Natural Entrepreneur: Farmer as Entrepreneur

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Planning

Farmer as Entrepreneur

A statement about entrepreneurship and human character

The following excerpt from the book Five Acres and Independence, written in 1940 for beginner farmers, is a fine statement about entrepreneurship and human character.

In farming, as in every other enterprise, success depends primarily upon the man who undertakes it. Not everybody who starts will succeed. On the other hand the man who has the following qualifications, no matter what his previous calling or location may have been, stands a good chance of succeeding. Natural liking for the business is the most important asset because it will assure willingness and patience to work and be painstaking, to be open-minded and to be as alert to detect irregularities as to adopt and apply new knowledge.

Farming is a business characterized by abundance of small but essential details which demand close observation and application to prevent loss. In few businesses are cleanliness, orderliness and timeliness of so much importance, for without them weeds, pests and diseases thrive and profits fail to appear. Above all the farmer must be enthusiastic, a condition that will become permanent and characteristic as soon as the business shows a profit.

Of all the many farms I have visited that of a Delaware County, New York, farmer presents fewer natural factors that might suggest success than any other. More than 80% of it is “on edge,” rocky, stony, marshy, or otherwise unfit for cultivation. In fact, to quote the owner, “it is just the kind of farm that no sane man would think of buying!” He inherited it from his father who “bought it for its lumber and couldn’t sell it after logging.”

If any farmer ever had excuse to fail this man had, but every year he makes it pay! Moreover he uses less labor than does many another farmer more favorably located. He grows corn and hay on the tillable land, grazes the hillsides and marshes, feeds dairy cattle, makes butter, and gives the skim milk to hens for the production of eggs and meat. These three products—butter, eggs and dressed poultry—which constitute his “money crops”—he sends by express to city customers who pay a premium above market prices quoted on a specified week day. The manure goes back to the land which is thus kept in highly productive condition.

As this man “capitalized his drawbacks”—thought his problem through—and deliberately formulated the plan which has worked well, his case may be taken as an indication that one of the surest ways to succeed is to have a definite plan and a definite goal. To attempt to farm without either is merely a form of gambling. The penalty for one’s folly is a loss surer than in a lottery.

Excerpt from Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management,
by M. G. Kains, Dover Publications Inc, Toronto, 1975
(a republication of the 1940 edition), pp10-11.

Upcoming Events

Feb 21 (8-9:30a): NH Forum on the Future, NHHTC, CR Sparks, Bedford, NH

March 1 (6:30-8:30p): Women's Business Center and MicroCredit-NH Networking Event, Bank of America, Portsmouth, NH

March 6 (10a-noon): Growth Capital Resources in New Hampshire, City of Nashua, Office of Economic Development, Daniel Webster College, Nashua, NH

March 8: (12pm -1pm) Break the Rules and Close More Sales, Amoskeag Business Incubator, Manchester, NH

March 16: Peak Pitch (pitch your plan to invstors on the chairlift), Mt. Sunapee, NH ($)

March 22: Breaking Trends in Web Develoment, UVCIA, Hanover, NH ($)

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