Order begets order. And, sadly, order takes energy to maintain, because without energy, things tend towards chaos.

And chaos, wherever it exists - in the field, in the shop, in the office - can be overwhelming. You can't get on top of everything all at once, so you don't get on top of anything. And because the chaos surrounds any small bit of order you do carve out... well, chaos is always nipping at order's edges, and small bits of order have more edges than large bits of order, and things tend to fall apart.

Unfortunately, chaos doesn't just exist without energy. It sucks energy out of the everything that has to interact with it. Weedy fields take more energy to harvest, more water to irrigate, and more inputs to fertilize. Chaotic shops make it hard to find tools when you need them, to maintain equipment so that it doesn't break down, and to fix stuff quickly when it breaks. Disorganized papers and messy desks make it hard to access needed information and track important commitments (like bills).

And they all create resistance. Clean, orderly spaces and systems invite us in and invite others to participate; messy spaces do just the opposite.

My recipe for dealing with chaos? Carve out some order. Get one space, however small, that feels good - that invites you to participate - and ignore the rest for the moment. Weedy fields? Get one bed cleaned up, really well, and commit to keeping it clean. Chaotic shop? Clear off one workbench. Throw the tools and hardware spread across it into a bucket - it's no worse then having them spread across the workbench. Disorganized office? Clear out one file drawer (put it all in a box, if you have to), buy some file folders, and start using them. Get a little success. Let it feel good. And work your way out from there.

Over the years, I've spent some time dabbling in the world of FileMaker database design. (Maybe more than dabbling - I built several databases for my own use when I organized presentations for the MOSES Organic Farming Conference and for managing my farm, and helped design and implement a large project for event and customer management at MOSES.) Recently, I was reminded of a problem that I learned about through the database world - the PICNIC problem.

Sometimes, computer-techie types run into problems that they just can't solve through programming, file structuring, or procedure writing. Often, this is a PICNIC problem - Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.

In any case... I was working on some computer-y issues this past week and getting very frustrated - to the point where I actually picked up the phone to call customer service to try to get some help, whereupon I promptly discovered that the problem was staring me right in the face.

Problem in chair, not in computer.

I spent a lot of time on my farm assuming that the problem was external - that the workforce was lazy, that this one customer couldn't manage their inventory, that the tractor dealer didn't think I was important enough to make me a priority.

Over time - and through a lot of personal and professional pain - I learned that as the manager of the farm, the solutions had to lie with me. Employees not doing what I want them to do? I needed to give them better tools, better structures, and better motivations to get what I wanted out of them. Customer couldn't manage inventory? I needed to help them understand the dates in our lot code, inspect my product in their cooler, and share ways that other customers managed their inventory. Tractor dealer didn't think I was important enough? I needed to find a new tractor dealer.

Gradually, I learned that the problem was with me, not with the people and things that I was interacting with. And even if the problem really did belong to them, I had to take responsibility for making change.

(The funny thing about a PICNIC problem is that if the system design actually took into account human limitations, there wouldn't be a problem in the chair. Can you design your farm systems to take into account your own human limitations?)

Every winter, I look forward to farming conferences, where I get to see old friends, get new ideas, make new connections, and find inspiration for the coming year. I can’t imagine farming without that regular coming together of our smaller and extended communities.

And I’ve never been to a farming conference where I didn’t take away enough information to pay back the time and money I spent to get there. Even for the most expensive conferences, the investment pays back quickly, and the new knowledge becomes a permanent asset that provides returns year after year.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to go a conference and let the knowledge slip right on by. Game-changing suggestions, enriching connections, and even bigger opportunities can easily  slip right by, especially when you have to return from an event and get right into the greenhouse or the field. By approaching a conference like an investment, you can make the most of the opportunities and information that come your way.

Just like anything having to do with farming, you dramatically increase your likelihood of great results by taking a little time to prepare.

Set Goals - Once you’ve decided to go to a conference, decide what questions you hope to get answered. I find that it’s easier to get concrete results if you identify specific questions, rather than just an area of interest: “How should I organize my packing shed to maximize workflow and ergonomics?” rather than, “I want to know more about packing shed organization.”

Plan Your Time - Take time to review the workshops, and plan your attendance. Often, organizers post the conference program, with expanded workshop descriptions and updated schedules, in the days or weeks before an event. Figure out where you are likely to get your questions answered, and what presenters you might want to connect with after their workshop is over.

The exhibit hall can provide a rich source of information, as well. Take time to review the exhibitor listings to decide who you want to visit, and what you hope to get out of each conversation.

Prepare Your Kit - Finally, pack your business cards, a pen, and some paper. When that one key idea or one life-changing contact comes along, you don’t want to be stuck without the tools you need to make the most of it.

The show isn’t all about work, but a few key actions can dramatically increase the value you get out of the event.

Engage the Material - You can increase your retention by actively engaging with each workshop you attend, rather than passively receiving information. Interpret key points for how they apply to your specific situation, rather than just writing them down - rather than just writing, “Point shovel points down to move more soil into the row,” add a note: “- would help with weedy broccoli!”

At the end of each talk, I like to take a moment to distill the entire talk down to one key point: “I can build organic matter on my farm by allowing cover crops to get through flowering,” or, “I really need to put together an income statement and balance sheet for my farm, effective January 1.”

Identify Actions -  I take prolific notes (it works for me, your mileage may vary), so it can be hard to identify the concrete actions that a speaker helped me realize I need to take. Even where I don’t write down a ton of information, I like to write a dash (-) to the left of each action item; when I scan my notes after the conference, I can quickly identify items to put on my task list, and show that I’ve done it by turning the - into a +.

Ask Questions - Please, ask questions! Speakers dread having a disengaged audience, and there are few things more unnerving than leaving the requested ten minutes for questions at the end of a talk and facing a silent audience. Remember the questions you wrote down in preparation? Now is the time to get them answered. Questions don’t have to be limited to the material just presented,

Make Connections - Be approachable when you aren’t in a session. Don’t immerse yourself in your phone or the conference materials. Likewise, approach people. Everybody’s there to make connections, and a room full of strangers can be a lonely place. Walk right up, introduce yourself, and ask about the other person.

Make the Most of Connections - Use your business cards liberally - handing out a card is a great invitation to get one from somebody else. Take a moment to write down a note on the back of the card so that you remember the context, or something that you would like to follow up with. The value of a conference connection isn’t always apparent, and I’ve benefitted from connections with connections over the years.

Process Connections in Real Time - at the end of each day, empty the business cards from your wallet, quickly sort them into three piles: the first for those that you absolutely plan to follow up with, the second for those that you want to put into your address book, and the third for, “who is this person?” Throw the third pile away, and keep the other two accessible for when you get home.

For the cards in the first group, write a note on the back about your intended action - “send info on L245 for sale,” or “ask for contact for greenhouse company.”

You’ll get the most from the conference if you follow up in real time, while the information and connections are still fresh. Reviewing your notes, information, and connections shortly after the event is a great way to increase retention and internalize important messages - and makes certain you don’t get caught up in the work that’s waiting when you get back before you have a chance to fully realize the value of being at the event. By changing the context and the format of the information, your brain uses different pathways to log the same information, improving your ability to remember and access it later.

Identify Actions - Shortly after you get home, pull out those notes. Review the actions you identified, decide if they are still meaningful, and put them into your task management system.

Follow Up with Connections - For the cards that you made notes on about following up, make that happen. Waiting until weeks after the conference allow you to slip from their minds, and any urgency they feel to respond to you can easily go by the wayside. Add everybody else to your address book, and consider reaching out to them on Facebook or through a quick email.

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A good conference can be a great place to get inspired, chase some intellectual rabbit trails, and meet a ton of new people - but that’s not worth the price of admission all by itself. Those of us in the world of farming have chosen a life where knowledge and connections can turn into real actions to improve the planet, provide real food, and build community, as well as to provide a return to our businesses. A little bit of additional effort - before, during, and after the event - can provide a real boost to the outcomes a conference creates on your farm and in your life.

Unfortunately, most of the discussion around scaling up has to do with growing more acres, rather than doing better on the acres we’ve already got. Farming fewer acres leaves us room to grow our own fertility, and to increase our weed control through the judicious use of cover crops and careful tillage – and doing better at growing at your current scale is a prerequisite for increasing the number of acres under production.

Not to mention, increasing yields has amazing compounding effects, especially when it comes to harvest. Totes fill up faster when you have more spinach per square foot or more beans per plant. Plus, crops get back to the packing house and into the cooler more quickly – not only do you have more vegetables faster, you get a higher quality product, too.

Time and time again, I work with farmers who are failing to get top yields because they are missing two key elements of horticulture: weed control and irrigation.

Weed control pays dividends by doing more than just reducing competition. In fields with great weed control, crops like spinach and cilantro have fewer yellow cotyledons and dead leaves, resulting in faster harvests. And if you have plans to mechanize your harvest in any way, good weed control is an absolute must.

Likewise with water – fresh vegetables are made of H2O, and lots of it. The old rule of thumb of an inch of water a week is just that – a rule of thumb. Watering needs vary according to heat, humidity, and stage of growth. Optimum yields may require much more than an inch of water per week – some growers I know apply three or more inches of water during critical growth phases.

Before investing in anything else, take a moment to look into these two critical systems on your farm this fall. Too often, huge improvements can be made without resorting to huge investments – the real issue is the allocation of time and energy into these areas. Doing more with what you have will always be a surer avenue to success – financial, personal, and ecological – than scrambling to do more with more.

If you've got weeds that have already made and ripened seeds still standing in your fields, consider letting them stand through the winter.

A 2006 Iowa State University study suggested that making weed seeds less accessible to predators resulted in increased weed densities the following year.  Tilling your weed seeds into the soil buries them, and keeps them away from scavenging field mice and birds over the winter. Leaving them standing makes them accessible to birds throughout the winter, and shattered seeds can fall on successive layers of snow throughout the winter.

Standing weeds also slow the wind down as it blows over your field. And the wind then drops some of the snow it’s carrying.

It may not feel as pretty or as clean as a freshly tilled field going into winter, but leaving your weeds standing should reduce your weeds the next year, and provide a better moisture boost for your soil.

October is a busy month. Anywhere but the south, it’s time to get the crops in, get the garlic planted, and get the fields ready for a winter’s nap and spring’s hustle.

Actually, every month’s a busy month for farming. And just about every other business out there.

When the pressure’s on, it’s easy to get focused on marking tasks off the list before the deadline bears down on you. Add in the additional pressure of keeping costs under control, and it’s even easier to try to get the work done with the bare minimum of resources – especially labor.

But it’s not enough to get the tasks marked off the list. If you want to maximize outcomes, you’ve got to take the time and expend the resources to get the tasks done right.

Pilots go over the pre-flight checklist even when they’re running late because the cost of a less-than-optimum outcome when you’re miles up in the air isn’t a pleasant thought to contemplate.

Even when the fall harvest is in full swing, take the time to get things right – especially where consequences are significant. When you undercut the carrots before harvest, use a spotter to pull out roots every fifteen feet  to check the depth of your undercutter. When you plant garlic, make certain the spacing and row markings are correct, and make your crew take the time to separate every clove. Take the time to through the tools and materials you need before you head out to cover crops ahead of a frost. Keep checking the oil in your tractor.

A focus on outcomes will create long-term results. Your carrots will have nice tips, and you won't discover missing ends that keep them out of the wholesale market or make them look sad at market. Good clove separation means more big bulbs. And checking the oil in your tractor every day - too busy or not - not only keeps it running, but gives you a moment to breathe, take notice, and think about your next move.

The price that a customer is willing to pay has everything to do with how much value they ascribe to your product.

It has nothing to do with your cost of production and marketing.

The cost of production and marketing determines how much you have to charge for your product in order to not lose money, or in order to make a certain margin or realize certain returns from your business.

But it has nothing to do with the price a customer is willing to pay.

Unless, that is, you decide to make the production and marketing part of the story that adds value to the product you are selling. The fact that it costs more isn’t interesting, and isn’t likely to add value to your product. The story of why is interesting, if you make it so.

My daughter just started algebra, and as I’ve looked over her shoulder at her homework, I’ve been reminded of the best math teacher I ever had. On our first day of Trigonometry at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School, Mr. Ames showed a video of Galloping Gertie, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940.

“The engineer who designed that bridge,” he said, “got ‘partial credit.’ And I don’t give partial credit. Your answers are right, or they are wrong.”

In much of agriculture, you get partial credit. If you fail to take good care of your corn crop, you may suffer reduced yields, but rarely ever a complete crop failure. Even in livestock, you may have high mortality or reduced feed conversion, but rarely ever an absolute loss.

But in the world of vegetables, absolute losses are much more common. Buttoned broccoli, beetle-chewed arugula, and lettuce with rusty-butt are all unsaleable. Weedy salad greens can’t be harvested effectively, and nobody wants bolted cilantro or tomatoes covered in sooty mold growing on aphid juice.

You’ve got to get it right, and you’ve got to get it right every step of the way. Seeders and cultivators must be adjusted correctly, soil fertility and pest control need timely attention, and employees need to know precisely how to get a twist tie on a bunch of kale and get it into the cooler. It isn’t enough go through the motions.

If you’re going to settle for partial credit, don’t plan on success – in Mr. Ames’ trigonometry class, or on the farm.

(By the way, the Tacoma Narrows bridge bounced and rolled in the wind every day until it collapsed. And the wind was only 40 miles per hour the day Galloping Gertie collapsed – not an exceptional gale by any means. Accepting ongoing less-than-good results can be one way to set yourself up for failure.)

When customers complain, it can feel like a blow to the gut. You’ve put your heart and soul into growing and delivering your crops, and after that kind of effort, rejection really hurts.

But complaints result from one of two things: either you’ve got a problem with your product, or you’ve got a problem with your customers.

If customers complain about the quality of the product they get from you, you need to determine why they’ve gotten low quality produce from you. Did you pack rotten vegetables in their boxes? Do you lack the cooling capacity or procedures to get product cold fast, reducing respiration and increasing shelf life? Do you understand the commercial requirements for the product you are selling? Do you need to up your disease-control and insect-control game, or make changes to your soil management practices? Do you have what you need to maintain the cold chain – or at least a semblance of a cold chain – from the time your product leaves the farm to the time the customer takes control of it?

Or does the problem lie on their end? Did your farmers market customer leave their salad mix in a hot car for hours before it found its way to their refrigerator? Does your wholesale buyer adequately manage their stock rotation? At Rock Spring Farm, I offered a no-questions-asked refund or replacement the first time a customer complained about quality issues; but if customer-specific quality issues arose again, I turned into a detective to figure out the source of the problem.

If customers complain about prices, either you aren’t providing the value they expect, or you’ve got the wrong customers. Value – what a bundle of goods and services is worth to a customer – has little or no relationship to your particular cost of production; it’s a function of customer perception. You need customers who value local, organic, family-farmed vegetables (if that’s what you’re offering), and you need to provide them with a quantity and quality that matches what they expect. No small feat!

The price you need for your products is based on your cost of production and marketing. But the price you get for your product comes down to value.

And value is subjective. In my first year at Rock Spring Farm, I couldn’t get $1.00 per pound for our tomatoes at the Decorah, Iowa, farmers market – but I could sell exactly the same tomatoes for  $2.50 a pound in Rochester, Minnesota! The same tomato, sold in the same way, had much more value for my Rochester customers. Guess where I sold my tomatoes?

I also found that I could sell my salad mix at a higher price than my competitors in Rochester. Why? Because it looked better in the bag and lasted longer in the refrigerator than the other salad greens at the market. We consistently nailed the production on salad greens, and followed it up with great post-harvest handling. Same market, same crop, but with a significantly higher value.

If you aren’t getting the price you need for your products, you’ve got four choices:

1. Reduce your cost of production, marketing, and distribution, so that you can charge a lower price for your current value proposition;
2. Decrease your value proposition;
3. Increase your value proposition; or
4. Find new customers.

To make money farming, you absolutely must match your value proposition to your customers.

In marketing, it pays to match the range of products and services you offer to the breadth of the market you offer them to.

Think about a triangle, with the point at the top. The point represents a narrow range of products and services, while the base of the triangle represents a very broad market – that’s how a company like Grimmway (the giant carrot producer) sells carrots: they’ve got a very narrow product offering (carrots), and they market them to everybody possible.

If you broaden out the product and service offerings (the point of the triangle) while keeping the market (the base of the triangle) the same, you end up with a square – a broad range of products marketing to a very broad marketplace. An extreme example would be growing everything from radicchio to Burbank Russet baking potatoes, and selling the whole lot to everyone from urban foodies to Iowa corn growers.

When you market with a square, it’s just plain hard to stand out from the crowd. Because the definition of value and quality varies with different segments of the market, it’s almost impossible to provide a wide range of products that is perceived as high value to a broad marketplace – so you end up competing on the basis of price, instead.

And that’s not sustainable.

Now, invert that triangle so that you’ve got a very broad range of products and services, but you’re marketing to a very narrow market. Most farmers in the organic and local food movements are already doing this to some extent by marketing to customers with an elevated commitment to those values. But too many small growers continue to try to be everything to everybody who might be interested in the product categories they have to offer.

You need diversity, but too much diversity at both the top and the bottom of the triangle becomes too difficult to manage effectively. Think about how to narrow the bottom of that inverted triangle: instead of marketing CSA shares to an entire city, what about marketing to a select neighborhood, or to a select self-identified community? Instead of marketing through a CSA, wholesale, and farmers market, what about picking one segment, and doing it really well?

The transition from July to August isn’t easy. It’s hot, the battle with the weeds isn’t getting any easier, and you’ve still got to get the turnips planted.

But that’s your problem, not your customer’s.

When you’re greeting a customer at farmers market, or writing a newsletter for your CSA, or engaging with your employees, don’t forget to smile. It’s a good life, people, and we’re all lucky to be here. Smiling reminds you, and everyone around you, that that’s true.

Every so often – especially as pea-picking season winds up and the bean-picking season gets started - I’ll hear a farmer or a manager say, “I’ll just make that person so miserable they’ll quit. That way I don’t have to fire them.”

I think this approach stinks.

First, it’s mean. And it lets everybody else on your crew or staff know that they don’t know where they stand. If you consistently dump somebody on the garbage jobs without telling them what’s going on, you aren’t just making them miserable, you’re demonstrating your inability to communicate clearly about your expectations and to hold people accountable for meeting them.

Second, it’s cowardly. Yes, firing people is a difficult thing to do. Get over it. You’re the boss. It’s your job to do the hard things, especially the emotionally hard things. Anybody can muck out a pig pen, but it’s another matter entirely to have a frank discussion with an employee about the termination of their employment.

Don’t make people miserable. Cut them free so that both of you can get on with it. It’s uncomfortable, horrible, and one-hundred percent the right thing to do.

Risk is the sum of probability and seriousness, less the preventative and contingent actions taken to reduce it.

To get all math about it:

Risk = Probability + Seriousness - (Preventative Actions + Contingent Actions)

In the context of food safety for fresh produce, it's easy to forget this. So many resources spell out the things we can do to mitigate risk - from washing your hands and keeping food off the floor to using sanitized pallets and requiring workers to bathe daily - without providing any context about the probability of contamination.

Prevention in food safety comes down to keeping the poop off of the food. Preventative actions vary in their effectiveness. For my money, good hand washing - thorough scrubbing in running potable water with soap and drying with a single-use towel afterwards - provides the single biggest risk reduction. Everything else (except not dumping raw manure on your vegetables) pales in consideration.

Operating under the assumption that our produce is contaminated, we take contingent actions to keep the bacteria from spreading or growing. Washing in running water, sanitizing wash water, and cooling produce to slow enzymatic activity all reduce risk.

Of course, the seriousness of a food safety outbreak is high - E. coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella enterica can kill people. But the probability is relatively low - in the 2006 spinach - E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak, only three people died, and a couple hundred were sickened, despite over 250 billion servings of fresh bagged salad greens having been sold in the United States that year.

Effective food safety plans leverage preventative actions that are relatively straightforward and common sense to reduce the risk of a contamination incident, and back them up with contingent actions that reduce the risk of a single contamination incident spreading or multiplying.

When you are considering a food safety plan for your farm, focus on those preventative and contingent actions that yield a high return. A series of one-percent reductions in risk will add up, but you get far more bang for your buck by focusing first on those actions that yield big results.

When I started as a white belt in Taekwondo, I felt like a bumbling klutz - forming a proper fist and putting my hips into a punch didn't come naturally, much less trying to move my left leg in a sidekick. Four years later, I don't require the kind of careful instruction for every new move that I did for those first kicks, punches, and knifehand strikes. My body understands how the different moves all fit together, and what once felt like advanced fumbling has become second nature.

The motions of vegetable farming require a different set of motor skills than texting, driving, and typing, and many employees don't arrive on the vegetable farm with a ready ability to adapt. If you are able to harvest quickly yourself - and I hope you are! - pay special attention to exactly how to do it: put your thumb here, position your wrist this way, slice towards/away from you. Then share that information with your crew, explaining that this is exactly how to do the job at hand. As your people learn the fundamentals of bunching, cutting, and trimming, they will find their own unique styles and be more able to adapt to new crops.

Some hints for moving faster, whether you are just starting out or want to refine your skills:

• Drag containers rather than pushing them.
• If the last motion of harvesting leaves the crop in your left hand, you should be working from left to right, so that your left hand is trailing you.
• Keep the container near the hand that the product ends up in, and never cross your body with your hands.
• Keep supplies like twist ties and rubber bands right at hand, next to the hand that grabs them.
• Don't set down your tools; if you are putting a twist tie on a crop that you cut with a knife, learn to hold the knife while you put the tie on.
• Keep tools sharp; if you can feel the knife when you cut yourself, it isn't sharp enough (but don't bleed on the produce).
• Track progress from week to week throughout the season where employees can see it; that will provide an reinforcing feedback loop for your team.