"Brings the business planning process alive to help today's agriculture entrepreneurs transform farm-grown inspiration into profitable enterprises. Sample worksheets illustrate how real farm families set goals, research processing alternatives, determine potential markets, and evaluate financing options. Blank worksheets offer readers the opportunity to develop their own detailed, lender-ready business plan and map out strategies" --back cover.
A practical, how-to guide for farmers who want to achieve and maintain financial sustainability in their businesses When you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of accounting and bookkeeping, and learn how to manage a growing business. Author Julia Shanks distills years of teaching and business consulting with farmers into this comprehensive, accessible guide. She covers all aspects of launching, running and growing a successful farm business through effective bookkeeping and business management, providing tools to make managerial decisions, apply for a loan or other financing, and offering general business and strategy advice for growing a business. Whether you've been farming for many years or just getting started, The Farmer's Office gives you the tools needed to think like an entrepreneur and thoughtfully manage your business for success.
Why Marketing is Important; Price Movement Over Time; The Deadly Micro-Macro Trap in Production Agriculture; Trace in Futures & Options; Basics in Managing Price Risk; Forward Pricing & Marketing Strategies for Crops; Forward Pricing & Marketing Strategies for Livestock; Analyzing the Markets; A Changing Marketplace; Marketing Skills are Critical.
This book comes out at a very opportune time when the sector is struggling with sanitation marketing that is considered an organic next step for rural communities that have been declared open defecation free. Besides, this publication comes in to address the gaps that face the peri-urban spaces that are facing population explosion and require innovative ways of dealing with mostly non-sewered sanitation services. This guide/manual was developed as part of a training package to support business development skills training for local sanitation entrepreneurs in Kenya. Financial and technical support was provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Kenya integrated water and sanitation (KIWASH) project. KIWASH was a five year (2015-2020) project implemented by the Development Alternatives Incorporation (DAI) across nine counties. One of the key goals of KIWASH was to help trigger and activate demand for low cost affordable sanitation technologies in rural and low income communities. The overall objective of this manual is to equip sanitation specialists and public resource persons with the basic concepts and tools, to facilitate entrepreneurship and financial literacy training for start-up sanitation entrepreneurs in rural communities. Specifically, this manual is designed to help participants: 1) Learn the basic concepts of entrepreneurship and characteristics of successful entrepreneurs; 2) Learn and practice essential marketing techniques for sanitation products and services; 3) Develop money management competencies necessary to succeed as a small-scale entrepreneur; 4) Build necessary leadership and management skills to grow successful sanitation enterprises. Overall, the guide/manual is useful in guiding implementation of sanitation marketing projects, and provides concise content for nurturing and building the capacity of local sanitation enterprises/entrepreneurs. Improved business performance by these businesses means timely response to demand from households. This book is a toolkit which incorporates a Training Guide/Manual as well as a Workbook for entrepreneurs.
This is the first book to focus on farm and rural community management in less favored areas of Japan. It provides an economic framework for, and empirical findings on, rural community management in terms of the distribution of rural resources, efficiency of farmland conservation, community development through agribusinesses, and utilization of human resources for the sustainability of rural society. The topics addressed include organic farming, the added value of locally processed foods, broad-based community agreement under a direct payment policy, forms of community vitalization, new farmers, farm diversification, redistribution of local resources among farmers by establishing farm organizations, community business, community hubs formed by multiple communities, and stakeholders who have migrated from urban to rural areas.The book is divided into four parts. Part I examines the relationship between regional agriculture and the conservation of farmland, including in hilly and mountainous areas. Part II deals with the improvement of farm resource management, particularly the redistribution of agricultural resources within multiple communities. In turn, Part III focuses on agribusinesses, especially the production of locally processed foods and community business. Lastly, Part IV addresses the sustainability of rural society, and discusses rural community development through community hubs, community-based rural tourism, and immigrated stakeholders. In each part, the peculiarities and commonalities of rural communities are explored by comparing the results of these studies with domestic and international studies.This book is highly recommended to readers who are concerned with the development of agriculture and community, resource conservation in less favored areas, and the theoretical and empirical aspects of agricultural and resource economics, as well as to those who wish to better understand rural communities in Japan.
Todays socio-economic scenario is highly volatile and risky. To sustain the growth and development is a big challenge for various national economic entities. After liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, most of these entities including national and multinational firms targeted the urban population for growth. It has been more than twenty-five years, and these urban markets are showing signs of maturation and saturation. This resulted in agencies and organisations looking for new avenues in order to sustain themselves. In such a scenario, Indias rural markets have emerged as a new hope for them. The hinterlands in India consist of more than 650,000 villages, which represent approximately 850 million consumers. This number is roughly equal to 70% of the total population. These rural consumers contribute to approximately half of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Since 2000, Indias rural sector showed a tremendous growth in its per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as compared to its urban counterpart (6.2% CAGR versus 4.7%). By the end of 2018, rural GDP is estimated to reach US$ 20 billion and touch US$ 100 billion by 2025. According to McKinsey Global Institute, the annual real income per household in rural India would rise to 3.6% by 2025 from the 2.8% over the last 20 years. Normally, it is assumed that urban consumers have more disposable income and their spending pattern is different from that of rural consumers. But the last decade has witnessed a change in this trend, with rural consumers exhibiting similar consumption patterns to that of their urban counterparts. This change is the result of various government initiatives such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNRA), Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Youjna and the National Social Assistance Program that have increased the purchasing power of rural India. This has led to higher spending by rural consumers (US $69 billion between 2009 and 2012), and this is significantly more than the US $55 billion spent by urban consumers. Owing to a favourable changing consumption trend as well as the potential size of the market, rural India provides a large and attractive opportunity for companies. The rural market is highly vibrant in nature, and the business organisations are performing both as the carrier and bearer of the results of this change, which is happening at an accelerating pace. In the initial years, rural consumers were on the receiving end, and now they are gradually getting into position to dictate the terms. A significant rural market share can be achieved by focusing on execution excellence by implementing novel strategies to serve rural consumers, and it must be drawn on a deep understanding of consumers cultures and needs. Research related to rural development in India is almost non-existent, and this book provides a window into the challenges that are faced in rural India. This book presents a window into the need for education in this subject at the same.
The underlying economic factors that effect primary production are frequently studied and written about - soil quality, animal health, climate, machinery. This book explores the psychology of successful farm business management and decision making.
The increasing demand for rural land and its natural resources is creating competition and conflicts. Many interested parties, including farmers, nature conservationists, rural residents and tourists, compete for the same space. Especially in densely populated areas, agriculture, recreation, urban and suburban growth and infrastructure development exert a constant pressure on rural areas. Because land is a finite resource, spatial policies which are formulated and implemented to increase the area allocated to one use imply a decrease in land available for other uses. As a result, at many locations, multi-purpose land use is becoming increasingly important. This notion of multi-purpose land use is reflected in the term 'multifunctionality'.This volume provides insights into viable strategies of sustainable management practices allowing multiple functions sustained by agriculture and natural resources in rural areas. It shows how the rural economy and policies can balance and cope with these competing demands and includes numerous case studies from Europe, North America and developing countries.
Most countries in South-East Asia have established smallholder dairy farming industries through social welfare and rural development programs to provide a regular cash flow for poorly resourced farmers. These farms are now being treated as accepted rural industries and require a more business-minded approach based on changes to farm profitability. Business Management for Tropical Dairy Farmers gives smallholder dairy farmers the business management skills they will need to remain sustainable. Drawing on detailed financial analyses of smallholders in countries such as Pakistan, Thailand and Malaysia, it shows how to budget cash inputs to match cash outflows during different seasons of the year, and how to invest wisely in improving cattle housing and feeding systems. If farmers make greater use of formats and structures for farm costs and returns, it will increase their awareness of the relative importance of all their financial inputs in terms of cost of production per kilogram of milk produced on the farm. It will also allow them to make more meaningful and timely decisions by correctly costing planned changes to their routine farming practices. The book will also be of use to support organisations to more clearly define the key drivers of profit on smallholder farms, and to government departments and national dairy organisations to routinely evaluate and update their industry policies.
Though entrepreneurship has been studied for decades, in recent years, the study of “rural entrepreneurship” has emerged as an upcoming subtopic of the area. With the growth and continual ease of utilizing digital technologies to support entrepreneurial activities, these technologies now provide unique opportunities for advancing rural entrepreneurship. Though prior research focused on challenges for IT use in rural areas that specifically investigated investment and management issues, it is important to study all challenges and opportunities involved in this developing area of research. Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Digital Era is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the utilization of digital technologies in rural business ventures. Unlike other references, this book studies the conceptualization process of rural entrepreneurship and innovation with the intention of providing guidelines and support for entrepreneurs. While highlighting topics such as microfinancing, risk management, and rural development, this publication explores innovative practices as well as the methods of IT investment and management. This book is ideally designed for business professionals, entrepreneurs, business researchers, academics, and business students.
