Ron Doetch, Founder of Solutions in the Land, is an agronomist, and whole-systems farm planner. Ron speaks about the entrepreneurial opportunities inherent in creating a robust local/regional food web, and the potential for significant rural development based on local food systems.
What is Whole-System Farm Planning?
We have been crafting whole-system farm plans for 12 years formally, but our farm experience goes back much further. Our process of unpacking the story of the farm and the people who have stewarded the soil, the water, and the wildlife through generations is vital to plan for the future of the land. Farms are three-dimensional and have rights and responsibilities below the surface and up and down the watershed. Farms are connected to people and families aren't always singing from the same songbook. We must not let the financial component of farms blur the social or environmental significance of the land that feeds us.
Our process is to answer 143 questions about your farm(s) from its regional background through farm policy and programs and to weigh up the most reliable profits back to the farm gate with the least risk with positive impacts to the natural environment. Every farm is a micro-climate and unique in opportunities and threats. The farm is an intergenerational asset with no guidebook or operating manual. Our process has helped many farmland decision-makers to have a solid reference manual to make good decisions.