Guest Blog

Our farm is in the midst of expanding by diversification. We dairy farm, crop farm and run a coffee and gelato shop in our hometown. We have a lot of irons in the fire, to say the least. And, noticeably enough, all three of those things are busiest (except for fall harvest) in the summer.

My brother and I both had the privilege of working off the farm after high school before we came back to take over the dairy. One of the things we learned in our experience in manufacturing settings was in regard to equipment usage, specifically in terms of the numberof hours a day a piece of equipment was used.

When I go from my home in Minnesota to Ames, Iowa, for business meetings, Interstate 35 is a good road to take. When I go to the Black Hills of South Dakota for vacation, however, taking I-35 would be a terrible choice. Driving all day on I-35 would leave me farther away from the Black Hills than when I started.

My husband and I officially bought the cows three years ago. We’ve been learning together, working together and making the farm ours, slowly but surely. We took over the farm in the middle of a long downturn of the industry, and Michigan (where we live) was hit especially hard. We joked about why would we want to start farming in good times? Our mantra has been, “If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.”

Before we discuss some of the benefits of servant leadership, l would like to help you clearly understand leadership.

I want to start this with saying, trust me, I know we all have to market our products. But in this article I want to discuss the tactics we use to promote our products and how they can harm the image and greater good of agriculture.