There is an inbuilt fuse in all of us that cuts off our supply of happiness unless we share it with others
This story came to me through mail. A reporter once asked a farmer why his crop won the state contest every year. The farmer revealed that it was because he shared his seeds with neighbours. The perplexed reporter wondered why. The farmer’s answer: “Sir, don’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbour do the same.”
I have been working on food and farming industry for 24 years, but my experience running a farm business was many years ago when I first went home after I left school. So, I had a lot of the same questions as the new farmers who contact me in my role as a business advisor. One of the first questions these new farmers typically ask is “How much profit can I expect my farm to generate?” What they’re really asking is “Will I be able to support myself and my family from my farm income? Would I be able to quit my office job if I chose to?”
I’ve learned from dozens of conversations with farmers that the short answer is maybe. No one will be able to give you a magic formula with a list of crops to grow for the best bottom line. It depends on your scale, location, soil, skills, efficiency, and markets. Ten different farms all growing a similar mix of crops will likely have vastly differing levels of profitability. This was well illustrated in the Grower to Grower:
Creating a Livelihood on a Fresh Market Vegetable Farm study published by a university in 2006, which followed 19 diversified vegetable farmers over the course of two years, and documented profitability in the form of hourly wages paid to the farm owners. The wages of the farmers studied ranged from $2.26/hr to $14.90/hr for their work. Your profit potential also depends on what you mean by “profit”, and on your goals.
A simple lesson that nature teaches us, and we find difficult to imbibe. We pull down others in order to climb up. We clutch our possessions and refuse to share the good things of life. Rarely will you find a person readily sharing credit for a job well done.
Three Takes on Profit
For such a simple concept, profit is a surprisingly slippery term.
Most people know that Income – Expenses = Profit. The problem lies in how people use the term. Let’s consider three examples that are laid out as black-and-white; in real life there are more nuances and combinations
Farmer A doesn’t include his own labour as an expense, and may also not include overhead costs, so when he subtracts his expenses from his income, the results for his chicken and strawberry enterprises each look pretty fantastic. He uses these figures to calculate his price, which is significantly lower than his full-time farming neighbours charge for a similar product. He has an off-farm income source with no aspirations to terminate this arrangement. He refers to his farm as being profitable, but his operation wouldn’t stand on its own financially without significant price increases.
Farmer B also doesn’t include her labour as an expense, but she keeps track of her hours invested in each enterprise. Then, when she subtracts expenses from her income, she takes the “profit” that’s left and divides it by the number of hours she put into that enterprise, coming out with an hourly wage for herself. She bases her product prices on the hourly wage she wants to have and divides her overhead expenses among her mix of enterprises. She culls enterprises that don’t pay her well enough for her time and is able to support herself full-time on her farm.
Farmer C tracks all his labour and includes a $13/hr wage for himself as part of his expenses ($10/hr + taxes and social security). When planning for profit for any one of his crops, he subtracts all expenses (including his labour and a portion of the farm overhead), and still expects there to be money remaining as profit, which he can use for retirement savings, kids’ college, reinvestment into the farm, or any other purpose. This method of calculating profit reduces the farmer’s risk by ensuring that he could pay someone to take his place should he break a leg or get sick.
None of the examples above is “right” or “wrong”; they can each work for different people. And in fact, there is a lot of grey area here: examples B and C overlap in real life. The point is to make sure you understand which type of profit a farmer means when they say, “The profit margin on culinary herbs is fantastic” or “We were profitable in our first year.” Most farmers will tell you that it takes 5-9 years to achieve true profitability, though it is possible sooner if you have very low overhead and advanced production skills. And make sure you understand which method of calculating profitability best fits with your farming aspirations.
I have quoted this instance earlier – a senior colleague often talks about how at an interview, what went against the candidate was precisely his biggest achievement at the last job. The guy boasted about being a one-man army and took credit for everything good about the magazine he had launched. “Instead of conveying a good impression,” said my colleague, “this told me that the guy was not a good team player!”
Your Business Needs to be Profitable
Many small farmers have a desire to produce as much of our family’s food as possible. Now that we are growing into a commercial operation, feeding our family is still a high priority. We know that our farm will need to be profitable—using the Farmer B meaning here—but profit is secondary to our quality of life, like having free time in the winter, eating really good food, working outdoors, and being our own bosses. We will probably always have an off-farm income source, by choice, as my husband loves his carpentry work, so there are some things (like health insurance and retirement savings) that we don’t necessarily expect the farm to provide.
Other farmers meticulously plan their operations to generate the greatest possible profit. Richard Wiswall points out in The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook that it is entirely possible to make a living on a small farm that is competitive with doctors’ or lawyers’ salaries. You can earn enough to fund your retirement and to put your kids through college. You can do this and also still have some of the quality-of-life benefits mentioned above. But you must be devoted to the focus on profit; persistently culling crops or animals that don’t meet your profit goals, gaining efficiencies and cutting costs that aren’t essential. If you are not willing to put in that kind of intensive management work and focus on return-on-investment, you can still make a living on your farm, but you’ll likely still need some off-farm income.
Whether you are a farmer who relies on off-farm income, studies have repeatedly proved that rather than decrease what you have, sharing only succeeds in starting a circle that brings back multiple benefits. Spiritualists say this, astrologers say it, doctors say it, and now scientists and scholars have also proved it with studies. But more than anything else, our own instinct tells us the same, as does our experience after giving away to a needy person.
The Benefits of Social Media
Sharing is the one big reason for the magnificent success of social media. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc, enable people to share their thoughts, emotions, experiences, memories and even frustrations with thousands of others at one go. And instant ‘likes’, sympathy, empathy and consolation make for immediate brightening of spirits. Social interaction helps one’s physical and mental health. Engaging in positive sharing of emotions and thoughts and contributing to each other’s feel-good experiences helps improve health and prolong life. A study by neuroeconomics researcher Paul Zak showed that people who share and feel gratitude release oxytocin, a feel-good hormone, and experience a reduction of stress hormones. Even 10 minutes of tweeting spikes a person’s level of oxytocin.
Sharing is, in fact, a very natural instinct in humans. Can you imagine where we would have been if our ancestors had not co-operated and shared food, shelter and arrangements of security? Through sharing resources, information and knowledge, we save time and energy and create free time for ourselves. Google and Wikipedia have gained gigantic proportions by sharing knowledge for free. Sharing also helps create trust, which is a prerequisite for security and happiness. When we share our feelings, knowledge and possessions with others, we create a relationship of trust, which in most cases flows back and helps us feel secure and happy.
Not just religions world over, but even top corporate leaders and thinkers believe in the benefits of giving and sharing. A survey at Harvard Business School in 2008 showed that when one gives away a sum of money, it helps lift his own well-being more than if he spends it on himself.
Not long ago, whenever any household prepared a special dish, invariably some of it would be sent to the neighbours. In turn, they would fill the dish with goodies before returning it. My mother remembers the many happy hours spent with neighbouring women baking, throwing away burnt dishes and then emerging triumphantly with successful ones. That is how we shared our experiences and our successes. There was always enough for everyone. Today, we make just enough for ourselves and have no time or inclination for sharing. As a result, most of us do not even know the people who live next door, leading to unsafe, insecure neighbourhoods and skirmishes over minor issues such as parking spaces or pets.
Despite popular thinking, farming can be enormously profitable. Why shouldn’t it be? Producing food for people is a critical community service that requires no less skill than doctors or computer programmers possess.
Still, an important role for an ag service provider is to ensure that first-generation beginning farmers don’t enter this profession too starry-eyed. It’s especially important for a new farmer to understand that just because she saw local organic chicken fetching $2/ kg or pumpkins $1.20/kg at the farmers market doesn’t mean that those farmers are getting rich. More likely it means that they have done a full accounting of their farming costs and have set prices that will cover these costs and also pay themselves a “liveable” wage (which may still be quite low).
What is the use of an idea unless it is uttered? What good is a dream unless executed? What good are thoughts unless used to benefit others? What good is happiness or success unless shared? Those who wish to succeed must help others succeed, like the farmer on the corn field. Those who wish to live well, must help others do so. And if it is happiness you want, start spreading the warmth and goodness to others around.