Planning For Failure

When you are doing anything in life, you are never going to get it 100% right. It’s just part of the learning process. Whether you are learning a new skill, hobby, or job, you will screw something up. Even when you are a “professional”, you will probably screw something up eventually. And that is OKAY! While absolutely frustrating, it is also totally normal. But there are ways to get around it, and it’s called planning for failure. Everyone can benefit from planning for failure.

What Is Planning For Failure?

This may seem counter productive, right? It may even seem like you are “borrowing trouble” as my aunt would say. But there are a lot of times were you should ABOSLUTELY be planning for failure. Life isn’t easy, nor is is cut and dry. You can do everything 100% right and still fail.

While we don’t want to anticipate failure, you need to be ready and have back up plans…. and then more back up plans. I talked about Semper Gumby in my post about homestead flexibility, and it is no different when it comes to bringing an income to the farm. In fact, when you are relying on nature for your income, you should have plans coming out of your ears.

Today, I want to talk more about planning for failure when it comes to earning money on the homestead. For example, you should plan for crop failure, animals not producing, and market failures. Then I want to talk about how to build your back up plans. Now, everyone can benefit from these things, but this post is more geared for those that are looking to start marketing their homestead.

Planning For Crop Failure

On this topic, planning for failure starts at the seed level. If you are growing produce for market, you should be starting your own seeds. There are a ton of reasons for this that I go over in this blog post. But in that post, I don’t really talk about starting seeds for market. The reason is because that post is for a first time gardener/ seed starter. Not for someone looking to break into the farmer’s market side of farming.

When it comes to seed starting, I’m not necessarily talking about live plant sales here, though the principle is the same. Start more seeds than you think you’ll need. You will have seed failure. It may be because you watered too much or too little. Too much light or not enough. Or because you looked at the seed wrong…. Either way, because you started WAY more than you needed, a couple of cups that didn’t start isn’t going to derail your entire crop.

As you move into planting/ growing season, always make sure that you are looking at possibilities for failure. When we start pruning our tomatoes and peppers, we take the cuttings and put them in water. Once they have sprouted roots, we put them back into the soil. This helps not only save on seeds, but also weeks or months of growth. The reason for this is because you will have plants that stunt, get damaged or diseased, or some other issue that you didn’t even think to plan against. But you DID plan for failure and now you have a back up plan.

Planning For Animals Not Producing

When you have animals for market, no matter the animal or the market, you HAVE to plan for livestock to be livestock. This means that you may have goats that abort and you have lost not only the kids, but milk, meat AND money. Or your pig got pneumonia and you had to give antibiotics. Now, they can’t be sold as organic, antibiotic free.

At the end of the day, on my farm, an animal is the focus of every single thing we do. When we do our farm days, where photographers come out with their clients, we explain that if the goat isn’t feeling it, you don’t get to have pictures with the goat. Same thing with mommas and kids. If that momma is raising hell because you have her baby? You aren’t getting her baby. Period. Yes, it can a loss of income but that animal is more important.

All of these things happen and if you are not prepared, it could absolutely devastate your bottom line. But there are some things that you can do to prevent these failures. Things like good animal husbandry, rotational grazing, etc will help make sure that your animals are in peak condition and able to weather those storms. But sometimes, it still happens. So look at your operation and see where you can add some buffers. I’ll go into more detail below about my buffers for our animals.

Planning For Market Failures

There will absolutely be some catastrophe that happens when you are growing for market. It maybe a pest or disease that takes out your entire crop of green beans. It could be coccidiosis that stunts kids for market. Or it could be that the market doesn’t effectively market and no one shows up.

Some of these things you can’t do anything about. But there are things that you can do to make sure that you don’t get stuck holding the bag. To give you an example, we do not disbud our goats. We also no not necessarily take deposits on kids. However, if you decide you want one of my kids and you want it disbudded? You will be paying a full price, non refundable deposit for that kid.

Can you do that with farmer’s markets? Not really, but you can make sure to do your homework before signing up with that market.

When it comes to animals, it’s practicing good husbandry to ensure that you have done everything you can to prevent stunting or other poor growth.

Back Up Plans And Buffers

Sometimes, even the best laid plans go to hell in a hand basket. Make sure you have a back up plan. But what do those back up plans look like? How do you build in buffers? What in the world is a buffer?!

Have A Back Up Plan

For every situation, you should have a plan if things go sideways. Let’s take our last green bean crop as an example. Every year, we deal with Japanese beetles that absolutely LOVE our green beans. To ensure that we have plenty of green beans for ourselves and market, we plant green beans in 4 different locations on the property. Is it a pain in the ass? YES! But I would rather have 4 separate crops that I can get something out of than 1 main crop that gets nothing.

This year, we had 3 out of 5 does, abort. That means that I do not have goat kids or meat to sell. I do not have a back up plan for them. But my bottom line does not hang on the goat kids or meat. That is “extra” money. Because livestock is livestock. You cannot make huge decisions on a small herd. If we had a huge herd, then yes, we could make plans and have back up plans.

What Is A Buffer?

There are various ways to create buffers on your farm and the best one is diversification. Monocropping is for people with hundreds of acres. It is not for us that are on small acreage. That being said, don’t put all of your eggs in a produce basket. Or even a meat market basket. Make sure that you have plenty of ways for your farm to earn money.

One of the ways we do this is by offering Farm Days. This is our program that allows photographers to come to the farm, with their clients, and use the garden and greenhouse for photos. We charge per hour or per day. We also offer animals as add ons. This requires very little from us, unless animals are added to their day. And this allows us to make money even if our market crops don’t do well.

Another way that we diversify is by selling cut flowers. We sell cut flowers at markets, to florists, and offer to ship. We are not a florist, but it has done pretty well for us. Again, it doesn’t take a lot of extra work for us because I plant flowers all over the property. I love them. Plus, it brings pollinators to the farm.

Building Your Buffers

This is going to look vastly different for everyone. If you don’t want to sell cut flowers, that can’t be a buffer for you. If you don’t want to have people on your property, don’t host farm days. But think about all the different things you do that you could sell. This could be offering classes or starting a few more seeds to sell as plant starts.

Brainstorm the things you know how to do and figure out a way to monetize that. Do you take pictures? Sell digital prints on Etsy. Are you a pro at butchering chickens? Offer a class on it. Can you run a pressure canner with your eyes closed? Make a couple videos and offer a course.

Or offer coaching services! You have knowledge that other homesteaders are looking for!

Lastly, Plan For Bad Press

One more thing that could affect your ability to earn an income is bad press. Now, you won’t please everyone and no, the customer isn’t always right. You will have someone that has a problem with you, your product or your farm. But there are somethings that you can do about it.

First and foremost, be friendly! People are willing to overlook mistakes when you are not a total scrouge. Second, be honest and open. When you start trying to hide behind a facade of “I know everything“, people are going to see right through it. And third, communicate! Seriously, if you have a disastrous year for green beans, and you tell your customers that, they are going to understand.

But sometimes, you are going to get someone who just wants to complain and nothing you do is going to matter. I will tell you this from experience in my real job, as well as literally every interaction I have ever had with the public: your reputation is EVERYTHING. One of my bosses at my real job has said on many occasions, to me and others about me, that I am so honest that I will tell on myself. He knows that, no matter how uncomfortable it is, I will always tell the truth.

Because of my reputation, I have the backing of my department. Because of my reputation, I am making a name for myself in the homesteading world. I will be the first to tell you, this may not be the “right” way, but this is how I do it. This is what has gone wrong, and this is what has gone right. And I’m always willing to hear you out.

When it comes to your farm, you will make your own name for yourself and hopefully, it’s a good one.

Let me know how you plan for failures

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