Bossey: To manage a farm is to manage a soccer team

Reflections from students of an Agroecology course at North Carolina State University

This post is by Nico Bossey, who introduces himself as follows: A senior in NCSU’s Agroecology program, I took a winding path to get here. Originally graduating with a degree in anthropology, where I focused much of my study on the intersection of a group’s access to needs (food, shelter, etc) with the development of their culture and society, I transitioned to work in agriculture while working on a vineyard. Spending four years immersed in the cultivation of grapes and the making of wine gave me a deep appreciation for agriculture, which along with my previous schooling compelled me to find a way to use food as a tool to help people. This led me to NCSU, where agroecology dives into the balance of sustainability for the environment, people's livelihoods and social equity. This not only drives my studies, but also weaves into my free time, where I enjoy reading about advancements in agriculture and learning about all forms of cropping systems, gathering as much information that could help me in the future as I can.

Note: This series of student posts are only lightly edited to maintain the students’ voices.

Designing a cropping system is a daunting task. Each system is its own ecosystem, with many actors insistent on making their mark, vying for influence upon the outcome of your yields.

To manage a farm is to manage a soccer team. You are at the helm of a living, interconnected group, exerting as much control as you can as you attempt to guide this system towards success, while the entropy of the world drives all possible forms of disarray to stop you.

The first step in building your team is to decide your goal. Goals are essential, they keep you on task, and give you a central leader from which all other decisions branch from. However, your goals are also dictated by your resources. With the right resources, year in and year out, your goal should be to win titles. Doing so keeps you employed, your players paid well, your fans happy and ownership happy. However, if you are managing a smaller club, winning the league might not be feasible, and setting out for such a goal without the means could unravel any hard work you put into the team. Instead, focus might be put on player development, so that when clubs come knocking, you can make tidy profits. Playing attractive soccer might be another focus, or aiming to win smaller cups and competitions. Not only does this provide entertainment for your fanbase, but people in seats consistently is also a healthy model for a well run club.

(photo by Pixabay)

In this way, building your cropping system works the same. Defining your goal is important for your success as a farmer. While you want to have an ideal that you strive for, you also must take into account your resources and your environment. Every farmer wants to grow the most pristine field (whatever your definition of pristine is) that will make them all the money they could want, so that they can live comfortably, enjoying what they do. But not every piece of land is suited for all types of farming.

Questions that you as the farmer need to ask yourself are: What market do you want to access? What type of crops do you want to grow? Are you focused on profit or mission? An answer to these three questions will inform you of many of the structural decisions you will have to make to succeed, such as acreage, inputs, irrigation, marketing and many more.

Now that you have your goal and understand your resources, it's time to build the team that will get you there. This is where you dive into your tactics. Picking the right players that can form a cohesive unit and display a high level of teamwork. Deciding on the formation that will best suit your group, whether that is a traditional 4-4-2, a more attacking 4-3-3, or maybe something more experimental such as a 3-2-4-1, aiming to highlight strengths and mask any weaknesses (those numbers are explained at the bottom of the page for those interested or unfamiliar).

You also need to pick a play style. Will you sit back and defend, are you all about high intensity, is your game about control? Being able to put your players in the best position for success is about a blend of idealism and pragmatism, and farming is no different. Every decision you make must be planned out, and should be a balance of achievable and desirable, in line with your goal. A farmer needs to know what crops they will be able to sell, what rotation to plant them in, what planting density they will work at, will there need to be mechanization, what amount of labor is needed. The definition of success for any farm is to make money, but how that comes varies widely. A high value horticulture farm on two acres of land, selling direct to consumer at a farmers market will have a very different success plan than a thousand acre commodity cropping system. You cannot mechanize the same, you cannot harvest or cultivate the same, each needs a tailored game plan, as any team would.

While we think of all this as what happens on game day (harvest/selling your crop), there’s so much work that goes in off the field as well. You can’t expect your players to just show up and perform if they are not taking care of their minds and bodies off of the pitch as well. Players need to be eating a high quality diet, to ensure ample protein, vitamins, carbs and fats. They need to train in the gym to build strength and stretch to achieve the desired flexibility, in order to avoid any possible injuries. When injuries do occur, swift action needs to be taken to prevent any further aggravation that could do more damage. Outside negative influences need to be kept to a minimum as well, so that the players can be fully focused on achieving their goals.

Same for your crops. Just putting them in their right places and having the correct harvesting principles won’t get you full yields. A farmer needs to practice many forms of preventative and restorative care when tending to their fields. How they go about this may vary, just as each fitness coach has their own method, but each field needs nutrients and risk management all the same. As a farmer, you need to take a “physical” of your field, get soil samples and pest population estimates before starting, as well as any information of the field’s use history. From there you can start on a fertility program for your soil, applying exactly what nutrients you may need when you need them. You can tackle pest problems before they pop up, spraying the requisite and sustainable pesticides, utilize cultural practices such as introducing natural predators or pheromone traps and implement sanctuary strips to reduce resistance pressure. Farmers also need to decide how they will manage weeds, whether through tillage, pre-emergent sprays, manual weeding or the utilization of allopathic cover crops.

In season, the maintenance of your crops moves beyond the soil as well. For many crops, in season thinning, fruit dropping, pruning and other cosmetic work can help reduce pest pressure. Healthy yields require healthy plants, and for a plant to be healthy, they need to eat well, have good support in their soil, be kept as free from pests as possible and not be overburdened.

Just like any good team, your cropping system has many facets and many hands working in unison to achieve the goal put forth by the manager. All these facets need to align, and time, money and care are all required for success to be had. Just like any win, the sweet elation and relief that comes with a great harvest makes all that hard work worth it.

(In soccer, formations are often spoken about in terms of numbers, signifying where on the field the outfield players will be based. A starting lineup for soccer contains eleven players, but for conversation purposes, the goalkeeper is always the assumed eleventh player. Therefore, formations are given in a set of numbers whose value adds up to ten. Reading the field from back to front, starting with the defense, a “traditional formation” such as a 4-4-2 would have four defenders, four midfielders and two attackers.)