HMI’s Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning Training course wrapped up in March of 2016. 
Classes took place in Montrose, Colorado. The training classes were taught by Holistic Management Certified Educator Cindy Dvergsten.
According to Cindy, the class was diversified, with both beginning farmers and 5th generation ranchers attending. Operations were diversified as well, with cow-calf operations, a goat dairy, a quail farm, and a dude ranch just some of the enterprises run by class participants.
The first class covered the basics of Holistic Management, including Defining the Whole, Creating the Holistic Goal, Testing Decisions, Ecosystem Processes, Management Tools, Time Management and Leadership and Communication.
In the second session, the Marketing and Business Planning module was presented.
The final session was Financial Planning, with students using a number of worksheets to gain clarity about the contribution of each of their enterprises to the whole and to create a complete financial plan for their own operation.
Here are some participant comments:
“Every day I appreciate this course even more. I really benefited from learning about budgeting and making financial decisions that honor my values.”
“I spent an evening with my 7 and 9 year old sons talking about cows and hay. This is the first time I ever included them in discussions about what is important to them and their perspective of the ranch. We were having so much fun that we went past their bedtime and my wife made us quit.”
“My God, what have I been doing all these years? I was just winging it with the marketing. Now I have a business modelthat will focus on what really works for us and we can let go of marketing that does not provide results.”
“This course has helped me put all to pieces together. I realize now that I have more than one market in my business model (as a ranch manager) in that my landlord needs to be considered as a customer”.
“Setting the holistic goal and learning how to work with my family will make a big difference in helping me figure out how to keep our ranch in the family.”
“Learning about the tools of management and making my tool box inventory is helping me focus on putting time and money into the right places.”
“I appreciate the in-depth knowledge and experiences you have to share with us about land management, agricultural businesses and holistic management.”
Here are some of the results:
Session 1 – Introduction to Holistic Management – Results %
Assessing how time is spent on your farm 100%
Increased ability to use the whole farm goal to guide communication on your farm 100%
Increased ability to develop a written whole farm/ranch goal 100%
More confidence in delineating farm resources for management 100%
Increased ability to define your management team for effective management 94%
More confidence in communicating with decision makers 94%
Session 2- Marketing and Business Planning – Results %
Your ability to develop a business model for your farm/ranch 100%
Intention to complete or modify a marketing and business plan as a result of today’s session 100%
Understanding of how your whole farm goal and financial plan help you develop a marketing plan that fits your farm 93%
How to effectively promote your products/services 87%
How to use your financial plan to profitably price your products/services 83%
How to define your target market 80%
Session 3 – Financial Planning – Results %
Improved skills in developing a whole farm financial plan 100%
Increased ability to assess the cash flow of your plan 100%
Intention to complete or modify a financial plan for your farm 100%
Considered the course to be good or excellent 100%
Increased ability to increase your farm’s rough net worth (balance sheet) 93%
Increased ability to prioritize and cut expenses on your farm 93%
Increased ability to get the profit you need from your farm 87%
HMI would like to thank Valley Food Partnership for their support of this program, as well as Mountain Roots Food Project. Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, National Young Farmers Coalition, and Indian Ridge Farm and Bakery for their assistance in outreach and promotion of this training.
Adelene is a resident of Arkansas and loves exploring the state’s natural trails. Her passion for education and technology led her to earn a master’s in learning systems technology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. With her professional experience managing student/client databases and instructional design, Adelene will bring skill and understanding to her role as Office Manager & Instructional Designer at HMI. Her focus on making education more accessible to diverse communities is evident through her volunteer work as an board member for a scholarship program. Adelene is devoted to creating educational opportunities that align with HMI’s mission to promote healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities.
Seth Wilner has been a Holistic Management International Certified Educator since 2005. For 22 years he has worked as an agent educator with University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension where he specializes in farm business management with an emphasis on whole farm planning.
Dana was first introduced to Holistic Management in the 1990s while working in the Texas Hill Country. She strongly believes that Holistic Management can positively impact families that are on the land, the communities they are a part of, and larger landscape resource regeneration efforts.
Sarah Robertson grew up in Taos, New Mexico and has always been passionate about land stewardship, growing things, and nurturing others. After completing a BA in Communication from the University of New Mexico and working with local non-profits, she started her journey as a first-generation farmer. Since 2015, she has been learning and growing alongside her husband on various leased properties in Albuquerque, NM and running a small market farm with goats, chickens, and a CSA. In her role as Programs Assistant at HMI, Sarah brings her enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture, devotion to supporting others, and drive for lifelong learning and growing.
Jozua Lambrecht is from South Africa and divides his time between their home in Somerset West and their family farm in Sutherland, one of the coldest places in South Africa, where they farm with sheep. He is married to his wife Therese and they have two daughters.
Alejandro Carrillo is a fourth-generation rancher, and he is quite familiar with the challenges of running a profitable cattle ranch in the Chihuahuan desert. Because annual precipitation seldom exceeds nine inches, every drop counts when it comes to growing more grasses. Grazing year-round with only sea salt as an input, he is not willing to waste any water in such a brittle environment.
Jared L Talley was born and raised in Southwestern Idaho and now seeks to help rural communities adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, earning his PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State University and his MPA in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management from Boise State University. An environmental philosopher by training and an interdisciplinary scholar in practice, he seeks to better understand how communities relate to the land and how this relationship poses obstacles and opportunities for collaboration and governance. In doing so, he studies the role of science in collaborative policy, the role of place in environmental identity, and the role of the imagination in mediating both. Specifically, he studies grazing management and public land permitting, community-led conservation programs, rural education and entrepreneurship, place-based environmental governance, and the imaginative experience of our natural and built environments — all in the contexts of the intermountain American West.
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