Tape #326 - Holistic Business Management and Sustainable Ag

?:    . . .  very, ah, one of the other missing keys was the brittle and non-brittle environment and this had to do with gauging your land as to where it sat on this brittleness scale with number 1 being sort of a tropical forest and number 2 being, or number 10 being true desert.  Most land, agriculture land, fits somewhere in between there and in between there and in analyzing or diagnosing where your land is, it has to do not so much with how much precipitation you get, but whether you get it regularly or all at once over the course of the year, but also to do with decay processes, how organic matter comes to be humus, how it comes to decompose and also how succession takes place.  I could do an entire workshop on brittle and non-brittle environments, (inaudible) and the factor of the time dimension in soil, plant and animal relationships and would like to keep reiterating through this workshop that if people have questions and hope they do beyond what I can cover here today, I'm at the conference, all of the conference, and, and please ask me.  There's just took much material to sort of go through it in a, in a brief period like this. 

 

I have found that holistic management is not complicated but is very, very profound.  It's simple but very profound. 

 

The first thing that I would recommend for people to do and what I'd like to kind of come together with in this workshop is to give you a sense of defining a whole on your own land or your own community or in your own business.  It's not specifically for agricultural operations.  Holism can apply to anything and everything.  To give you  a sense of how to define a management whole for your operation and to give you a sense of coming to a three-part goal for your operation and to take it one step further and look at some, I, I think it's one thing to have a vision or an idea but you have to have a consistent, decision-making model in order to bring you to towards that goal and that's where we end up with a lot of conflict is we sometimes don't know where the other person's goal is and we've got one pushing and one pulling.  We've, anybody who's worked on a farm knows how to do that and so we have to be very careful that when we do come up with a vision for our operation that it's collaborative, that everybody is sharing in the input, that we don't come home from a meeting one day and say, well, dear, here's the plan, here's (inaudible), here's our vision statement, here's our mission.  It has to have input from everybody.  Ah, it's very easy to include young children.  They like to be included and it's probably more challenging to include older people, but it does work and then it's consistent decision-making after that that will really take you in the direction that you want to go. 

 

One of my favorite expressions is that happiness should be a method of transportation and not a destination.  So many of us tend to think that we will be happy when, things will get better when and when we reach that certain point and we have to be aware all of the time that the decisions that we're making should be the ones that are bringing us to the quality of life that we want.

 

So, in looking at your own operations, I don't know how they're gonna, wanting to work this with taping it and so on, but feel free to take a few moments and reflect on who would be part, who would be the people part of your management whole and be inclusive in there.  When you make a decision on your land, on your operation, who is impacted by it, you, your spouse, your hired help if you'd  have hired help?  These, um, in my experience in working with farm families that have included their hired help they have found a tremendous, creative group of people who have been willing and dying to give some input into the way th operation is run but have been unincluded, how's the proper word, disregarded for their input and we're looking at management systems then that become management heavy, controlled heavy.  If we can build on a level of trust and acceptance and confidence then that's our, our, the foundation of our operation.  For example, in, in our management whole we have included my husband and I and our two children most significantly and my mother-in-law, although, I have to admit that I don't think she's as interested in the day to day decisions as she is in the overall operation in our farm.  My husband has extended family so we have to be aware when we're making decision that some of those could impact those people as well.

 

Any, any, feel free to interrupt.  Ask questions as we go along.  I work much better in that environment.  Does that make sense about being inclusive in deciding your management whole as to who the people would be?  They have to include what land do you have, what land basis, what are the . . ., what land base are you talking about and this is just not owned land because when you make a decision in land management it's going to affect not just your own land, but it's going to, perhaps, a watershed.  It's going to affect people upstream, downstream.  It's going to affect leased land if you have a government leased land, if you're renting land.  The decisions that you make on land management affect not just your own land but all lands that you're currently managing so that's defining the minimum whole in, in terms of your land management.

 

You also have to define, then, what resources you have.  You, you might have money, you have people, you have cattle, how do you, you have to determine what resources you have to work with and that's pretty much comes to defining the minimum whole that you have to work with on your operation.

 

When we start to talk about setting a three-part vision for our farm one of the things that is probably the most significant to learn is talking so that others will listen and listening so that others will talk.  Honesty and open communication is essential for this process to work.  We have to be honest with ourselves and with each other.  We have to resist the temptation to make goals of what we think we should want or what we think our partners would like us to think and this is a tremendous challenge in families that I have worked with as we, many people are used to saying what they think should be said and it's very difficult, sometimes, to become in touch with what your heart really wants to say.  A very simplistic example is a family that I was working with and after going through this process we, we came back to the circle and did some feedback and this one fellow said, you know, I had no idea that my wife didn't like to cook.  We've been married for 22 years and I didn't know that she liked to cook.  I didn't, I didn't know that she didn't like to cook so we could go on a lot more.  We could see a lot of different things to do but it was just something that never came up.  My mom liked to cook.

 

This is not uncommon in terms of dialogue in, not just farming operations, but all operations.  Comments? 

 

Inaudible

 

?:   The vision that you come up with has to be one that you're enthusiastic about or you'll never reach it.  You vision must speak of what you want and not how to get it.  There's many, many ways of how to get things so we have to be very careful that we don't get specific of "how to's".

 

Inaudible

 

?:  When we started to refer to communication rules and, again, in a workshop format I would have these up on the wall, speak for yourself, allow time for others to speak.  Some of these things are really good to do in a group dynamic because it, sometimes it has, tends to get people to behave themselves and actually do take turns and sometimes they're not used to it.  Listen for meaning as well as for words.  Be as open and honest as you can.  Do not make valued judgment about each other statements and refrain from reacting until the other person has fully expressed the idea and point of view.  I have worked with groups where we have come to use a speaking stick, talking stick, is anybody familiar with it?  First Nation's people used it where the person who was holding the stick is speaking and we listen until they're finished speaking so that we get away from this interruption process that happens and also one of the keys is learning to speak from an "I" perspective.  This is what "I" think, not, not "you" statements.  "You", "you" statements have a tend to bring body language into them.  "You" said that.  "You" didn't.  It's what we feel

 

Inaudible

 

?:   You want to come to the mike . . . ?

 

?:   . . . I'd just ask . . . how long you get, allow people to get used to the formation of "I" statements because in stuff that I've done it takes people a long time to get used to saying "I" not "you". 

 

?:    In the workshops that we have been doing which is sort of a two day workshop on communication and goal setting we tend to, as much as possible, break up family units and we do a lot of scenario work so you'll create a scenario that might be typical or if you have people or if you have people that are really struggling with scenario you'd feed it to them, that, okay, you're on your way to town and you're already late for the meeting and the cows are out.  What's, what's the discussion and we're . . . do a dialogue using "you" statements. "You" make me so mad when "you" don't close the gates.  I thought "you" knew better.  I thought "you" closed it . . .   and, of course, you're gonna, people find "you" statements very easily, easy to work into a dialogue so they'll come up with an entire discussion using "you" statements and it always ends up in a confrontation.  Then you ask them to rewrite using "I" statements.  They're much harder to do, but invariably it ends up with consensus, reconciliation and often an apology.  "I" thought you closed the gate. "I'm", "I'm" sorry that, and it works, but it's also, if you're having trouble with the group it could be part of every workshop.  You can do some of these role playing, sometimes it's challenging getting men to participate, but, by about the, the first set of workshop, like the Introductory Workshop of  two days is very painfully long.  I find by the last workshop after ten days of being with people that the workshops carry themselves so goal setting usually comes into sort of the middle and by that time people are feeling a little bit more comfortable and you have to, you make it fun if you can, but sometimes feeding a scenario is the way to do it rather then let them create their own. 

 

You might, also, in other things I've found to be successful in doing that is the quick right brain, left brain analysis so that you don't get too many right brain thinkers in the group and too many left in another.  Sometimes if you do some quick early exercises you can break up those groups as well.  In continuing to get people to work the tables are usually set up with four or five people and using name tags and making sure that people move around the group.

 

Well, another one of my favorite quotes is from Joan Rivers - "Realize that life is a movie and that you are the star.  Give it a happy ending."  And I think that's key to looking how, how we set vision statements on our farm, on our farms or within our businesses. 

 

In holistic management one of the, the key thing to me or one of the keys that has been so exciting is sustainability is built right into your vision of your farm.  You start out by making a statement about the quality of life that you want, that that's the kind of life that you would like to lead.  If your life was perfect, one of the ways that I would go about doing this is if your life is perfect how would you feel?  Go ahead, throw some words out.

 

?:    Unchallenged, unchallenged, okay, just before it's perfect.  If life was good.  If life was good, how do you feel?

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Happy.  I'm sorry.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Right

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Relaxed.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Fulfilled.

 

?:  Bored.  In working with people and it, what we can do is we can throw out values and we can pick out the most, you know, it's a value based statement that we're looking towards in setting a quality of life goal so some of the most common ones that are, are what I would say universal, safe, people feel safe and want to feel secure and want to feel loved.  They want to be appreciate within the family.  They want to be appreciated within their communities and want to have meaningful work.  Those, those are some of the statements that generally come out after somewhat of a process in working for a quality of life. 

 

Most people when they're looking towards their quality of life do not want to have a lot of, you know, unnecessary stress or a lot of unhappiness.  We're looking for a high quality of life and people living on the land should have a high quality of life. 

 

What do you have to produce to get this quality of life . . . would be the second part of your, your three part goal?

 

Inaudible

 

?:  I'm sorry?

 

Inaudible

 

?:  You have to have a viable living.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  And how do we get a viable living?  We have to produce profit and how limiting do we want to be in this goal about where we're going to produce profit from.  Are we going to produce profit strictly from the production of  Hereford Cattle?  Are we going to produce profit from livestock?  And, if we get too specific in our goals we lose creativity so you want to produce profit, but it could be from what, production of livestock, production of crops.  What other things can produce profit?  Personal skills, but profit, we have to be profitable in order to live on the land with a high quality of life.  And the last component of that is I would say that we have to produce an environment that brings our quality of life and we have to produce time.  Time management gets to be a very key factor in this whole process.  If you don't have time for quality of life you're not really on the right song sheet yet.

 

And the final part of your three part holistic vision would be what do you want your future land base to look like, far into the future and this, this is often accompanied by working through maps, but also a description of what you want your land to look like, what you want your family to look like, what you want your business to look like so you're seeing  far into the future.  Usually this . . . also involves a description of the eco system processes because, really it's the eco system,  healthy eco system processes that will sustain us on the land. 

 

I'm always interested in the number of people involved in agriculture that we're really aren't aware of, of what a healthy water cycle would be like or healthy mineral cycle would be like on our land.  How does succession work?  How do we go from a barren ground to a complex plant community in an arranged environment?  How do we ecologically suppress succession at a simple level in cropping environment in a sustainable fashion? 

 

So, so those are some of the things that we really start to discuss our eco system processes because we have to have healthy eco systems, eco system processes, healthy functioning eco system processes on land base in order to sustain ourselves and this is an ongoing study and to me it was fascinating and it's one of my, my passions now is, you know, accessing soil health, quality, quality of processes.   Mineral cycle was, as a farmer, was one of the most least understood and we're talking about decomposition dung on range land and how long should it take and how does it work.  How is dung supposed to be decomposing?  Is it a natural process?  Do you have dung beetles?  All of those things that suddenly come to light as you start to access the health of land.

 

My children think I'm very odd as I go out and do dung beetle count.  That's okay, especially on Mother's Day. 

 

If you are, if you're wanting to set a vision statement for your family, one of the highly recommended books that I have found as of late is Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families".  He does some very, very good work about working with families, about including all family members and when your setting your quality of life statements including children is paramount to success and when your, sorry?

 

Inaudible

 

?:  The book is "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families".

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Yea, and its' Steven Covey.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Oh.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  It's a tremendous, ah, read, and it really has the ability to facilitate the process of inclusiveness for people in families.  It encourages ways and means to get people talking about the life that they want and about those seven habits that he talks about, being proactive and win-win situations.

 

One of the things, too, when you do include children, ah, is ask them in your problem solving and ask them for words that would go into your quality of life statement because there has to be a buy-in for everybody. 

 

We found the first year that we did a quality of life for a vision statement for our farm, I'm very long winded and my husband likes words so we did it twice, once with my long words and long sentences and once very short and brief so it meant something to both of us and we have gradually evolved this, we have gone along with it. 

 

Steven Covey also says that things are created twice, once in the thinking and once in the doing. 

 

Something else that we were talking about yesterday in one of the sessions about applying for bank financing and funding and I have found that if you have gone to enough work to have a mission statement for your operation, for this three part goal and you take it to the bank and they, they realize that this is a process that you have gone through, it does a lot for them to understand your commitment to you land and to your operation.  Sometimes I, I think banks see more than just the dollars and your commitment and your character based on the evolution of this tree part goal.  It's very interesting for them in the process by which you go about doing it.

 

Once you get to the eco system processes and understanding or at least having an awareness of them, you know, there's textbooks and workbooks associated with this as well, but having some chances to, to monitor those eco system processes, then you need a consistent decision-making model as to how you will make decisions that lead you toward your goal.  If everyday your goal changes or your decision-making model changes then you will never really know which direction your making progress in so this is to give you more focus on it and I'll provide this handout.  It has the holistic management model on it as well as the questions that we would ask when we're going to make a decision.

 

Any questions, comments? 

 

?:  When you have this truth session, ah, do you have any sort of, um, um, bad vibes from different members of the family?

 

?:  Yes, that has happened.  Ah, I recommend, especially in extended families, but not necessarily, but if it looks like it's going to be a challenging process or an overwhelming process, hire a facilitator.  It's well worth the investment to have somebody come in.  I've seen them come in and, and talk to each person individually to try to see if there's any commonality that you can go from and, yes, I have seen families that simply not work together, but better the discover it and went on with their own lives then spend another 20 years wishing they hadn't or having, ah, we have . . . an author in Canada, his name is David Irving and he's, he's very interested in holistic management and has been a keynote speaker at several of our sessions and he refers to the identi. . . . , identifiable problem and he re. . . , and often it's the dill, the daughter-in-law.  We have a problem on our farm.  It's the daughter-in-law.  And, and we like to target somebody or something as a specific problem. 

 

So, so my recommendation is if you think your going to be in over your head, at least in the initial processes, hire a faciliator.  It's worth the (inaudible).

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Yea.  Anybody else for comments for as far as we've gone?

 

?:  Just while we're on that point, um, I'm from Australia and I'm a community member on our local property planning committee and it's the, property management planning is, is very similar to (inaudible) in holistic planning so you're looking at the resources on the farm, the human, the, the natural and the money, thanks (inaudible).  My comment is how do you support the people, you did touch on how you support the people who have gone through the process.  Is it an ongoing process cause I see this is one of the big problems that we have.  People go to the property management  planning, they go through the exercise and then they are left on their own.  You did touch on it when you mentioned something about groups afterwards.  Could you elaborate on that?  Thank you.

 

?:    I, I think the most affective work in that has been with the management clubs where they have continued to support each other.  I know the consultants that have worked in Canada do a tremendous amount of strictly telephone work, but we have also have an annual conference. A lot of the management clubs will, will get together and hire a speaker, come together in that capacity. 

 

We have not gone for a "1 - 800" number.  I don't know if that will be helpful and we haven't gone for a, um, virtual communication either, which, and I don't know if that would be a potential.  I, I really feel, and, and so far in my experience with using computer mediated conferencing and unless you can have some actual one on one contact, people in real environments really want that one and one contact as well, so, I, I still my recommendation is bringing people together and revisiting the goal on a regular basis or coming together for brainstorming sessions that are fun.  You're talking tremendous distance to get people together? 

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Are all of these things funded in Canada?  Not anymore. Right from the beginning, ah, the farm business management initiative offset the cost of training to, I think, it was maybe 50 percent or 75 percent and then that's been on a gradual decline as we become more market sensitive, like so many other areas, we're very market sensitive now, so that's been on a declining plane, but our annual meetings and such, and we also have a newsletter that I edit in Canada and people continue to dialogue through that.  The annual meetings are very, very popular, very successful.  We have good registration at them and it's oftener, people refer to it as a revitalizing.  But, unless you have support especially when it comes to making the decision, working through the decision making process or the evolution, it's very difficult to struggle on your own, ah, because a lot of things that you might be doing are somewhat unconventional with, with  the managed grazing or looking at experimenting with different crops.  It's, it's very nice if you can have some sort type of a support network.  Travel seems to be the easiest.

 

Anybody else?

 

?:  Hi, I'm (inaudible) from Queensland, Australia and I'm also involved in property management planning which is very, very much like what this lady's doing and I'm in the sugar industry and we have a, ah, industries specifically designed property management plane called sugar plan and the sugar industry has the, the advantage of being relatively centralized, in other words, farms are fairly close together and, ah, I've been part of the management committee for that, for that plan.  And, um, we have only this, we've only kicked it off this year and we've had two groups go through the process and they've been made up of farming couples and sometimes it's just family such as sons and daughters, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, who are involved in family farming businesses and, um, it's a good question.  I think about the ongoing thing.  We're looking at running, ah, further, like top-out workshops down the line, but, um, our program, I don't know if other areas of Australia that, um, are involved in property management planning have this outcome, but the outcome of our property management program is a farm business management plan which is put down on paper that one can use as a reference point and also talk to one's financial institution if one is looking at obtaining finance and it's a very good basis.  Um, it more or less proves, um, legitimacy, basically, as a business person.  Um, yea.

 

?:  I, I find that the, and also, sitting together at the kitchen table and doing a financial plan, working together, I have found it to be more affective then working, at this point, through computer because it's interactive then and whenever you could be encouraging people to participate your going to have more commitment to the document.  Also,  involve your children in financial planning.  If your children have some awareness of where the money is going or why it's going or if this is a spending priority, they'll, they'll buy in, but if, if it's just a constant, well,  we don't have enough money or we can't afford it or we're not getting that, sometimes they need some justification as to why.  Please.

 

?:   . . . I think of you, ah, again, I'm not clear on this management club.  After you go through the process in your family and you have it set up with how to make decisions and you have been through the initial of what we're going to do for quality of life then why do you need a management club.  How does this fit in again, would you explain that again?

 

?:  Management clubs work to support you in, in living on the land.  It's, it's as much as just a group of friends getting together to creatively brainstorm solutions to add more creatively to the pool, to be friends to, especially areas where your, where your somewhat remote or alienated or you haven't felt, what I have found is that there is a tremendous number of people who have not had an opportunity to talk to somebody else involved in agriculture at a level of any depth.  We can talk about yields, but we don't  talk about some of the heart-speak things that are really important and after you've gone through this ten day process, or, shouldn't say pro. . . , ten day of classes, you tend to feel that you've got some very good friends there.  You've been through something together and, and that might not be, you know, maybe that's unique to our area, but I , I find that once that level of trust is established and people can actually talk about important things.  They like to talk and we find, when I was involved in what I call a farm protest, people internalized their difficulties, their worries.  Everybody thinks it's because they're a bad manager, but they're having a struggle of it.  When they start to find out that there's other people in the same situation, then we can start talking, then we can start making some significant progress. 

 

A, a, a lot of these management clubs have also gone on and they, they have their own goals of what they want to do.  Some of them are continued learning.  They bring in speakers.  They work within the community, have membership programs because a lot of the, a lot of our communities do not have a significant enrollment in farm organization.

 

One other thing that we have done in Canada that I have thought as very helpful is created what we call a management club kit and it's using the same, the voice of the same facilitator or a voice on a audio cassette and it works you through 12 meetings and a lot of times what we have found is that people will respond more interactively to the same voice that they were used to or the book says that we're supposed to do this now and so people do it whereas as if sometimes just within the group itself there isn't the strength or the courage or the motivation to take it that next step. 

 

Yes, please come forward.  You get exercise.

 

?:  I'd just like to say that not only does it work on farms, but it can work for zoning boards and school boards and the holistic planning can go beyond farm.

 

?:  You come to a point after you have worked with holistic management for even a very short period of time, it's very difficult to go to a meeting without asking what's the goal, why are we here.

 

Inaudible

?:  The first step is the goals.  Why are we here.  What are we going to do to get there and let's make consistent decisions so we get there.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  I, I think that of, the evolution of becoming more, more vision-orientated is predominant through all types of business and through a lot of structures.  I still think in many day-to-day agricultural operations it is somewhat unique.  I, I, how many operators here of farm operations have a, a vision statement for their land, for their family?  That's, that's a high number.

 

CHANGE OF TAPE

Side 2

 

?:  . . . into the hotel, ah, when Faye and I were registering a man came up to us who didn't know us and he told us that the most important piece equipment he thought that needed to be on the farm was the pencil says you could do without just about everything except a pencil. 

 

I, I think that managing for profit when your, your doing your financial plan and trying to have that financial buffer is a constant struggle.  I, for a lot of us.  It's a tremendous drop in one day.

 

Sandy Matheson (spelling?):    Hi, I'm Sandy Matheson and, Lee, I'm very pleased to meet you.  I am in a the holistic management project at Washington State University which is a four year program and also just finishing up the certified educator training holistic management so I was very please at this presentation you've done today. 

 

Um, I want to emphasize the importance of  having support groups or having support.  Holistic management is something that is often times considered a very foreign way of thinking.  By that I mean that, I, through the project what I was going through, it took me about a year to even say the word "holistic", particularly being in the veterinarian professions, most veterinarians tend to be the conventional medial or veterinarian type and the first time I said the word "holistic" referring to holistic management, um, it happened to be during a veterinarian conference and we were eating lunch and every fork in the place dropped and, you know, dead silence, and so I went on to explain what holistic management was and what I was doing and so, yea, there are a lot of people who think that it is some sort of, like you said, religion or a cult.  Um, also, some of the practices that we're doing on our farm are very different then what our neighbors around us are doing and we've been laughed out and ridiculed and it's very lonely out there sometimes,  so it is, it's been important for our success and the success of the other participants in our project to have good support, be able to talk to each other and talk about what we're doing, how we can improve and, um, I just think support's really critical. 

 

I just want to add a couple more things to what you said.  Um, when you talked about being inclusive in the, when your defining your whole, your whole that's going to be managed, it's not only important to have the people that are involved in the decision making, but also the people that can veto what it is that your doing.  It's a very important point and we tend forget sometimes because especially if your working on um, whether it be government-owned land or if there is someone, maybe it's the banker that can step in and just shut you down, you need to have those people involved in forming your vision, forming your goal for your operation and let them know, you know, what is, what is happening and have them be a part of it.  If they're a part of it, they're going to be more apt to want to help you succeed instead of coming in and just shutting you down at any given time.

 

Um, when you talked about what we need to produce to, for a quality of life, it's not just to produce that quality of life, but it's to sustain it because, um, sustainability is the key.  That's what holistic management is about.  Um, and, to just produce it is one thing, but to sustain it, that's the difficult part.

 

Um, when we talked about the third part of our vision, talking about our resources we have to protect, it's not only just the land and the eco system process that we're talking about, but if we're in any sort of business we also have to think about how we, how we want our customers to perceive us.  Um, how we need to be to be able to have those customers coming back to us, to be able to sustain what it is we're producing to sustain our quality of life and that's really important as well.

 

And, um, well, I think that's it.  But, thank you.

 

?:  I appreciate the comments very much.  Um, and actually, we've thought that maybe before we sustain we have to improve.  We improve and then try to sustain at that level because, I think, much of the situation that we're experiencing on our land is degradation over the last, goodness knows, how many years of thinking we were doing, perhaps, the best thing and, and it's require, requiring significant greater amounts of input in order to sustain, so I think there's some improvement, perhaps, required first of all. 

 

I know it's awkward to reach, to look at this, I was just going to flip , um, the overhead on for an example of what an holistic goal might look like and this, this is . . . it's a big goal.  This is something that, ah, when I'm working with management clubs and we're working with decision making I'll often give them the goal and, so that we don't have to, have any disagreement about what it is.  I'll say, here is the goal, and then we can go on and practice something else.

 

Inaudible.

 

?:  That they're what?

 

Inaudible

 

?:  The, the comment is after you've gone through this process you may discover you cannot remain in farming at the vision and I guess that's something that, that I have personally encountered because my sense, at this point, has been that there are so many more things to try.  I, I like in our own operation that a thousand acres of what isn't much, but, gee, if it was all in chickens.  You know, at what, what point does the creativity stop and it depends on how earlier intervention is.  If your debt is so cumbersome and there's no way your going to be able to achieve, then, then maybe you do have to, to be able, to make those assessments.  But, its the awareness, I guess.  The sooner you get on with your life and to be the quality of  life its got to be paramount to it.  There, you . . .

 

Inaudible

 

?:  Actually, you know, we have had, I've had a tremendous number of people going through the classes that are, what I call the acreage folk, people from the cities moving out and, and having just a small piece of, not just, having a small piece of land that they're wanting to make some what they feel appropriate decisions and they're wanting to restructure their lives around a piece of land, so they maybe, you know, they maybe depending on all farm income, but this, this is what they're striving for and I've, I've seen holistic management practiced beautifully on small acres.  So, I, I  think that, you know, that's somewhat relative.

 

Inaudible

 

?:  You sure can.

 

?:  I think one of the things you guys are trying to say is if the debt load is so big and you just feel like, you know, there's no reason to stay on the land I can go and earn a living somewhere else, but this goal, this, going through this and, and realizing sustainable ag and (inaudible) system that she started off on, is sometimes the very way to to say, you can stay on the land.  The debt load is so big, the bank's ready to foreclose, is there something else by going to something like this you realize that there's different ways to farm, different ways to ranch, to be able to stay on the land, it might mean for two years taking an off farm job, one of you, but sometimes this very thing, you know, you might have to come to that conclusion, but I think people who hit this stage, if your almost to that point, go to this and realize that there's a bigger picture out there and I can save the farm and, and you look at the whole picture and do it.  

 

Inaudible

 

?:   You have to come forward to make a comment.

 

?:  I think it's a very important comment and this is how we start our particular, um, program that we have developed for the sugar industry and that is that all our goals are the, agreeable, sorry that's the last one, they are realistic. They are achievability.  In other words, we have a firm idea of how we might get there.  We know we going to be able to do it.  Oh, sorry, I've forgotten the other one.  Um, achievable, agreeable.  There's one other.  No.  Realistic, that's the other one.  Yea.  I come up here to make a comment and I forget what I'm going to say.  That's jet lag.  But, ya, it is important, very important, to, to really focus on that in the first play.

 

?:  One of the things that we have discovered is if your not making progress towards your goal you probably have "how to's" in it or it's, it's, still too complex and too, too cumbersome.  You might have to refine it and, and, and, and make it something that you can, is very tangible.

 

This goal, by the time you're done with it, should mean more then anything else.  This, this should be your mission statement, your life.  Not this one, this is just something that I have created to give you an idea of, of what a holistic management goal might be like.  It's not something that you can take home and say, dear, this is the new vision for our operation.

It's through the process and through the collaboration.

 

How are we doing for time? 

 

?:   (Inaudible) from Australia, . . .  South Wales.  I think that our farm planning is probably very different from holistic management and that's where the difference is what your saying and what Lee's saying.   

 

 

?:  Um, um, it's so difficult to kind of (inaudible) holistic management into, into this time frame.  When I started, when I sent in the abstract, what I, what I wanted to encourage people was that the importance of having a vision, a goal for your operation and the importance of having some consistent decision making to bring you to that goal which is the next overhead I'm going to put up. 

 

When we talked about financial planning and biological planning, yes, you know, its more and more workshops and more information that I could give, but I'm afraid, in this time period that too much information just gets to be overload, so the two things that I wanted you to be aware of was, perhaps, having a vision for your operation and then a little bit on this decision making model and the creativity potential of doing brainstorming for problem solving. 

 

Have more, do I have some spelling errors in there?  I might.  And, and if there are it would have been me, and not my daughter, I know that.  Are people through with that?  This, this is just a the same as on the handout that I've given you so there's really no need to leave it on the overhead.

 

One of the things that my husband and I have found most frustrating about being involved in farm management prior to holistic management was this concept of second guessing.  Did we make the right decision. We would, we would do something and then we would, afterwards be second guessing, especially if things fell apart or didn't go on.  So, when we came to holistic management and saw a consistent decision making model I found it to be empowering, that we know that when we make a decision we have touched based with all of the things that we feel it necessary to to touch base with and I can't think of anything else that isn't included on that list and the most, the top one is cause and effect.  So often in land management and agriculture, well, not just in, in farming or ranching, we tend to throw money at the effects, not at the cause of the problems.   So whenever your going to spend money, look to see if your spending money on the cause of the problem or an effect of an situation. 

 

Does that make sense, cause and effect relationships.  Look at cause and effect relationships all the time.  Ah, a very simplistic one is the increased use of fertilizer.  We tend to need more and more fertilizer.  Well, is that a cause or an effect and it's the effect of depleting soil fertility so we should be investing more in soil fertility, those types of cause and effect relationships, they're rampant throughout society.  Ah, government tends to spent, I think on effect then on cause.

 

Doing a weak link analysis.  If we're going to spend money or make a decision, will that decision or the action that we're going to take, ah, will you encounter a blockage to progress.  The social one, that used to be a little bit more clearly defined and it, often if you're having a tremendous log jam, we call this a log jam, it's usually involved in the people part of the operation.  If you happen to be involved in an operation that has an "ism"  like alcoholism, like workaholic, it's going to make progress to your  (inaudible) very, very difficult and sometimes you need to be able to address those "ism's" before you (inaudible) or something., 

 

Biological weak link.  If you are going to, um, be addressing, or say a break out of grasshoppers, some type of pest, the best most effective time to combat that problem is the in the weakest of their life cycle.  Not when they're strong.  Not when they're adults, but at the very weakest link in the life cycle.  That goes towards, ah, wheat management as well.  Always try to determine the weak link in the life cycle of whatever it is your trying to reduce in numbers or to protect.  If you have endangers species on your land the time that they're most vulnerable is in the weakest link of their life cycle.

 

In the financial weak link analysis, we in agriculture are primarily in the job of harvesting sunshine and the more efficient way that we can harvest sunshine, the more of what we call solar dollars you have.   So, we go from sunshining down to plants growing to harvesting, to marketing, to hopefully money in the bank and in most operations, somewhere in there, there's going to be a weak link in that chain of production.  Is it in the plants that are growing?  Is it in your ability to harvest them or is it in your ability to market them?  And if your going to be spending money, a chain will always only break at the weakest link so put money towards the weakest link in that chain of production. 

 

Plants growing, harvesting, marketing.  Ah, you can sometimes look at operations and make a real quick assessment.  If the plants, ah, the plants are severely overgrazed over the whole operation then they may have too many animals.  If they have lots of carry over on grass, they might need more animals to harvest.  You can sometimes make some very broad, ah, estimates on land, but usually you need to, obviously, talk to the people in great depth and the weak link analysis is an ongoing.  It can change, but whenever your looking at doing a financial planning, try to do some weak link analysis.

 

Marginal reaction is also is also called biggest bang for the buck and where is the best place to invest your time?   Time is also a factor in here in looking marginal reaction.  Not just money, but also in time.  Where is the best place?  Where is the biggest bank for the buck for the time and the money spent. 

 

We do extensive growth profit analyses and we do our financial planning.  Ah, a constant comparing of which would be the, the best enterprise, which would give us the greatest return.  Of course, we interface that with crop rotations and, and a lot of other things, but it's a quick assessment on which operation would give you the best, which growing which product would give you the best return and the only thing that we consider in those factors are the variables, like, if  I'm still going to have to run my tractor the same to grow, to plant peas or lentils then there's no need to account for tractor costs.  If the only variables are going to be the seed costs or perhaps the, ah, marketing, depend. . . ., you know, some of those variables that are different.  Those are the ones that we take into account so we can do some very quick assessments.

 

Is the energy money source in use?  Is the money or energy to be used in this action derived from the most appropriate source in terms of you goal.  This is a constant use.  Are you using money and energy  (inaudible) (inaudible), addictively.   Where is the money coming from.  Are you borrowing you.  Is it money that you, from solar dollars?  Asking yourself when, before you spend money will we borrow it?  How will we pay it back?  Touching base with that, that  significant question.

 

Sustainability is to take, if you take this action will it lead toward or away from the future resource space described in your goal.  (Inaudible)  system.  How will the decision affect the whole eco system.  Everything is connected to everything else.

 

Society and culture - how do you feel about this action?  Will it lead to the quality of life you desire or will it adversely affect the life of others? 

 

So, when your going to, to, ah, make a decision and your going to take an action, if you run through these, and it seems cumbersome, but in time you go through it really quickly.  But, if you find that your stymied or some of these, you can't get through them, you probably don't have enough information to be making the decision and it's incredible how many decisions in agricultural operations are made as snap decisions.  All of the sudden you, you have a new piece of equipment or sold the cows and got something else without really doing a thorough analysis of the repercussion.  So, I found that the testing guidelines have been tremendous support in terms of managing our operation.

 

Problem solving, again, it's one the things that I find really exciting about the management club dynamic is if you've got a situation where you're looking at, or one of the easiest ones we do as well, what could we generate for income on these, on our farm, in addition to what we're doing or instead of what we're doing and you come up with a brainstorming list and you may end up the people, the farm family may chose two or three and then the group will run them through the testing guidelines.  You get tremendous amount of input.  It will be exciting to see some of the novel ideas that have come out of brainstorming sessions, which, to me, is probably one of the greatest assets of being part of a management club. 

 

The (inaudible) out there about holistic management, there (inaudible) a center for holistic management in Aburquerque, New Mexico.  The people who I took my training from had taken theirs there and, and then came to Canada and I was a student of theirs.  Their's holistic management textbook, workbooks.  There is, ah, a, a newsletter put out by the center in Alburquerque.  There's a Canadian newsletter.  I think there's an Australian news letter. I've got several contacts if anybody is interested in more information on holistic management, would you like to, I'll, I'll put the titles of the books up so you can copy them down if you're interested and I'd just like to open it up for, for questions or comments.  I wanted to go about. Five minutes over.  Sorry.

 

Yep, just come on up and ask your questions.

 

?:  Actually, this is more of a supportive comment.  Um, I didn't have any desire to farm until I got married and spent the first couple of years kind of flopping around wondering what on earth I was doing there and actually when we took our, our initial course in holistic resource management that was really the first time I sort of feel as I was really part of the operation.  So, for bringing a new, ah, you know, one of those many new young farm women on-line, ah, holistic resource management is a great way to do it because it does so specifically make sure she understand what her stake is and what her role is.

 

?:  Thank you.  We've, we've had, ah, positive feedback of that nature, especially if we have a farm families with the oldest son whose looking at, at starting to farm and he's bringing his fiancee or new wife.

 

One of the fun ranches that, that we worked with, ah, had the manager, the head cook, the bookkeeper, the head wrangler and another cowboy.  That was an interesting group to work with for quite sometime, over the course of a winter. 

 

It's, it's it's about getting the group together and about utilizing the creativity of the group.  There is so much skill and so much ability.  I, I  think this conference has been really addictive of that type of process where so many of the breakout sessions have been facilitated and worked through by the participants in the conference and I think so many farm families are the same way and communities.  The skills and abilities within the group are significant unto themselves. 

 

Pattie Keefer:  I'm Pattie Keefer with Foreign Agriculture Service, USDA, here in Washington and this type of management, you know, I think it's wonderful.  It's sort of, sort of based on the whole idea of the team concept, but, where I find it very lacking is in government.  I don't know whether its true in other countries or not, but it seems to be that even though people were sent for courses on it they may start practicing within the work environment and it may go on for a couple of weeks and then there's just a real back sliding back to the old way of doing things.  I mean I, I'm sort of trying to move beyond the (inaudible) that you set up here just for the farm family and think about it in terms of my work environment in the government as such in the workplace because I, to me, it applies almost in anything in project management or, you know, some, someone running an NGO or PBO or something like that.  Ah, do you have any suggestions for how you keep people moving along the theme of playing or being part of a team?

 

?:  I think if, if you look at the, the bottom of the handout which the holistic management model on it at the very bottom, which, I've seen this model done several different ways.  One of them is a, is a more circular model where, where it has the goal right in the middle where your heart and I, I think that might be more significant.  But, at the bottom we have the feedback loop which is plan, monitor, control, replan and I think that we've all become, through this process, can become very good planners.  Monitoring is a little trickier so I encourage people whenever your making a decision think what's the first thing that could go wrong.  When will we know that our plan is not on track?  And if your looking for those indicators then you can either bring that plan back in, into being or you have to replan and I think that maybe the key is in the feedback loop that we, we come up with the plan and then it gets put in the drawer or that there isn't enough support in feedback for the players or positive reinforcement, ah, encouragement along the way, I think that working within government can be very alienating and very lonely and very depart. . . ., departmentalized and when you start a government by its essence it not holistic in that we have a Department of Agriculture, a Department of Health, a Department of Fisheries and, and, and they're exclusive unto themselves and it gets hardier to work in between so the whole concept of holism is a little more challenging. 

 

If you can get, if you have a support network of people that you might be able to get feedback from, that might help.  Any, anybody else comment, there's a lot of people here who have had experience with holistic management, any comments on, on how to, to work it more effectively into a government? 

 

I, I think it's wonderful that you, your this far along with it. 

 

?:  I agree that holistic management definitely could be used in government.  We certainly could use more of that.  The, ah, Confederated Tribes of the Caulvill (spelling?) Reservation in the State of Washington have been working towards managing holistically.  Um, they've been, I don't know, maybe about four or five years now, I think, that they've, when they first started into holistic management and there are a team of about seven educator trainees that are working with the tribe, um, in now only teaching and implementing holistic management, but also just working to help many of the members of the tribe just discover their cultural roots cause often times that is lost as well and, um, one of the, some of the difficulties that they've had as they have, ah, gained more exposure in the tribe.  They've have also been perceived as being a little bit threatening and they've had some recent setbacks, but, again, I've found that working at the upper levels of the government didn't work.  Um, they almost got fired last year.  Matter of fact some of them did and, um, last winter, but the person who, the new executive director that came in has since been replace and they have found their niche at working at, actually, I think it's through one of their culture departments in working in the community that way.  Um, so governments also feel very threatened by new ideas and losing that power, I think, is part of it.  They're afraid to, yea, afraid to share the power and, um, so one of the things that our project does in Washington State is we do have, we have people from every sort of background and not, not just farmers, but people that do work in government and, um, we have, I know one person in the Department of Ecology who is, um, is trying to use holistic management in that department and, I guess, what I could say is the circle influence is getting larger.  It is spreading throughout our State of Washington and spreading beyond that and, um, so sometimes it, it takes time and, you know, little feeds of progress here ad there, but, ah, year, there's a real need for it. 

 

?:  Any other, I think we're close to our closing comments, aren't we or do still have some time or?   I need those progressive lenses.   Any comments? 

 

I do think that holistic management, I, I  know that holistic management can provide the tools for people to have good lives on the land.  It opens up creativity.  It opens up consistent decision making and it makes us touch base with what is really important to us and, to me, those are some of the very fundamental things that we have not, perhaps, continued to address as the business part of farming has become every more overwhelming.  I think it has to be kept in context of some of these others.  We have to be able to be sustainable into the future.  We have to have a quality of life and we have to be profitable so if we build sustainability right into our vision we make decisions consistent with it, then I see us with great potential for having healthy, vibrant farm communities or farm people living on the land. 

 

I'm more than happy to entertain more questions or catch up with me during the conference.  Be in touch with your convenience and my thanks for being here.