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.

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.

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.

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.