Does your farm management fit a dictionary definition? failing businesses. There are several definitions of farm management: Farm management is the application of business principles and the scientific principles of agriculture to the business of farming. Farm management is also the study of the business principles of farming. It may be defined as the science of organization and the management of the farm enterprise for the purpose of securing the greatest continuous profits. Pulling all the definitions together, we can say that farm management is the application of business principles such as accounting, benchmarking, marketing, human resources and the scientific principles of agron-
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Proper documentation of losses imperative ance losses. It is important for producers who are facing crop losses in 2011 to understand their crop insurance coverage, and the calculations used to determine crop insurance indemnity payments. The University of Illinois Farm Management website has some good Crop Insurance information, and an online “What-If” Crop Insurance Payment Calculator. The website is located at www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu. ••• Kent Thiesse is a government farm programs analyst and a vice president at MinnStar Bank in Lake Crystal, Minn. He may be reached at (507) 726-2137 or kent.thiesse@minnstarbank.com.
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PROGRAMS, from pg. 4B optional units or enterprise units. The premium estimates are for enterprise units. The table also contains space for producers to put in their own Actual Production History yields, insurance coverage levels, premium costs, projected yield and harvest prices, in order to make estimates for potential 2011 crop insurance indemnity payments. Bottom line on calculating potential crop insurance payments Producers who have crop losses in 2011, with potential crop insurance indemnity payments, should properly document yield losses for either optional units or enterprise units. Producers with RP policies may qualify for crop insurance indemnity payments at higher final 2011 yield levels with the lower CBOT harvest prices, especially with soybeans. A reputable crop insurance agent is the best source of information to make estimates for potential 2011 crop insurance indemnity payments, and to find out about documentation requirements for crop insur-
omy, animal science and husbandry, chemistry, engineering to the business of farming, by striving for continuous profits while protecting the environment. Is this starting to sound like your day? You are in the middle of doing your accounting for the day, when an employee asks for the weekend off to attend a wedding, the seed dealer wants to do a yield check on that new variety that you purchased for this year, the grain markets are going down and you are wishing that you had more sold, and you want to know how this crop yield compares to the previous five years. Does that fit our definition from above, combining business principles with scientific principles to strive for continuous profits and protect the environment? It kind of looks like it does. You are doing accounting, dealing with a human resource issue, verifying an agronomic choice, considering marketing decisions while doing some benchmarking on yields all the while striving to make profits while protecting the environment. These are not simple individual tasks to accomplish, and when combined together it becomes even more difficult.This is why many farmers choose to seek help with management tasks, whether it is from an accountant, crop adviser, banker or a farm management instructor. For more information, contact a Farm Business Management instructor by logging on to www.fbm.mnscu.edu ••• This article was submitted by Myron Oftedahl, South Central College Farm Business Management instructor at Glencoe, Minn.
THE LAND, OCTOBER 14, 2011
Management can be one of those words that is just a word; we do not fully understand it so we just accept it as a word. Digging into definitions, Webster’s Dictionary defines it as the act of managing; the conducting or supervising of something.Another definition says it is the combination of marketing and innovation. You know you need to market the product and adopt new technologies or innovations to be more efficient, but is that all there is to management? If you really go back into history, Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) studied low-efficiency and failures of certain enterprises. He is credited with the development of the practice of modern management. Perhaps management can be defined as the study of
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