Farm Management Tour: July 17, 2024

Learn about innovative farm management strategies, new technologies for improving efficiency and productivity, ways to ensure a successful transition of farm operations to the next generation. Join us at the 91st annual Purdue Farm Management Tour and reception honoring the 2024 Indiana Master Farmers in Randolph County (Winchester), Indiana on Wednesday, July 17th.

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business planning

Farm Growth: Venture Analysis and Business Models

Continued consolidation and concentration in the agricultural industries has stimulated numerous discussions and debates about the advantages and disadvantages of large vs. small firms and why the general trend/direction of most structural change in agriculture is to larger scale businesses.

The Wealth Effect in U.S. Agriculture

Since 2009, wealth in the U.S. farm sector has surged along with booming farmland values. Similar to nonfarm households, farm enterprises historically have used wealth to support consumption and investments when income fades. During years of low income, farmers tap their existing wealth to finance spending on capital investments such as buildings, vehicles, machinery and other equipment.

Pasture Rental Arrangements

The purpose of this publication is to help tenants and landlords make sound decisions and develop workable pasture rental arrangements. The publication demonstrates how to determine the landowner and livestock owner contributions to livestock production and how to use that to arrive at agreeable leasing arrangements.

Managing in Times of Financial Stress

The best strategy is to resolve financial stress problems before they become severe. One of the most important rules of managing in times of financial stress is summed up in the simple but powerful phrase-early recognition, early resolution.

Income Enhancement Strategies for Farmers

As farmers, you know that cost reduction is clearly the place to begin when developing survival strategies if you are facing serious financial difficulties. But many of you have adopted intensive production systems and have already reduced costs to the bare minimum over the last several years while prices of inputs continue to rise rapidly. This leaves little room for advice on how to weather financial stress through cost reduction.

Strategic Planning: Scanning the Horizon

Any planning activity involves thinking about the future. However, the focus of strategic planning is not on predicting the future, but instead on making better decisions here and now in order to reach a desired future. Because the future cannot be known with certainty, farm business managers must make certain assumptions about what the future will hold.

The Internal Analysis of Your Farm Business: What is Your Farm’s Competitive Advantage?

Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your farm business will help you identify those activities conducted on the farm that can create a sustainable competitive advantage for the business. To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to identify those activities at which your farm business excels, not just activities that it does equally as well as its competitors.

Developing Vision and Mission Statements

In this publication we look at the underlying purpose for which the business exists: its vision and mission. An important key to any successful journey is to start with the end in mind. This is true whether the journey is something like a carefully planned vacation or like the initiation of a new business enterprise or restructuring of an existing business.

The Competitive Environment: New Realities

This publication is designed to help you identify important trends in agriculture that affect your business. The agriculture of the 21st century puts pressure on farm business managers to be aware of and responsive to a number of industry trends.

Center for Commercial Agriculture