Opinion
There is no shortage of inspirational quotes and motivational sayings to encourage us to dream bigger. Failure is not an option! Go big or go home! Opportunity knocks!
The truth is, failure is always an option. So is saying no, or giving up on what's not working. Saying no to an opportunity can actually be the right move — because saying yes could mean you end up over-extended, financially or otherwise.
How do we strike the balance between pushing ahead, but being OK with sometimes taking a step backwards?
I've been thinking about some of the conversations I've had with people at various stages of their farm careers: young farmers with wee ones at foot, empty nesters working with a skeleton crew, or people like me who are doing something new, with a new partner, and all that that entails, financially and — let's be real — emotionally.
A good friend of mine is an empty nester. One or two of the kids will likely come back to the farm, so there were plans to keep expanding the farm in the years leading up to that time. But when land rents jumped in the neighbourhood, they chose to let land go instead of grinding it out as a team of two on slim margins. "It's OK," he said. "We'll have more time to do a better job on our own land." Still, there was that niggling feeling of failure because the land base shrunk.
A few months ago, I was commiserating about the barriers to farm growth with an amazing young farming human who had just recently completed a farm transition. She described her approach to "downsizing" and dealing with the guilt that went along with not continually going bigger. In her case, part of the farm hand-off meant selling some assets to manage debt and payouts. She shared that there were those who looked down their nose at the idea of a smaller overall farm operation, even though it meant it was one they could run successfully.
"I don't call it downsizing," she says, "I call it slingshotting — pulling back, to launch further."
To use another cliché, that's when the penny dropped for me on this whole notion of growth, expansion, economies of scale et al.
Farming is a tough business full of long hours, high stakes, big numbers, and sometimes huge disasters. There's an expectation of always chasing bigger: more acres, more cows, more sheep (for those of us silly enough), more more more. But sometimes "more" is too much for that point in time. And there's nothing wrong with recognizing your limits and "pulling back" to go farther...eventually.
A goal of growth for a farm doesn't always have to be a straight line, going up. There's value in right-sizing based on your time of life, like when there are babies and school drop offs, or when debt is too high and it makes sense to re-adjust financially. Or maybe you're a two-person team and what you've got now is all you really need.
I'm a big fan or continually improving, of trying new things, of taking calculated risks, but sometimes when opportunity knocks, it's OK to say no.
