ISU: How To Share Machinery And Cut Costs.

Jul 08, 2014

Labor remains one of the key challenges for fruit and vegetable growers who want to scale up their operations to serve increasing consumer demand for local produce. A new manual from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture offers one possible solution: sharing machinery.

A new 50-page publication, "Machinery Sharing Manual for Fruit and Vegetable Growers," discusses operational and organizational issues related to sharing specialized farm machinery for fruit and vegetable production. The manual has real-life case studies of growers who shared equipment, sample sharing agreements and worksheets for allocating costs fairly.

“Scaling up production for the retail and wholesale markets requires more land, more labor and often specialized machinery,” said Linda Naeve, Value Added Agriculture Extension program specialist who worked on the project. “To remain profitable, growers need to find innovative ways to improve labor efficiency through mechanization and other labor-saving strategies. But equipment costs can be prohibitive for small-scale growers and often they need several pieces of specialized equipment designed for different crops.”

Naeve advised specialty crop growers to evaluate their options, including sharing, and understand the associated trade-offs between employing additional labor and/or purchasing additional equipment. The manual discusses several things that need to be considered before joint purchase and collaborative use of equipment.

A project funded by the Leopold Center was conducted in 2013 to address these issues and evaluate how five groups formed, purchased and shared different pieces of specialized equipment, developed sharing agreements, managed the financial obligations and balanced the use of the machinery. The research project was coordinated by Georgeanne Artz, an assistant professor of economics at Iowa State University.

The publication discusses the five case studies and includes information for fruit and vegetable growers who are considering machinery sharing, such as finding group members and developing partnerships and sharing agreements. Also included are templates for and examples of machinery-sharing agreements and financial worksheets.

source:iastate.edu

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.