Newsletter #6

Its a lovely, sunny late august evening here in East Cambridgeshire. The sun is low, trees are glowing and the temperature has dropped right down from the afternoon highs. Before I head off for the last dog walk of the day, I thought I would jot down some of the areas I like to reflect on, now harvest is complete.

I say harvest is finished, it is for me and the farming friend I am helping - but that would be a bit presumptuous of me to expect that was the case for everyone else. I ran a twitter poll on Sunday which showed 83% had finished or were nearly there.

If you are still going, good luck. Reach out for help if you need it, keep plugging away and I hope you get all your crops safely in the shed.

I also appreciate that for A LOT of farms, cereal harvest is only one of many harvests that happen in the business during the farming year! I have been there and it does feel like some years cereal harvest is the easy part! Having said that, I think the points below will be relevant to review after each crop has been harvested.

So, now crops are gathered in and the combine can be put away for another year - there are a few areas I like to spend a bit of time on before the focus turns to getting H24 crops into the ground. I appreciate the majority of farming businesses will be well on with cultivations now, cover crop drilling etc etc. However, I think if the farm manager / owner can take a morning to look back on harvest 23 whilst its all still fresh in the memory, then this can only be a good thing for all involved.

Wellbeing

First off, how are YOU doing? And how have the team fared after what can only be described as a terribly frustrating and challenging harvest. Take some time to consider how this season has affected everyone, be honest with yourself - have you and everyone else had enough time off? Do you need to schedule some R&R in before things get very busy again? It’s so so easy to just keep going and ride the wave of long days and late nights, but its nearly 2 months since harvest started and it will be another 2 months at least until drilling is finished - if time off is needed (and if you are being honest, I guess it will be) get it organised now so everyone knows where they stand over the next week or so.

Reflection

I would strongly suggest that sitting down for an hour, with a pen and pad and where you won’t be disturbed, and jotting down some stand out points from H23 will be time well spent. Do this asap, whilst thoughts are fresh in your mind. Focus on what went well, what crops / varieties / fields did well? Did certain team members really stand out and go the extra mile? Did certain machinery perform really well? Have you had some super backup from dealers? What about logistics and what worked well there?

And then go through all those areas again and make some notes on what maybe didn’t work quite so well?

I don’t think straight after harvest is the best time for a big team meeting and debrief to be honest - people can be tired and just want to focus on the next task. Maybe you could just encourage all the team to make a few notes for themselves and get a date in the diary to have that team harvest debrief later in the year once everything has slowed down a bit?

Whats in store

For me, its vitally important that we have a clear idea of what crops we have in store. Where they are, what condition they are in and how much we have in each store / heap etc.

If everything has been weighed into store, brilliant - get that recorded and shared around if appropriate right now. If weighing wasn’t an option, measure the heap - if done carefully then its a surprisingly accurate way of estimating whats in store.

Do we have any issues with warm and / or damp grain? Highlight this on a store map if so and make sure staff are aware of any issues, that way if you aren’t around for a while then someone else can keep an eye of things.

If crops have gone into a central storage facility, work through your dispatch notes (you do do them right?!) and reconcile them against the online records the store has. Mistakes do happen and now is the best time to see if there are any and to do something about them!

Once you have an accurate account of whats in store, you are able to do some quick analysis and see how crops have performed and if need be, share this with relevant stake holders etc.

Machinery

Loaders, trailers, tractors etc will be needed in the upcoming drilling period. Have them all come out of harvest ok? Lights still all working? Mirrors still there etc etc? Service intervals coming up? Get them booked in now with dealers if so.

I wouldn’t worry too much about harvest specific machinery right now, but definitely jot down any repairs and issues that have occurred with the combine etc so there is a record that is visible come the winter.

Accidents / near misses

Have there been any incidents that need reporting / shared around the team? Make this is a priority if so. Speak to team members individually if need be and see if they experienced any near misses that you aren’t aware of. A near miss that hasn’t been shared is another accident waiting to happen after all. Harvest specific incidents can be discussed in detail when things have slowed down a bit, but if there are things that could reoccur at anytime - address this now.

These are my main points of summary from H23 that I would reflect on before moving forward this autumn. Obviously there are other items that need consideration at this time, cultivations / drilling etc etc, but I have kept things harvest specific for this newsletter.

I hope you have found this a useful read and that it helps you and the team. Please do get in touch if you want me to go into more detail on any of the points above.

Thanks and take care

Ben

^{*The content above does not constitute direct advice, I am just sharing my experiences and what works for me}

Fancy working together?

- I offer a strategic Farm Manager service. 

- Mentoring and coaching individuals and employees.

- Creating sociable events for physcial and mental wellbeing.

I would love to hear from anyone who would like to start a conversation. Just reply to this email.