What do I do when I am not in the farm?

When I say that I visit the farm 2-3 times a week, lot of people ask me what I do at home on rest of the days. I think time has come to answer these questions. It is difficult for anybody to think that farm work can be done remotely! Of course the times have changed and the traditional farming can only lead farmers to suicide. Farming also should run like a business, which includes accounting, sales, marketing, shopping, etc.

Although I come from an agriculture family, tools and technology and procedures have changed over the time and my knowledge is outdated by at least 25 years. The structure and composition of the soil also makes the difference and there is a need to unlearn and relearn a lot of things that are applicable locally. Lot of useful resources are available on the internet and there are lot of resource persons too who are happy to share their knowledge online. Field visits (i.e. visiting different farms) and interaction with practitioners also helps in many ways. Using this newly acquired knowledge and implementing them on the ground is only a small - but important - part of this.

Account keeping and processing it is a very important thing in order to understand where money goes and where money comes from and how to improve the situation. It assumes more significance when you are running it in a partnership.

For the conventional chemical-based farming there are predefined procedures (Package of Practice - PoP) available and there are standard set of fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides available off-the-shelf. Such things are either non-existent or non-documented in Organic farming. There is lot to study and experiment with and be prepared to fail. The conversion phase from Chemical farming to Organic Farming adds to the complexity.

Shopping part is not that fun as you have to do it in places like KRMarket! Buying fertilizers, pesticides, tools, spare parts, input material, fodder, etc. is a big activity in itself. If these things are not available on time, it is going to result in loss of time (and money). When you are still experimenting, finding out where to buy what leads to extra effort.

Selling the farm produce is a major challenge to any farmer. Despite having taken some precaution, we ended up having banana bunches which nobody was there to buy! It shows the importance of timing what you produce, which in turn implies the importance of timing the sowing. It also indicates that we should tap different sales routes - multiple buyers, online, direct selling, contract selling, etc. Each of these have their own advantages and disadvantages and we have to learn to deal with them. Many of the buyers may not even be prompt in making the payments, which leads to a different set of problems to address.

Farm work needs constant monitoring and planning ahead - upto 5-10 years down the line. Or else you will see the income going down quickly and it takes many more years to be back on track. You also need to assess what would be the demand for your produce x years later and whether there is any better substitute for it. You also need to plan for the crops that would give you returns after several years and plant them now.

When the farm is being setup as an agri-tourism center, it comes with its own set of jobs like planning, legal/governmental handling, sales and marketing, etc. each of which taking huge amount of time.