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Farm Business Management
The Strategic Farmer
Paperback
December 2023
9781800624238
More details
- Publisher
CABI - Published
19th December 2023 - ISBN 9781800624238
- Language English
- Pages 248 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
$65.00
Despite farm production systems and regulations constantly changing, managers tend to concentrate on immediate decisions. But with this changing world managers should increasingly consider longer-run core changes to their products and systems. This is the world of strategic planning.
Given changes occur in small steps, this strategic position is often neglected. Selecting future systems, products and resources takes careful thought and analysis. This book is all about these strategic decisions: what to look for, assessing the future, analysing possible plans, and making appropriate decisions. The farmer in control of strategic planning will be one step ahead in meeting goals of the farm family and any other owners.
This book is not a straightforward textbook. It tells the story of a couple who take part in an expert-guided assessment of their longer-run goals and option selection. The couple are searching for a new property after family adjustments. The processes covered apply equally to existing farms.
The first two books in this management series cover a manager's personal attributes associated with successful tactical management. This book is a sequel. It continues the story of the farmers, consultants and experts in the previous books. The first two books emphasize gaining the knowledge necessary for tactical decisions. In this book, the emphasis has shifted to the methods and procedures for strategic planning.
In the process the couple interact with farming friends and advisors. Each chapter covers a common issue facing farmers in strategic planning (e.g. regenerative farming, modern technology assessment, futures approach, pollution control, investment analysis). Research, logic, and theory give the analytical and system procedures necessary for strategic planning. Well-tried approaches are featured. Each topic is referenced in chapter addendums providing formal discussions, structure and theory.
This book is for all farmers. And provides a resource for farm management/agribusiness students by supporting a series of lectures. References are provided along with lecture guides and exercises available on the CABI Digital Library.
Preface
The Characters
About the Author
Sources of Further Reading on the Important Topics Raised in the Chapters
1: Past and future
2: Farmer experiments on day-to-day management, and big decisions
3: But what do you want?
4: What will happen in the world?
5: How good are you?
6: The survival of the current world in question maybe?
7: Regen … sounds just perfect?
8: The rush of technology and its solutions
9: Extremes and coping with living
10: But what about the next generation?
11: Putting it all together. What now?
12: A question of size, but how to buy?
13: At last … real action on all fronts
Appendices
The questionnaires in A.1–A.5 are for use in assessing the features, attributes and psyche of individual farmers
A.1: Managerial Style
A.2: Question Set to Assess a Farmer’s Locus of Control
A.3: Goals and Aims Question Set
A.4: Set of Questions to Assess a Farmer’s Risk Attitude
A.5: Set of Questions As a Guide to a Questionnaire That Might be Used for Assessing a Manager’s Ability
A.6: Topics Raised and Further Reading
Index
Peter L. Nuthall
Peter L. Nuthall has spent many years teaching and researching aspects of farm management. In addition he has developed and managed a team involved in producing and supporting computer aided management systems used by large numbers of farmers. While most of his time has been at Lincoln University in Canterbury, New Zealand, he has also researched and/or taught at the University of Queensland, Purdue University (Indiana), the University of Kent, and the University of Edinburgh. He has also worked for the UK Meat Marketing Board while based at the University of Nottingham (Sutton Bonnington). Many institutions involved in researching and teaching farm management have been visited to gather ideas in both the developed and developing world. He also has experience of agriculture in a diverse range of situations including Russia, India, Fiji, Australia, NZ, USA and the UK. Nuthall has published widely in scientific journals throughout the world, and in monographs as well as having many research results taken up by the popular farming press.
agricultural strategic planning; production planning; strategic farming issues; robotics in agriculture; synthetic food; agribusiness; agricultural problem solving; decision making; farm business; farm economics; farm management; farmer learing skills; soft skills; optimal decision making; primary production management; rural economics