S4 ● E121 Matt's going home...

Everything's always changing and some big changes in our planning and we're perhaps coming up with a new model for ag school. So we've been talking a lot about having a lot of conversations about context and, and about life goals and what we're really up for doing and how to work together and all of this kind of stuff. And some big news has happened. Matt's decided not to join us next year. And basically that's a big shock for all of us. But it's really cool actually. It's, you know, basically Matt's been amazing here and has been one of the most dedicated and broad viewed people we've had here. He's always amazed me how in touch he's been with the people side of things and being able to sort of help overview and be a right hand man to me, as it were, in a role sort of like Nicholas has had here every year and really have oversight over some of the processes that go on that maintain and support people who come to the farm. Just like how we deal with portioning food and making sure space is hygienic and clean and really stepping up to help instruct people to take responsibility and look after the space they're in. This year Matt's been incredible with sales and with the market gardens too. I think the last half of the season he spent very little time in the gardens because of the sales models that we're running and putting a lot of extra hours in. And you know, he's worked in such a dedicated way and I think you've seen from the videos over the season, he's just an amazing friend and person to have at the farm. So I'm really sad and I think, you know, it's been a shock for all of us. But essentially our job is finding solutions to whatever comes up and responding to whatever's going on in life. And that's life now. That's what we're all doing all the time. And it's something we thrive on here too. And so this is an opportunity to restructure things. I mean, there's no love lost there. I mean, Matt's a dear friend and he's really excited to go to Canada and start his own thing. He's a few years older than me and part of these conversations we've been having about context has really clarified for him his desire to have family. And the idea of committing to a longer term phase here, even if it's two or three years, just seems unrealistic in his life goals to start a family. To nurture a relationship and to set up his own project in Canada. I'm really excited. I think Matt's got awesome capabilities and not just in the farming sense, but in the people management, people relations and sales, etc. And I know he's going to thrive and prosper in whatever he puts his mind to. And I think it's really, I feel really honored to have had amazing people at the farm and Matt's been one of the best and you know, I hope he finds his footing there. I know that Canada's got strange quota system so the enterprises he can run, he has to buy quotas to have laying hens, for example. He's talked about laying hens and market gardens and was writing a business plan before he came this year and was looking to go home to start that up. And I think the invitation at the start of the year when I started talking about this idea of changing the business structure just really, you know, enveloped his thinking into thinking about this place more. And we know he loves it here. But longer term, you know, as you're reaching 40, there's life decisions to make and we totally respect that and understand that and that's why we're making these changes for ourselves too. So it's fun. I mean, we're going deeper into the planning now, looking at the numbers for next year and it's leading to an opportunity to fast track the sort of model I've been thinking of for reinventing farm school, reinventing ag school. I went to ag school myself and left basically with more questions than answers. And I genuinely don't believe that ag school has the answers for the type of innovative small scale entrepreneurial farming that I think the future of food security really relies upon. And so yeah, we've been talking about it and it's fun because Matt's still here and we're here for another month nearly till we go to town Thailand together. And so he's participating in the meetings, you know, as normal and he's, you know, not lost any focus to the farm as it were. He's out selling right now actually to the restaurant that we sell a lot of vegetables to. But I really like this idea. So Nicholas is still in and you know, he's definitely wanting to be here next season and beyond that we just don't know we're going to see how it goes. But for Johanna and I, we've been talking about, you know, this desire I have to go sailing in a few years, maybe five years time and the desire to like attract people On a longer term basis, people that can really know their way around the farm, but also know the back end and deliveries and how to do accounting so that they could potentially be here in the winter and give us some rest from the farm. So a model I like just reading, touching on the recent video, looking at George Henderson's work is this idea of giving people farm training over several seasons. Because we see like there's some people that come here that just aren't actually up for hard graft and farming and that's their reality check and they check out and there's other people who come and get a lot from their time here and there's some people that naturally come back many times and you know, we have five or six people that drop in every year and some of them stay longer term, some of them, you know, just visiting. But it's, it's an interesting idea in my mind as we're putting all of our training online and I think that's where the majority of our training will go just because it offers scope for me to mentor people over a much longer period where they can absorb more information, do the work in the background, designing their enterprises, designing their landscapes and I can actually offer tangible feedback in a way that, you know, on an on farm course you can't do because there's just too many people, not enough time. And these things take time to organize and plan. So I like the model. I'm going to see how it goes this winter and if it's, you know, if people think it sucks, I'm not going to continue it. But I've got a feeling it's going to be the best training we've been able to offer. Something I've always thought about is it's very hard to find a place like this with all the different enterprises going on here and the sort of structure that we have in the middle of a working, profitable farm. There aren't many places to go and get rounded education and field based experience in this way in Europe. So something I'm considering is a multi year training program that replaces the need for ag school for people that want to do this entrepreneurial, small, intensive farming. Because this stuff isn't taught at ag school, certainly not around here and not in the ag schools I've been to. And the way I see structuring that, something to bear in mind is Sweden has very high taxes. If I want to take out €30,000 in my bank, having paid my taxes, that's going to cost the company around €60,000 of enterprise profits to be able to pay that salary. And so to have a few of us on full time salary and then other people at the farm, it costs a lot of money. I mean, we're talking about enterprise profits over €200,000, which is a lot in a very short season. And so something that's excited me about this whole thing is to see how far we can push the boundaries of high intensity diverse farm production in a small space. I really feel it's so important that we make a move back to diverse farms. You know, we've seen the rise of so many single enterprise. You know, market gardens, for example, has gained so much popularity in the recent years. But I think true, as I would define it, farming is, is mixed farming and includes perennial crops, annual crops and animal crops. And it's, you know, that's how farming has been done for thousands of years, if you read old farming accounts, and for very good reason, for nutrient cycles, for having food in the larder adequate for human diet and to have ecosystem processes supporting and functioning the building of soil and restoring of habitat, etc. So the way I'd like to structure this model so far, this might change at any time. I mean, things change all the time as we clarify things and get deeper into certain conversations. But I'd like it that people are rewarded according to their experience and knowledge in this time, place and circumstance. So something I'm considering now is three different layers where people come here as an intern for five months. It'll be so May, June, July, August, September, and we might take two or three interns next year who are on a stipend there. You get their food and accommodation and some small stipend that they leave with cash in the bank to go off and do the next thing. And then if they came back the next year, then they would be on a 40 or 50% profit share of a full salary and they would need to be here seven months. It's a seven month season, we're saying. And then if they came back a third year, they would be on the full profit share, which is eight months. That includes a month of winter, looking after the farm in the winter on your own. So, you know, at that point people need to know every system on the farm and that's one of our requirements, that everyone learns all the systems on the farm. And the way I want to do it like this is so that it encourages people to come longer term, you know, make this a career move. Like, yeah, you want to get into farming and you're inspired by what we've got going on here, then it's going to take two or three years to really master all those things, including all the back end planning and business stuff and, you know, sales and accounting and all that stuff. And so that supports Johanna and I to, you know, build up support that hopefully within a few years we'll have a solid team that could take the farm on and we actually leave for a season or more, whatever. And it also deals with like, because each year some of the core team leave and we always end up with a different team at the end of the year than the start of the year. And that's understandable. And I think a lot of people, you know, it just doesn't suit them. And some people, you know, have very different expectations to what we put out. And we try to be really clear in that. But it's, you know, it's life, it's. It's the way it is and it will always be that way, I think. But this model would really support people to make very conscious choices and, you know, take responsibility for their learning pathway, but at the same time provide tangible value back to us. We're running some of the numbers. It's, you know, to have Nicholas and Johanna and myself on a full salary with say someone on a second year salary and people, people on stipend is expensive and we need to make a safe plan to see if we can honor that. I think all of the profit shares would be risk based. There wouldn't be set salaries and it would be based on the production numbers and how well we manage the enterprises. So everyone rises and falls together, as it were. There's no one getting more than someone else. And it would revolve around everyone sharing all responsibilities. Like I've talked about in past videos of doing an animal chore on rotation over, you know, every month or whatever and then coming back to the Gardens. But with Matt leaving and that full salary not required, I mean, that salary can go into paying people coming back for their second season and go towards covering stipends for interns and paying food costs, etc. But it does free up some of the economy. I mean, you know, to have four of us on full salary is you'd need €240,000 profit to pay those salaries. And so, you know, minus one of them. It does make it a little easier. And I think it's, it's all good, you know, like, I feel like it's an exciting time to really get into this. We're now compiling all the figures for the running Costs and overheads of the business, which is very complex in our case. And we're starting to build sketches of what the year might look like and it might be that we run less broilers next year. We're scaling up to 1600 hens and that's quite significant. That should bring 60, €70,000 of profit at the end of the year. But then the hens is a funny one because it runs April to April. So actually, the hens that we have in the tunnel right now will be laying from January 1st till May or so. When the new flock come, their eggs will be obviously in next year's economy and only some of the production of those larger flock will fit into 2018. So it's really a numbers game. And, you know, I'm not putting this out there as a defined model yet, but it's what I'm excited about. You know, on the back of hearing that Matt's moving on and I'm really glad we've got a holiday booked in Thailand, because I feel like it's going to be hard to say goodbye to Matt. You know, I know he's going to get full on into whatever he's doing. So it's. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be back at some point, but it's been an amazing contribution to the farm and we're going to spend a bit of time now going through garden notes and Carla that was here made some really nice notes from her process this year and just compile a seed order, get the seed order in soon, hopefully within a week now. And once we get the numbers tied down a bit, I can do a video talking about that a bit and how we decide to put things out there. We probably won't release the applications for interns or apprentices or whatever we call that for a while yet. I think we need to, you know, take time to let things sit in. And it's nice having this month with the guys and Johanna to have conversations that really open up different doors and let them sink in. You know, it's not a planning procedure that you can cram into a few days and there's bits of it you can. Like making the market garden seeding calendar and year planner, that's a few days work and then we're done. But the overall picture is very complicated because of the way this business works and we have so many enterprises and the balance and cash flow and everything is the next level of that. And then there's an exciting phase of going through all the sort of modifications to the enterprises that are going to shave time off them and that's going to be really exciting for me. That's where my brain is most turned on actually, like finding ways to optimize systems. So interesting times ahead and I just want to update on that because that's some pretty major news. And just to honor Matt and say thank you so much for all the amazing contributions and obviously you'll always be welcome and well remembered here. And I love it here in the way that, you know, stories are told year after year of things that happen and people and, you know, the qualities they brought here. And yeah, I think Matt's going to be cherished forever. So thanks Matt for all you've contributed and I know our viewers will miss you actually because a lot of them enjoy seeing you too. So thanks for all your inputs on the videos too. And that's it for today. Just a video to update that and I'm working in my office transforming that space and just tidying up some odds and ends on this beautiful sunny afternoon. It's lovely weather this week. We've got sun but cold weather in the mornings. Thanks as always for watching our videos and let us know thoughts and suggestions for future videos in the comments below. And you can find out more in our book. As always, Making Small Farms Work. And we got our new site up. That's where you buy ebooks and the hardcover book. Thanks for all the comments coming in about that from people around the world. I really appreciate that. And you can find out a lot more in our online training. So we have the self led version which has all the content, all the planning sheets, all the data. There's a lot of resources there that would save you years if you're setting out to put plan something like this yourself. And then we have the fully LED training that's taking place starting mid January and there's a whole load of people from all over the world on that. So it's going to be a great crew for peer support and radically overhauling some of your properties and designing others from scratch. So it's great to know there's a nice team assembling around that. Thanks for watching. See you in the next video. It.