Governance is a lot like cropping; if you don't act on time you can end up with an expensive mess. But keep on top if the emerging issues and everyone benefits from your perseverance and attention to detail.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Last month I attended a not-for-profit workshop with the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Horsham. Re-learning the fiduciary responsibilities of directorship was valuable and my take-home message was "what gets tolerated gets repeated". Even though I participated from a school council perspective, I left the course thinking more about my role in our farm business.
Our local, casual farm labourer has just found another job. So again farm labour is our repeated discussion. We talk about who in our district may be available to transition from their sheep work in spring to our header driving in summer.
As grain growers, harvest and sowing are our peak times which leaves an experienced full time employee with months of insufficient work. We don't have a spare farmhouse which limits who we can attract. If we can't find a replacement worker soon I suspect that I will be upgrading my truck license to HC and carting grain this harvest.
Both farmers and board members for non-for-profit organisations are required to think strategically about their changing operating environment for their future business success.
The governance trainer said that Australia's economy is preparing for a taxi-less and Uber-less public transport system. Driverless cars will move people to a place to get on a bigger driverless vehicle, to take them to a driverless train, and so on.
But as a farmer at Telangatuk East it's hard to draw a parallel with public transport infrastructure. Agricultural robotics and telematics will become standard.
Driverless trucks will be dispatched for predicted purchasing by using soil moisture and machinery algorithms for fuel, fertilizer and inputs. Humans will be still be needed. The skills we have will be different though, and data will underpin the system that allows farmers to trade.
Of course, this blue-sky dreaming doesn't help right now as we look for someone to work for us over harvest. Our kitchen table chat about who can we find to work for us, will one day be replaced with a new set of issues.
I am attending a tech-conference in November so I look forward to seeing what these innovators are predicting to reduce what we repeat and tolerate as a farm business entity.
But in the meantime do I need to get my HC truck license? For this harvest, probably yes.
