Holistic Decision-Making Removes Stress and Uncertainty
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
When Nena Hammer joined the Regenerative Agriculture Mentorship Program (RAMP) in Arkansas in 2023, she was curious what she might learn. This program was taught by HMI’s Certified Educator Linda Pechin-Long and was part of a Southern Sustainable Research & Education (SSARE) grant in collaboration with the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT).
“I was at Cobblestone Farm in Arkansas as the farm manager for their non-profit farm,” says Nena. “I thought the program sounded good so I signed up. Outside of Cobblestone, my husband and I were developing plans for our own farm, Hammertime Farms & Forage.”
The RAMP program helped step participants through how to set a holistic goal and learn the decision-testing questions to test on-farm decisions as well as learn key forage assessment tools like completing a STAC analysis as well as develop “Safe to Fail” trials and SWOT analyses.
“We found the holistic planning really helpful for figuring out our goals and values, where my husband, Tim, and I aligned and what we wanted out of the farm,” says Nena. “We also found the ecological monitoring helpful and the way we looked at grazing as a tool and helping us figure out ways to increase biodiversity.”
Nena and Tim currently own 1.25 acres of land where they raise chickens and ducks and have a garden. But while they were taking the course they were also looking at a lease for 18 acres about one hour east of where they live.
“We talked about the lease for a couple of months,” says Nena. “Then we used the Holistic Management decision matrix to have a conversation and discuss what we wanted out of the property. As much as we loved the property, the lease terms weren’t a good fit and because of our lives right now it felt like a stretch. We had the tool to guide the discussion and make the hard decision to not take the lease.”
One of the reasons that Nena and Tim were not happy with the lease terms was that the lease stipulated that the farming had to target wholesale markets with at least 60% of land required to be in wholesale production. Clearly, the expectation of tractor farming was shaping this lease and Nena and Tim’s hearts weren’t in that kind of production. They wanted a native plant food forest instead. Additionally, the lease was set up as a lease only with no lease with option to own. It was also just a 5-year lease and there was no housing on the property. Given all these challenges and that the lease would put a dent in their limited savings, they decided not to pursue the lease.
“We also don’t have a lot of community in that area,” says Nena. “We do want to enrich the community in that area, but that was also a lot of a commute. Instead of commuting, we wanted to figure out how to extract more time for ourselves and for friends and family. Everything that was needed for transition would have wiped out that time and our resources.
“Had we not had these decision tools to make us slow down and look with a realistic viewpoint, we might have forged ahead with the lease.”
Stepping through the decision-making process meant that Nena and Tim had clarity about what was wrong with the lease and they are still looking at other options and also negotiating new terms of the lease they declined. “We are just taking the time to look at possibilities for 6-12 months down the road when things might be different,” says Nena. “As we revisited the idea a little bit, we thought about how expenses out there would be less and potentially we wouldn’t both need to commute, so we wouldn’t be so dependent on income from two jobs and we could be creating income from other sources.
“We used the decision testing tool again as we revisited the decision and asked ourselves how we felt about it now. We also used the enterprise analysis tool to look at the potential for the native crops already growing on the property if we can develop markets. We are using conservative numbers as we determine the market potential and the best cash crops. I’ve also been able to negotiate a 4-day work week to address some of the concerns about commuting time. We are being very clear about our values and not wanting to just ignore them.
“My day job is working for a food hub so I have access to information about the different accounts and who is buying what as we focus on marketing the native plants for wholesale accounts (groceries and restaurants) as well as looking at selling at the farmers markets. We are also exploring U-pick.
“We are also focusing on reducing debts and increasing savings to allow for potential investment when the time is right. And, because of our negotiating conversations, the owner is now open to the idea of lease with the option to buy.
“We know we need to redo the SWOT analysis we did during the course for our business as there is a lot of new information we’ve added. We are going back through all the tools we learned as we do this business planning. It’s great to have another year with Linda as part of this program, as the follow up year is very helpful. With these tools we can not only develop the business plan for selling the harvested plants, but also our forage consulting business.”
Nena and Tim are not short on ideas as they consider “crops” like the honey locust that grows abundantly in the Ozarks. “Lot of farmers wouldn’t want them because they have large thorns and grow aggressively,” says Nena. “But the beans are edible and there is sugar from the bean pod. We are still working on processing options to extract the sugar. Also, the honey locust can be used as livestock fodder and fixes nitrogen that would help with something like production of passion flower fruits. That would be a great combination along with having smaller trees like serviceberry, which feeds well off ground nut (hog nut) because they can use the serviceberry as a type of trellis.”
With a strong foundation in the Holistic Management decision-making process, Nena and Tim are off to a great start on developing a business plan that will help them take Hammertime Farms & Forage to the next level and help them find a new home to grow their business.
