Preface

Deborah Takiff Smith, Yearbook Editor

This yearbook aims to help farmers and farm managers make better business decisions.

FARM MANAGEMENT: How To Achieve Your Farm Business Goals offers practical information from university teachers and Extension System experts, as well as from farmers and other business people.

To be successful, operators of America's 2.1 million farms need to employ the very latest and best business management principles and techniques. Business management skills are crucial. That is true whether the farmer is controlling over $1 million in business assets and has more than $250,000 in annual sales, or whether he or she sells less than $40,000 in products and must rely on nonfarm earnings to keep the family on the land.

The book was written primarily for:

Owner-operators, renters, and professional farm managers;

Managers with sophisticated experience, beginners, and those still planning their entry into farming.

The ideas in it can be used anywhere in the country, and they apply to any farm enterprise.

For other readers, this yearbook may help provide a better understanding of the challenges that farming entrepreneurs and managers face.

Is farming a business or is it a way of life? Usually it is both. For most farm families, profit is a farm business goal, but farm managers each have their own additional goals—which may include maintaining a lifestyle, passing the farm on to family members, or protecting the land under their care.

The focus throughout the book is on individual farmers making decisions. Case studies reveal real farm managers solving real problems.

As farming changes dramatically, so does farm management. In this yearbook, each chapter contains state-of-the-art information on how today's farm managers make decisions on the use of their resources—land, labor, capital, and management skill.

Part I describes what farm managers do, who they are, and what makes them successful.

Part II examines strategic farm management—how the big decisions are made about such issues as setting goals, evaluating risk, choosing enterprises, starting or expanding the farm, and incorporating the business. It looks at five farm families who have made major strategic changes.

Part III turns to tactical management—the specific business tools that farm managers use every day in controlling the purse strings of their operations. These tools include computer programs for keeping records and evaluating alternative actions; tax management approaches; accounting methods; comparative analysis; and whole-farm budgets, enterprise budgets, and comparative budgets.

In Part IV, experts recommend how to use the key resources of farming—land, water, credit, labor, machinery, livestock facilities, and the managers' time. One chapter focuses specifically on the management of small or limited-resource farms.

Part V considers the relationship of farming to the physical environment. It takes a special look at low-input sustainable agriculture (LISA).

Where do farmers get information to help them make decisions, and how do they select what they can really use from the barrage of material available? Part VI offers some answers. It points the way to information sources in print, broadcast outlets, computer programs, on-line data bases, and other media.

Ongoing education and access to state-of-the-art expertise are essential to successful farmers today. Part VII describes public and private institutions at community, State, and national levels that offer learning opportunities.

Part VIII looks toward the future. It suggests reasons that today's farmers need to farm smart, or manage well, in order to survive in the changing world. Increased competition, environmental concerns, the need to diversify, new production technologies, low-input farming approaches—all call for heightened management skills as farmers constantly respond to change.

Marketing is an important aspect of management, and the 1988 Yearbook, Marketing U.S. Agriculture, is a suggested companion piece to this volume.

Many people offered their resources of talent and energy to make this book. Buel F. Lanpher, National Program Leader for Farm Management in USDA's Extension Service, was co-chair with me of the 1989 Yearbook Committee. He located key experts to serve on the committee and to write many of the chapters. Other committee members who helped select the topics and find the authors include:

William H. Briscoe, Farmers Home Administration.

Howard W. (Bud) Kerr, Cooperative State Research Service.

Earl I. Fuller, Minnesota Extension Service.

A. Gene Nelson, Oregon State University.

Jane Ross, Cooperative State Research Service.

Daniel B. Smith, Clemson University.

W. Fred Woods, Extension Service.

In addition, Ben Blankenship (Economics Management Staff), Judith Bowers (Extension Service), Neill Schaller (Cooperative State Research Service), Bob Norton (Agricultural Research Service), Bill Hanson (Federal Crop Insurance Service), Ray Waggoner (Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service), and Stan Prochaska (Office of Information) helped plan the book.

The production team members take the authors' first drafts and turn them into a book. They include:

Art Director: Vincent Hughes,

Design Division, Office of Information.

Designer: Richard Barnes,

formerly Design Division, Office of Information.

Copy Editor: Kotler Editorial Associates,

on contract to Special Programs Division, Office of Information.

Composition Coordinator: Joseph Stanton,

Electronic Publishing Branch, Printing Division,

Office of Information.

Typesetter: Carolyn Evans,

Electronic Publishing Branch, Printing Division,

Office of Information.

Photo Coordinator: Larry Rana,

Photography Division, Office of Information.

Printers: Warren Bell and Jim Cecil,

Printing Division, Office of Information.

Layout: The Publishing Group, Inc.,

on contract to Design Division, Office of Information.