking the Marketing Seminar with Seth Godin. I was really impressed with John’s innovative and out-of-the-box approach to organic fertility management. It was a refreshing alternative, yet science-based, perspective to the organic NPK approach promoted by most of the organic agronomists up here in Quebec.

There are two ways to make more money: increase your acreage; or grow from within by increasing your productivity and efficiency.

As you might imagine… I would highly recommend the latter. The cycle of increasing crop acreage in order to compensate for insufficient profit is all too familiar to me and is a great way to jeopardize the lifestyle we are seeking to create on our farm. This is not so say that there is not a time and place for scaling-up  but rather that this needs to be a conscious business decision, not a reaction to insufficient profits at your current scale.

A key element of growing from within is to shift more and more the mix of crops we are growing, towards the higher profitability crops while at the same time increasing our own productivity in terms of the income we generate each hour we work.

There’s no question about it: the best way to go about it is to have super accurate data on every aspect of our crop production and as a result, be able to create precise and accurate crop production budgets for each crop…. this is all well and good, but back here in in the real world, this is not always a feasible option nor is it necessarily a wise use of our time and energy.

So how do we go about determining which crops are the most financially beneficial for us in the absence of detailed crop by crop production budgets; and we have no way of knowing how much net income each crop actually is generating?

There are two key indicator parameters: Gross income per surface area and Gross income per hour worked.

Gross Revenue per Area

What actually counts is net income, AKA money in your pocket. However, in the absence of detailed crop budgets, what I have observed on my farm (and have confirmed with other farmers!) is that for small and medium scale farmers, there is a direct relationship between how much gross income it generates per area and how profitable that crop is. There are a couple of exceptions to this, but what we are looking at here is an indicator parameter, not a hard a fast rule.

• First off, decide on a standard unit of area. For a bio-intensive farm, it might be a standard 100 ft bed. For a larger farm, it might be per standard 300 ft bed, per acre, or per linear bed foot. Whatever unit you choose, pick a unit that you can stick too and that is easy to visualize (this is why it is more useful to talk in terms of per bed, or per bed foot rather than per acre or hectare).

*For the sake of simplicity, for the rest of this blog post, I will be assuming that our standard unit of area is 1 bed.

• Next, determine the yield either based on your own harvest records or based on a reference chart if you don’t have accurate yield data.

• Not all crops take the same amount of time. Some crops (like tomatoes) take the whole season, while others take less time and open up the possibility for double cropping (or more!) We thus need to factor this in when we are calculating this indicator parameter. If the crop is harvested fast enough to get a second crop in, multiply by two. If you can get 3 crops per year, multiply by 3 etc.

• To calculate this indicator parameter multiply the yield per bed x the average sales price x the number of crops possible per year. Here is a sample spreadsheet to calculate this. Make sure to adapt the numbers to fit your growing conditions and market realities.

Now that you know how much potential revenue each crop can generate per bed, we can use this parameter to make decisions. I’m not saying you have to overnight drop all the crops at the lower end of this scale. What I am suggesting is to take a look at these numbers and be sure you are making the decisions that are in line with your goals. I invite you to aim for grossing at least 40k$/ac in an extensive system and 100k$/ac in a bio-intensive system.

• What are your overall gross revenue goals for the farm? Given this, what is the baseline gross revenue per bed? Which crops make the cut and which crops don’t? What would become possible if you didn’t grow those crops take fall below this threshold? (or at least minimize them)

• One useful thing to look at is to compare the potential gross revenue per bed for each crop vs. the actual total gross revenue of that same crop on your farm. Are these two parameters pretty much proportional… or are you growing disproportionately large amounts of low revenue crops?

• What could be changed to increase the gross revenue per bed of a certain crop so as to get it up above your farm’s baseline value? Can you increase the price and/or the yield? Can you find a way to reduce turn-over time so as to get a second or even a third crop planted in that same area?

Gross Revenue per hour worked

Once again, it is impractical for most of us to gather sufficiently accurate data in order to precisely know how much time we are spending on each crop. Again, we are looking for an indicator parameter that is easy to measure and practical to use in the decision-making process.

When we look at the production cycle, we see that harvesting is the step that takes the most time and is usually the bottleneck in terms of labor. Depending on the crop and the production system, harvest accounts for 20-33% of the total crop labor.

This is a great place to look for the key indicator of Gross Revenue of the crop harvested per hour.

Amount of a given crop can be harvested per person per hour X Sales price = $/hr harvest rate.

• Make a chart and compare $/hr harvest rate to total gross revenue for each crop.

• What do you notice?

• How can you tweak the equation to increase this parameter? Increase in speed? Increase the price?

• What is the minimum threshold for you? (if you want to earn 20K$ net per year in 20000 hrs worked per year and you’re net is 30% of your gross, you need to generate 33$ gross per hour worked. If the harvest is 25% of your total work, then you need to be harvesting 133$ worth of produce per hour worked.)

• Are some of the crops you grow below the minimum threshold? What would become possible if you didn’t grow those crops? (or at least minimize them).

All right folks! That’s it. I know it’s been a math-y post. The key here is to remember that the farm is a tool to create a lifestyle we love to live…. And part of that is generating a sustainable net income with a sustainable workload. If this isn’t currently your experience: do you want to grow bigger or grow better… work harder or work smarter? The choice is yours 😉

Question: What would become possible if you cut the number of acres you crop by 25-50% while maintaining the same gross income?

We all know the importance of word of mouth. Happy clients are our best ambassadors. When I had my farm, a full 60% of new clients came to us via word of mouth.

But did you know that there are actually things we can intentionally do to cultivate word of mouth… aka the talkablity of our farms.

Here is a podcast episode from the Building a Storybrand podcast that shifted my thinking on this and that I would like to share with you.

http://buildingastorybrand.com/episode-128/

Enjoy!

It has been a year since my first blog post! Wow! Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity to share my ideas with you while practicing and developing my writing skills.

However, to be quite frank… I have not been feeling very excited about the blog recently. It actually feels like a burden and I’m not sure I’m actually enjoying writing. No… to be truthful, I am not enjoying the process of writing as I am experiencing it currently.

The question then becomes– is this a good reason to stop blogging? Is it that I am currently experiencing some simple discomfort, or is it, in fact, a case of me wanting to use my time in some other way? It’s not that there is anything wrong with stopping something that is no longer aligned with our vision. However, it is important to determine if what we are experiencing is truly an indicator that we should stop, or if it is the natural discomfort we can experience as we leave our comfort zone.

When I take a good look at it, I see that what’s coming up for me is plain and simple discomfort. This is great, seeing as discomfort is a perfectly normal experience when we are up to something that is important to us and that is asking us to leave our comfort zone. Discomfort is not a problem but rather, a sign pointing to something for us to observe and shift. For me, the discomfort I have been experiencing recently around blogging is pointing to the lack of regularity in my writing practice: the fact that I have been waiting until the last minute to write a post (which is absolutely not a good way to enjoy an experience!)

What would it look like to enjoy blogging? I would do it regularly. I would savor the experience. I would experience a sense of growth and personal satisfaction from doing it. Rather than worrying about whether or not my blog was useful in terms of increasing my only visibility, I would be more interested in contributing to my readers while developing my ability to express myself in writing. I would take 20 minutes, 2-3 times per week to write and let a blog post emerge out of these writing sessions. There would be weeks where instead of writing a full blog post, I would instead share a video, an article, a podcast, or some other resource I think would be useful to you.

Boom! There we go! Here is my new vision for what my blogging experience will look like for the coming year!

Questions for you today:

• What is an area of your life you are currently experiencing discomfort?
• What is this discomfort pointing at for you to examine?
• What shift is seeking to emerge in this situation for you?

 

Merry Christmas!!

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that in this non-secular era, most of us are not actually celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ, the mystical innovator, all around shit-disturber, and spiritual guide who walked the earth two millennia ago (I mean this with the highest esteem of shit-disturbers and the process of innovative disruption). Yet, we still call this time of year the holiday (i.e. Holy-day) season.

So, what exactly is it that is Holy and that we are celebrating at this special time of year?

One way of seeing it is that we are celebrating the opportunity to get together and cherish this time with our families and loved ones. While this is a big part of it, I have been looking for a deeper meaning, especially since the birth of my son. He’s five years old now, and I would love to transmit a winter holiday tradition to him that isn’t just about stimulating the economy, generating more plastic toys that will end up in a landfill, or floating the giant mass of plastic in the Pacific ocean, and the myth of the fat man in a red suit. I’m hungry for meaning and that sense of connection that comes from sharing an empowering narrative with those I love around me.

So how do I go about finding or creating a meaningful winter holiday narrative?

Actually, the process of creating and living a lifestyle we love is similar, whether we’re talking about designing farm systems or designing a holiday narrative.

Let’s take a look at how I can apply the principles of the 5 Pillars to cultivating a winter holiday tradition for my family that is authentic and meaningful for me.

Pillar 1: A clear and well-defined vision.

My family and I share a Christmas narrative and tradition that elevates the human spirit, nurtures a sense of gratitude and awe, and contributes to raising our consciousness. My family’s new winter holiday narrative draws inspiration from multiple faith-traditions including Judeo-Christianity, pagan, indegenous, and new-age cultures. To me, Christmas represents the dawning of a new era, of a new consciousness. In a very literal sense, it marks a time of the year when the days have reached their shortest length and the light is returning more and more each day.

Our winter holiday narrative is ever evolving and is developed as a family through dialogue and consensus building. We welcome all ideas. We have fun in the process. We savor this time together and we give thanks for the miracle of life. We follow an iterative process where each year we build upon the past to create a celebration that is even more in light with our vision. We have a time of reflection and discussion in the new year about what we enjoyed about this iteration of our winter holiday celebration and we take notes and have a clear plan for the following year.

We engage in family celebration. We celebrate the dawning of a new light through a candle lighting ritual. We celebrate the beauty of life through the decoration of a tree. We tell stories from multiple faiths that highlight the elevation of the human spirit and consciousness. We sing, we play, we cuddle, and we express gratitude.

Pillar 2: A S.M.A.R.T. plan.

In this case, the plan is less obvious than with a crop plant or a farm budget. This first step is crafting a S.M.A.R.T. goal towards which the plan will strive. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time based).

By December 31 2018, I celebrate with my family a one-day winter holiday celebration centered around a collectively decided, intention holiday narrative/ set of activities. Life’s intentions: To be a loving family member. (Linking it to a life’s intention ensures that the goal is truly relevant.)

 

The plan that would accompany this SMART goal would be:
1) Share my vision with my family and enroll them in this project.
2) Brainstorm a list of possible activities, stories, holiday rituals.
3) Have a conversation with my family where we decide on a set of activities and narratives that we want to try out this year. Create a written sequence of activities.
4) Gather the necessary materials etc for the celebration
5) Celebrate!
6) Have a conversation with my family about what we liked and what we would like to try differently next year.

Pillar 3: Prioritization of time and resources.

This pillar is all about identifying the activities which bring us the bulk– the desired outcome,and consciously focusing our time and resources on these activities. For me, this means focusing my energy on activities and rituals that cultivate the spiritual side of this holiday. This also means not dedicating significant time or energy to material gift giving and shopping. P.S. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of this at the grandparent’s house 😉

Pillar 4: Solid farm systems.

Hummm… in this case we aren’t talking about farm production systems. However, the principle behind this pillar is still applicable: Using systems to reduce the reliance on any one person or component of the system.

In this example, what comes to mind is having a written list of the activities we have planned for the celebration so as to empower each member of the family to act independently on the plan that we have collectively decided on.

Pillar 5: Monitor for results within a community of support.

The key is to plan for the future but live in the present. It will be important for me to stay focused on the results I want (spiritual connection with my family) rather than on the specifics of how I imagined the day was going to unfold. The key in this example will be awareness, flexibility, and communication. This pillar is really sweet because it reminds me that I am building this holiday narrative within the context of a loving family community and that we are all here to support each other.

Your turn!

 

• What is one area of your personal life where you would like to live in a more intentional manner?

 

• How can the principles behind the 5 Pillars be applied to this area of your life?

• May health, wealth, and love reign in your homes during this holiday season and into the new year.

 

 

Go make a ruckus!

One summer’s day in July 2016, my wife turns to me and says ‘Hey Jonny! Let’s sell off all our stuff and head out on an adventure!’ As you might imagine, my first reaction was ‘What the WHAT? Are you crazy!’

I had just spent 7 years building a farm business that was able to generate upwards of $60,000 net income and had me working 50 to 55 hours per week, even in the height of summer (plus my wife and our toddler working 15 hrs per week taking care of the animals). We were farming 6.5 acres of vegetables marketed half and half through our 200 member CSA and our farmer’s markets for a total of $240,000 of sales per year. Plus, we were on the verge of buying our own land with the financial backing of the Quebec government who was willing to guarantee an $800K mortgage. As far as I could tell, we were being successful and as such, I saw no need to make a change and ‘lose’ all that I had built!

And yet…

And yet, in hindsight, I am so grateful that I was open to my wife’s idea  which I eventually decided to take. A leap and embark on what has turned out to be a two- year family road trip adventure. What amazes me the most i are the many unexpected experiences we have had. The fact that what we are currently living is so far outside the realm of what I could ever have imagined. What other possibilities could exist that are just so far out of my paradigm that I can’t even see their presence?

One such experience for me has been discovering the practice of life coaching. If 2 years ago you had told me I would be working as a professionally trained life coach with the honor of supporting a dozen organic farmers from across Canada, the US, and Mexico… I would have asked you ‘what are you smoking, and where can I get some’ (just kidding, I’ve been clean and sober now for 5 years… but that’s another story for another time).

People often ask me, ‘Do you miss the farm?’ The answer is a clear NO! AND, I am simultaneously so excited to launch the next iteration of our farm in the next 2 years! It has been wonderful for me to see that I currently have the same excitement about starting a farm as I did way back when I was 21 and about to start Ferme Mélilot. Even after all those years and with full knowledge of what it entails. When I made the decision to leave the farm, one of my fears was ‘What if I discover I don’t actually like farming?’… which I realize now was such a great monkey-mind conversation because if I actually didn’t like farming then it would have been great to find out!

You know what? It turns out that all those fears about ‘losing-all-I-had-built-up’ were just a sweat- monkey mind conversation as well! I now see that the most valuable assets I developed during the seven years of Ferme Mélilot can never be lost:  These are the entrepreneurial and management skills that I have acquired and will have with me in my tool box for whatever businesses I launch as I go forward in life.

What I’m trying to get at here, is the importance of being open to the possibilities that are seeking to emerge. Having a clear vision and being focused are such valuable qualities,but they must not blind us to the amazing possibilities that light up outside of our current paradigm. Realising that we can both dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to our current project, AND remain open to change  as well as the emergence of new possibilities, allows us to live with a little more lightheartedness and playful JOY!

My question for you today?

• What is seeking to emerge in your life?
• What would become possible if you temporarily suspended your paradigm (aka your current way of seeing things)?
• What would it be like to cultivate the energy of joy and lighthearted play into your farm?

Stay nimble and go make a ruckus!