2014 California Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning Series Report

  From the northern to southern ends of California, a very diverse group of farmers/ranchers attended the HMI Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning workshop at TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California starting in September and concluding in mid-October taught by a team of Certified Educators including Richard King, Rob Rutherford, and Calley Hastings. Limited to 30 participants, the workshop was sold out. The five sessions covered whole farm/ranch goal setting and decision-making as well as financial planning, marketing, and business planning with time built in to learn the process, work on exercises leading toward a sound financial plan for the coming year, and learn from each other as well as the instructors. The Holistic Management framework for decision-making includes successfully managing income and expenses as well as building healthy land and fostering effective relationships among the people involved. In this workshop participants learned a step-by-step financial planning process that helps people who raise products or provide services from the land be successful at living the kind of life they value. They also learned that holistic financial planning includes successfully managing their human relationships as well as their money.     For the Marketing and Business Planning sessions, Calley Hastings used her family’s farm business as an example. She shared how the family has made decisions along the way and used their holistic goal to guide them as they have grown from a small diversified farm to a goat dairy producing goat’s milk caramel sauces for national distribution. Building on this example, farmers then reflected on marketing decisions in their own businesses and ran those decisions through the Holistic Management testing questions. Additional time was spent looking at key components of a marketing plan and how each aspect, like understanding your demographic and thinking about your competition, help to inform your overall marketing strategies and budget. The marketing plan is just one element to the business plan, which can help guide how your business grows and can be used to leverage capital for your business. On the second day, participants looked at a sample business plan and went through each component to understand what was involved. They worked in small groups to understand each aspect of the plan and then presented to the whole group using the sample business plan along with an example from their own farms. Overall the farmers involved in these sessions were exposed not only to effective marketing techniques and strategies, but more importantly, ways to think through how you develop a marketing plan for you business that is based on solid information and sound decision making. They also saw how a business plan weaves together many of the elements they had been working on in the previous classes and helps provide a road map for your business to follow. While every farmer brought something different to the table, they all left with lots more questions and ideas from their fellow classmates on how to move forward with their farms. Participants ranged from those who are direct marketing through farmer’s markets, farm store, etc. to others who are selling through commercial channels. Many described this series as a ‘great’ or ‘awesome’ workshop. There seemed to be a lot of excitement about the potential within the group to stay in touch and engage in further conversations and learning. Our thanks to the TomKat Ranch for providing a great location and for being gracious hosts. Also, thanks to the Christiano Family Fund, an advised fund of the Community Foundation for San Benito County, for providing funding for this program, and to the San Francisco Foundation, a donor-advised fund, for funding scholarships.