The holiday season is upon us. Everyone is bustling around buying gifts, making treats to share at holiday gatherings and enjoying seeing friends and family from near and far. As the new year approaches, thoughts of New Year’s resolutions come to mind. This year, make your resolution about conservation on your farm.
When making resolutions, most people have grand ideas that are too big to be realistic, so when they don’t happen, they are forgotten, and no changes are made. But when a plan is implemented with specific steps for smaller goals, that bigger dream starts to become a reachable goal.
Make a plan
The first thing you need is a plan. Contacting your local soil and water office is the best place to start. We can take that dream and help you break it down into smaller attainable goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase livestock numbers, start small with soil samples to improve the quality and quantity of available forage for the livestock. Then, we can help develop a grazing management plan to help you utilize your available pasture and set up rotations to keep forage healthy and productive. We can also help you with water issues, developing springs, extending pipelines or even ideas for temporary water. Once we implement all the small goals, increasing animal numbers with enough healthy forage to graze them will be a feasible goal.
The Natural Resource Conservation Service can help with financial planning on the farm. Your local office can tell you what programs and grants might be available to help with your farm goals. Planning for success and making financially wise decisions is the best way to make your farms’ goals attainable.
Set small goals
So many times we think big ideas aren’t realistic and just forget about them and keep farming the way we have for generations. It has been proven time and time again that small changes can make huge improvements in the conservation practices we ultimately want to achieve.
In any production operation, change takes time and will require patience and persistence on your part. There are goals that you will be able to achieve in the first year and then there are the goals that are further away. Make sure to set goals that are realistic for your farm size.
Prioritize your goals and the vision you have for your farm and focus on what is most important. Every small accomplishment will get you one step closer. Setting a reasonable timeline for your plan will help grow your operation, as well as make you more profitable and marketable in the long run.
Utilizing the resources available to you through your local soil and water office, NRCS and Farm Service Agency will get you even closer to your vision. Together we can make your dreams a reality.
So, for the month of December, enjoy making cherished memories with friends and family, and be ready to hit the ground running come the new year. Here’s to another great year of conservation!
Noble Soil and Water Conservation District would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season.
