Recently, I had the opportunity to tour Full Belly farm out in the Capay Valley. Full Belly farms about 400 acres of prime ground in a beautiful setting. The reason I went to the farm is that I wanted to learn from some farmers who I think are just about the best in the business. I was eager to see all the cool farm equipment that they have, but mostly I wanted to gain a little insight into how the four farming partners approach farming and how they as a group figured out how to get to a scale that provided enough income for everyone involved in the farm. My goal was to learn from them and get some ideas that I could adapt to my farm. Here is what I came away with:

• The farm was started with a strategic plan. The plan was to derive a full time living for the farm partners. Every decision was made with the idea that the farm must provide a living for the farmers. To this end, Full Belly started by farming 40 acres. Scale is a matter of perspective. Paul Mueller, one of the partners, grew up on a 400 acre farm, so 40 seemed pretty small to him.
• The main tasks of marketing, mechanics, picking, and packing are divided among many people. Teams handle all the details for a particular task. The people who pick have a supervisor who supervises only picking. Systems of communication have been created so that each team knows what is expected overall for the farm for each day, each week, and each season. The supervisors of each area meet and coordinate work plans so that everything that need to get done gets done.
• The farm has many different enterprises: vegetables, fruit trees, nut trees, lambs, chickens, agritourism, and more. The key is that each one of these enterprises has a farm partner who oversees this enterprise and team(s) that make the enterprise run. The adult children of the partners have recently returned to the farm and have started many new enterprises.
• Farm tasks are designed to maximize employee and equipment efficiency. The smallest area that is ever planted is ½ acre. This is done to maximize efficiency of both people and machines. Often, a ½ acre works out to be the amount of crop the farm can sell each week. This scale allows for easy planning for planting, picking, sales, crop rotation, and labor needs.

So that's what I learned, but how can I apply these ideas? I don't have a 400 acre farm with big machines and 45 workers. Just because I am small doesn't mean I can't use the ideas: I just need to modify them to a smaller scale. Here is how I applied bulleted categories above to fit my smaller scale.

• Strategic planning: I ask myself how much my farm needs to earn to cover my direct costs of production, overhead expenses (land rent, insurance, etc.) and my salary. The total needs to be enough for me to live on and pay all the farm bills if I am going to stay true to the Full Belly ideal. From that number I can figure out how much land I am going to need to farm. I will be able to create a marketing plan to sell all that I grow.
• Teams: I farm by myself, so I am a team of one. Being a team of one doesn't mean the idea of specialization goes out the window: you just have to change the approach. I dedicate days of the week to different tasks. Mondays are the day I transplant crops; Tuesday is when I start seeds for the greenhouse; Wednesday is for weeding; Thursday is for deliveries and a catch up day for what didn't get done earlier in the week; Friday is totally dedicated to picking and preparing for the farmers market.
• Multiple enterprises: I used to do many things: vegetables, chickens, and fruit trees. I found out I was really only good at the vegetables, so I got rid of all the other enterprises and I focused. Once I got rid of the other things, I found that I was less stressed out and I was making more money. If I had farming partners I would add something to the mix, but with just one person I can only handle one enterprise. I feel like I am doing good work now, and that I am keeping things under control.
• Standard planting size: ½ acre is a little big for me to use as a basic minimum planting. I like a ¼ acre for crops that I can store, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. For more perishable items I use one of my standard sized beds as the unit. My beds are 5' wide center to center and 100' long. I can plant, weed, harvest, and sell that amount of pretty much anything each week, so this works for me in my system.

Going to Full Belly was an inspiration and really gave me some great ideas. All ideas are adaptable, so take a look around at your farm and see how you can apply Full Belly's principles. If you do, I am sure you will reduce stress and have a more profitable growing year.