The Intuitive Farmer: Inspiring Management Success

The Intuitive Farmer: Inspiring Management Success PDF Author: Peter Nuthall
Publisher: 5m Books Ltd
ISBN: 1789180295
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
Successful farm management is based upon excellent decision making by the farm owner. In practice most decisions are made intuitively rather than the result of careful data collection and analysis, or analysing others' views and associated factors. Thus the farmer's intuitive decisions have a major impact on the business practices, efficiency, profitability and success of the farm. In the form of a character driven novel the author guides the reader through a series of lessons for farmers to improve their intuitive decision making. The story follows Ben, a New Zealand farmer, as an important member of a discussion group. The experimental programme is set up by a management researcher, Tom, to explore the best way to improve farmers' intuition. The farmer group has different characters in different situations each one of which leads to interesting dilemmas and lessons. Each chapter addresses a different issue affecting farmers, such as risk management, benchmarking, budgeting and planning, negotiation skills, active listening and farm ownership. By the end of the novel the reader will have absorbed important farm management principles and practices through the activities and findings of the group. The Intuitive Farmer follows on from successful business management books such as The Goal, which communicate business ideas and strategies in novel form. This is the first such book applied to agricultural management practices, providing a dependable source for farmers, agricultural and farm management students and people involved in agriculture industries. 5m Books

The Intuitive Farmer: Inspiring Management Success

The Intuitive Farmer: Inspiring Management Success PDF Author: Peter Nuthall
Publisher: 5m Books Ltd
ISBN: 1789180295
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
Successful farm management is based upon excellent decision making by the farm owner. In practice most decisions are made intuitively rather than the result of careful data collection and analysis, or analysing others' views and associated factors. Thus the farmer's intuitive decisions have a major impact on the business practices, efficiency, profitability and success of the farm. In the form of a character driven novel the author guides the reader through a series of lessons for farmers to improve their intuitive decision making. The story follows Ben, a New Zealand farmer, as an important member of a discussion group. The experimental programme is set up by a management researcher, Tom, to explore the best way to improve farmers' intuition. The farmer group has different characters in different situations each one of which leads to interesting dilemmas and lessons. Each chapter addresses a different issue affecting farmers, such as risk management, benchmarking, budgeting and planning, negotiation skills, active listening and farm ownership. By the end of the novel the reader will have absorbed important farm management principles and practices through the activities and findings of the group. The Intuitive Farmer follows on from successful business management books such as The Goal, which communicate business ideas and strategies in novel form. This is the first such book applied to agricultural management practices, providing a dependable source for farmers, agricultural and farm management students and people involved in agriculture industries. 5m Books

The Intuitive Farmer

The Intuitive Farmer PDF Author: Peter L. Nuthall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910455135
Category : Farm management
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Successful farm management is based upon excellent decision making by the farm owner. In practice, most decisions are made intuitively rather than the result of careful data collection and analysis, or analyzing others' views and associated factors. Thus, the farmer's intuitive decisions have a major impact on the business practices, efficiency, profitability, and success of the farm. In the form of a character-driven novel, this book guides the reader through a series of lessons for farmers to improve their intuitive decision making. The story follows Ben, a New Zealand farmer, as an important member of a discussion group. The experimental program is set up by a management researcher, Tom, to explore the best way to improve farmers' intuition. The farmer group has different characters in different situations, each one of which leads to interesting dilemmas and lessons. Each chapter addresses a different issue affecting farmers, such as risk management, benchmarking, budgeting and planning, negotiation skills, active listening, and farm ownership. By the end of the novel, the reader will have absorbed important farm management principles and practices through the activities and findings of the group. The Intuitive Farmer follows on from successful business management books, such as The Goal, which communicate business ideas and strategies in novel form. This is the first such book applied to agricultural management practices, providing a dependable source for farmers, agricultural and farm management students, and people involved in agriculture industries. [Subject: Agriculture, Business, Adult Fiction]

Farm Business Management

Farm Business Management PDF Author: Peter L. Nuthall
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1800620128
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
Management research has shown successful farmers have quite distinct personal characteristics which most farmers have seldom thought about. Farmers who are less successful tend to have processes and systems which are likely to be biased. The aim of this book is to help all farmers discover more about these personal attributes that impinge on the success of their management, and to show how their attitudes and personal resources can be improved. This book is not a straightforward textbook. Rather, it tells the story of a group of farmers who take part in an expert-guided experiment designed to test approaches to improving management skill. The group meet at each other's farms to learn about their issues and develop solutions to improving what is called their 'management style' with the aim of removing any identified decision system biases. The book covers issues like optimal decision rule systems and how they can become second nature.

Farm Business Management

Farm Business Management PDF Author: Peter L Nuthall
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1789240735
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book Here

Book Description
The underlying economic factors that affect primary production are frequently studied and written about - soil quality, animal health, climate, machinery - but this is the first book to explore the role of the decision psychology of the manager running the farm business, the person responsible for staff, strategic and operational decisions and the success or failure of financial and other objective outcomes. This second edition addresses fundamental questions such as the process of decision making, personal skills, and methods to improve managerial ability. It is an essential reference for farm managers and students in farm economics and management. Key Features: This is the first farm business management book published worldwide focused on human factors and decision making in primary production The second edition introduces two new chapters covering the key decision method, intuition and its enhancement, and the importance of human characteristics in a range of decision topics and areas

Subtle Agroecologies

Subtle Agroecologies PDF Author: Julia Wright
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429804504
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 509

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is about the invisible or subtle nature of food and farming, and also about the nature of existence. Everything that we know (and do not know) about the physical world has a subtle counterpart which has been scarcely considered in modernist farming practice and research. If you think this book isn’t for you, if it appears more important to attend to the pressing physical challenges the world is facing before having the luxury of turning to such subtleties, then think again. For it could be precisely this worldview – the one prioritises the physical-material dimension of reality - that helped get us into this situation in the first place. Perhaps we need a different worldview to get us out? This book makes a foundational contribution to the discipline of Subtle Agroecologies, a nexus of indigenous epistemologies, multidisciplinary advances in wave-based and ethereal studies, and the science of sustainable agriculture. Not a farming system in itself, Subtle Agroecologies superimposes a non-material dimension upon existing, materially-based agroecological farming systems. Bringing together 43 authors from 12 countries and five continents, from the natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities, this multi-contributed book introduces the discipline, explaining its relevance and potential contribution to the field of Agroecology. Research into Subtle Agroecologies may be described as the systematic study of the nature of the invisible world as it relates to the practice of agriculture, and to do this through adapting and innovating with research methods, in particular with those of a more embodied nature, with the overall purpose of bringing and maintaining balance and harmony. Such research is an open-minded inquiry, its grounding being the lived experiences of humans working on, and with, the land over several thousand years to the present. By reclaiming and reinterpreting the perennial relationship between humans and nature, the implications would revolutionise agriculture, heralding a new wave of more sustainable farming techniques, changing our whole relationship with nature to one of real collaboration rather than control, and ultimately transforming ourselves.

Six Inches of Soil

Six Inches of Soil PDF Author: Molly Foster
Publisher: 5m Books Ltd
ISBN: 1917159013
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
How has it come to this point in our history that we hardly value the food we eat and the soil that it’s grown in? How is it that we care so little how food production impacts animals and the environment? Industrial farming has transformed Britain’s rural landscapes, increasing crop yields and reducing hunger. Yet this has all come at a terrible ecological cost. It is ‘both a miracle and a disaster’. Six Inches of Soil, the film and this companion book, is the inspiring story of three British farmers standing up to the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food – to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities. Six Inches of Soil is a story of courage, vision and hope. This book is not just for farmers. Reconnecting with our food, and regenerating our soils, ourselves and our communities benefits everyone and needs everyone to be involved. We want to inspire farmers with the confidence and practical know-how to adopt regenerative farming approaches. We want to give consumers the impetus and information to rethink their food choices. This book and the film are closely related but stand on their own. In these pages you will find detailed chapters on each of the three farmers that provide replicable case studies and inspiration. Additionally, there are chapters examining the problems with the current agri-food system and proposing solutions and a vision for the future. Recognised experts: explain agroecological farming systems and soil science; consider the issues of land use, greenwashing, subsidies, food security; and provide examples of agroforestry applications, and farm enterprise stacking and diversification. Their three stories are inspiring, guiding and frustrating. Allow yourself to be inspired, to be guided and to turn your frustration in to action. 5m Books

Gaining Ground

Gaining Ground PDF Author: Forrest Pritchard
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762794380
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Get Book Here

Book Description
With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, Gaining Ground tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.

The Wisconsin Farmer

The Wisconsin Farmer PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 852

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Cultivator & Country Gentleman

The Cultivator & Country Gentleman PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 1068

Get Book Here

Book Description


No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture

No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture PDF Author: Bryan O'Hara
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603588531
Category : GARDENING
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
"No-till farming is the new best practice for preventing soil erosion, building soil biology, and providing growing conditions for vibrant, healthy crops. But for organic vegetable farmers and gardeners-and any farmer who wants to avoid herbicide use-the seemingly insurmountable dilemma with no-till has been how to control weeds without cultivating. In this thorough, practical guide, expert organic farmer Bryan O'Hara provide the answers. O'Hara systemically describes the growing methods he developed and perfected during a multi-year transition of his Connecticut certified organic vegetable farm to a no-till system. O'Hara asserts that this flexible, nature-friendly agricultural methodology is critical to vegetable farming success both economically as well as to maintain the health of the soil and the farm ecosystem. His methodology has proven itself over years of cropping on his home farm, Tobacco Road Farm, as well as other farms in his region, often with stunning results in yields, quality, and profitability. In No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, O'Hara delves into the techniques he has experimented with and perfected in his 25 years of farming, including making and using compost, culturing and applying indigenous microorganisms to support soil biology, reduced tillage systems, no-till bed preparation techniques, seeding and transplanting methods, irrigation, use of fertilizers (including foliar feeds), pest and disease management, weed control, season extension, and harvest and storage techniques. O'Hara also explores the spiritual understanding of the nuances of the soil and a farm ecosystem and how that influences practical production decisions such as when to plant, water, and fertilize a crop. O'Hara goal is to pass on his knowledge to those who feel the impulse to make their livelihood in harmony with nature, requiring a relatively small land base of a few acres or less and little capital investment in mechanization. Home gardener and large-scale farmers will also find value in his methods. This manual will provides farmers with an advanced agricultural methodology not available in any other single book on organic vegetable production, a methodology that will allow farmers to continue to adapt to meet future challenges"--