It bothers me that when instances are arduous in farming we get informed we have to diversify to outlive.
I worry farmers are led down a path of bringing in extra revenue from secondary companies that may act as a distraction from working their major one – the farm.
The result’s that the already struggling farm suffers additional.
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In regards to the writer
Chris Bennett
Chris Bennett has a level in physics and a graduate diploma in agriculture. He farmed in Wakanui on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand earlier than returning in 2022 to the arable and beef farm he grew up on close to Louth in Lincolnshire.
The AHDB has recognized eight traits that high-performing farms are inclined to have in widespread.
One is consideration to element, one thing that may be misplaced when time and headspace is unfold too thinly throughout a number of companies.
One other attribute is that they specialise. As I see it, specialisation is the alternative of diversification, so it could observe that diversification can be a probable attribute of a low-performing farm.
I acknowledge that there are some fantastic examples of efficiently diversified farms on the market.
The house farm I’ve come again to has been diversified to incorporate self-catering vacation residences, a marriage venue and renewable vitality.
I can see first-hand the advantages of getting a number of revenue streams. They will clean out the short-term peaks and troughs in profitability, enhance cashflow, and utilise in any other case derelict farm buildings.
Nevertheless, I don’t imagine a farm must be artificially propped up by one other enterprise if it had been in any other case unviable in the long run. As an business, we’re distinctive in our willingness to permit this.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time in New Zealand, the place farmers have a fame for being among the many greatest on this planet and diversification is far much less widespread.
There’s a query of trigger and impact.
Is it that they don’t must diversify as a result of they’re glorious farmers, or are they glorious farmers as a result of they haven’t diversified and may focus all their vitality on farming to the very best of their talents?
It has been mentioned many instances earlier than that to be a farmer you should put on many hats. You should be an agronomist, a mechanic, a vet, an accountant and so forth.
Do we actually want so as to add extra professions to that record?
