Farmer Focus: Questions which may leave me without a job
John Pawsey © Phil Weedon I am aware that my last article reported back on a recent conference I attended in Oxford.
And as it hasn’t stopped raining in Shimpling since then, I have no tales of early spring drilling.
I am pretty sure a run-down on current workshop repairs and the changing of wearing parts on worn machinery will send you turning the page.
See also: How new income streams are protecting Shropshire farm business
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With the farm’s land drains running in full bore and no field work able to be carried out, this allowed two generations of Pawseys to attend a local farming conference.
The event took place on the hallowed ground of the Suffolk Show at Trinity Park, near Ipswich, at the end of January, and it was a belter.
Opening the event was Professor David Hughes, also known as “Dr Food”.
He underlined what value meant to our customers and the importance of scale in terms of business size.
He was followed by Professor Tim Lang, who framed what resilience had to look like if we were to ride the shocks in our food system.
The event equally expertly covered natural capital, renewables, vertical integration, adding value, and sharing fixed costs.
You are probably thinking that you’ve already been to this conference; it’s what we have all been talking about in recent years.
But the quality of speakers shone a new light on our already diversified business.
- Post-conference, I asked myself the following:
- Do you want to expand the business, and if so, in what areas?
- What do you want to do more of and what do you want to do less of?
- What level of risk are you prepared to take in areas you want to do more of?
- Are you giving up on opportunities in the areas you want to do less of?
- How do your personal needs sit with other family members involved in the business?
I have posed the same questions to the Pawsey Family Board. I might be out of a job.
