Winter perfect for farmer's management skills

A new year, time to literally take stock and determine the financial results of the past year. Strangely enough, after thirty years of internet, those figures still do not automatically roll out of the computer with the VAT return for the last few months. Most farmers will therefore use figures that are one year too old in the study club this winter.

But even then it is useful to compare one's own results with those of others and to receive feedback from one's own management. I have the impression that interest in it is waning. After a few years we know that one is better at grassland management and the other at breeding. The study club becomes a social club - also important - but not the original goal.

Or we find companies less and less comparable, but you can learn a lot from completely different companies. At Harvard University, a professor once had great success with a club that had the largest retailer, the largest orange juice producer, the largest farmer, and so on. Typically American but it forces you to talk about management, return on investment and strategy and not just about Antje-34 or the latest squad.

A matter of fitting and measuring
There is sometimes bad luck behind differences in operating results, but often there is also a structural factor. That could be company size, but it could also be management. In 1988 my then LEI colleague Joop Alleblas obtained his doctorate for his research into management in greenhouse horticulture – a matter of fitting and measuring. That title refers not only to the fact that he tried to measure the level of management separately, but also to the fact that a certain size and set-up of a company requires a specific level of management. Anyone who works with 5 employees or starts a farm campsite, needs different management skills. Gaps in this area are easily overlooked.

In his research, Alleblas found that many of the differences in revenue levels were explained by the modernity of companies. Where on modern farms a relatively large number of young, well-trained horticulturists were also in charge. They were often very active in study clubs and also well oriented towards external developments. Separately, about 8% of the differences were explained by attention to the management cycle of work preparation, execution and control, where planned and recorded data were compared. If that comparison was not made and they did not look at internal and external company comparisons to find out why something had succeeded or failed, then administration was pointless and it was a burden.

Keep working on better management
The research was translated into guidelines for management advice, with which management coaches and information officers could provide better advice to help entrepreneurs grow in management skills. What became of it is unknown to me. I therefore do not like to claim that this research has contributed to the good results of the remaining entrepreneurs in greenhouse horticulture in recent years. But the thesis is inspiring to continue working on better management in all sectors of agriculture and horticulture. All the more so because modernization processes and rapid scaling up are now taking place everywhere, as the greenhouse horticulture sector has experienced before.

Last year we looked at the theme of revenue models in Noord-Brabant with ZLTO, BAJK, ABAB, Rabobank, Agrifirm and a few other parties for the province. When the experts looked at their data sets, they were shocked again. The spread in company results is large. For many farmers, there seems to be a lot to be gained by doing better in their current strategy. A different strategy with a different revenue model is also possible, but you take your management skills with you when you change. So provide feedback, winter lends itself to it.

Krijn J. Poppe

Krijn Poppe worked for almost 40 years as an economist at LEI and Wageningen UR and now holds a number of advisory and management positions. For Boerenbusiness he dives into his bookcase and discusses current developments on the basis of studies that have become classic.

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