Happy New Year. I've had a cracking break over Christmas. We were able to shut the doors to the farm on Christmas Eve and I have been able to have a proper mental break. A break from mental activity, I mean.
I have been trying to think of a few resolutions for you to measure me against. Having reread a few of my posts from this time last year, I realise that I was fairly wide of the mark.
The best and worst bits of last year came out of the blue. The bits that changed my life last year; jumping through the ice into a Finnish lake, visiting Africa for the first time, my relationship with my godchildren, the new friendships I made and the death of a close friend, were all unexpected.
In the past, I have always put great emphasis on commercial and material objectives at this time of year. I'm much more philosophical about all that at the moment. In 2009 I want to be open to the other opportunities that present themselves.
Experience tells me that we will always get someway towards the goals that we set for the business each year. They are usually sufficiently unambitious to allow a degree of success. We have been even more cautious in some respects for 2009 although there are still a number of variables which seriously threaten us.
We certainly won't be making the level of capital investment in the business that we did in 2007 and 2008. Although, like a lot of farmers, the tax bill presently on my desk still demonstrates a mighty contribution to the "government's" fiscal stimulus package.
We will be trying to reduce our farm's wage bill through mechanisation. None of this is good news for the wider economy, of course, and I'm solidly certain that I won't be sending Alistair Darling a big cheque in 2010 (he might even have to send one in my direction).
This year farmers will be passengers of fate. Soaring and crashing values of inputs and commodity produce have made a mockery of budgeting. I don't even waste my time producing a formal cash flow anymore.
We will try to stay flexible but, like most businesses in the UK, we have to ride out the changing market using what we already have. It will be difficult to change direction or expand our way out of trouble. The success of businesses like ours which have tried to differentiate ourselves lie squarely with consumers and retailers. This is a dramatic shift in my personal philosophy from Internal to External Locus of Control
In a wobbly economic spell it is very important to have a "hinterland" beyond wealth creation. I am more certain of this after working with FARM Africa.
See how long I can cling to this idealism once I have returned to the commercial world tomorrow.
Leave a comment
What a user pic? Get a Gravatar!