Turnover, a word that strikes fear into managers everywhere…How do I recruit new hires, how do I onboard them, how will they fit with the team.  All legitimate questions we have when replacing somebody and that can keep us up at night.  On our farm we recently for differing but very legitimate reasons lost two seasoned team members, one had been here for 13+ years and the other 7+ years.  Neither of these employees were terminated by the farm and there was no warning that the change was…

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There is something that has been on my mind about our industry and production agriculture in general for quite some time that I believe that we need to reflect on as we try to educate the public on our way of life, and to be a face that they put on their food.  It was one of the reasons that I initially left the industry and the reason I was leary to come back to the industry and something that still worries me as the industry tries to be more transparent due to consumer demand.  It is the…

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As mentioned in my previous post my family spent a couple of years working through how we wanted to transfer the farm from a management and personal perspective. Now we were ready to move on to the actual financial and legal mechanics of the farm transfer.



To start this process we met with our team; attorney, lender, and tax accountant. My dad's original thought was that the two of us boys would buy the dairy portion of the business from him, including the 30 acre site that contains… Continue

Prepping for spring field work.

http://wisconsindairyfarmer.com/2014/02/02/winter-office-work/