Richard Wiswall - The Organic Farmers Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff - And Making a Profit

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ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR
The Organic Farmers Business Handbook

Generous, unique, and comprehensivethis book will help every farmer to better set goals, reach those goals, and improve their bottom line!

E LA C HAPIN , Program Director,
Vermont Farm Viability Enhancement Program

How could anyone hope to produce a business guidebook useful to one of the most diverse, independent, even contrary groups of people on earth? This essential book is overdue! While the principles have been around for some time, this is the first they have been assimilated and tested so successfully.

E D M ARTSOLF , Petit Jean Farm,
Morrilton, Arkansas

Many people become organic farmers because they love growing crops and working the land, but truth be told thats often the easy part. Richard Wiswalls book provides practical, real-world guidance for dealing with the hard part: the business of farming.

V ERN G RUBINGER , Vegetable and Berry Specialist,
University of Vermont Extension

THE ORGANIC FARMERS

BUSINESS
HANDBOOK

THE ORGANIC FARMERS

BUSINESS
HANDBOOK

A Complete Guide to Managing
Finances, Crops, and Staff
and Making a Profit

RICHARD WISWALL

C HELSEA G REEN P UBLISHING
W HITE R IVER J UNCTION , V ERMONT

Copyright 2009 by Richard Wiswall. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Patricia Stone
Developmental Editor: Benjamin Watson
Copy Editor: Laura Jorstad
Proofreader: Nancy Ringer
Indexer: Peggy Holloway, Holloway Indexing Services
Designer: Peter Holm, Sterling Hill Productions
Photographs and illustrations by Richard Wiswall unless otherwise noted

Printed in the United States of America
First printing, September 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 09 10 11 12 13

Our Commitment to Green Publishing
Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because we use recycled paper, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources.
The Organic Farmers Business Handbook was printed on Joy White, a 30-percent postconsumer recycled paper supplied by Thomson-Shore.

Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Post Office Box 428
White River Junction, VT 05001
(802) 295-6300
www.chelseagreen.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wiswall, Richard, 1957
The organic farmers business handbook : a complete guide to managing finances, crops, and staff; and making a profit / Richard Wiswall.
p. cm.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60358-249-0
1. Organic farming. 2. Farm management. I. Title.

S605.5.W57 2009
631.584068--dc22

2009025039

For Sally,
Pete, Kuenzi, and Flint

CONTENTS

To receive a copy of the companion CD that is included with the print edition of The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook , please contact Jeffrey Slayton at Chelsea Green Publishing at jslayton@chelseagreen.com. There is no additional charge for the CD for those who have purchased the ebook edition.

The files on the companion CD are tools designed for use on your computer to save you time and money. The Farm Crew Job Description template is a Microsoft Word document and the Timesheet is a Microsoft Excel worksheet; both can be printed out to help with employee management on your farm. The other three files are Microsoft Excel workbooks, which contain self-calculating worksheets. You will probably want to copy the files from the CD onto your computers hard drive and utilize them from there, retaining the CD as a backup. You cannot save changes to the copies of the files that are on the CD, but you will be able to save changes to copies that are saved to your hard drive.

The Vegetable Farm Crop Enterprise Budgets contain all the worksheets listed in the Appendix in the back of this book, plus two templates (one is partially filled in, one is not). Worksheets can be tailored to any farms needs. Expense and sales names may be modified, along with their numbers, for different scenarios. The templates are easily duplicated. All the budgets are self-calculating. Budgets can also be used as projections for possible future changes or new crop trials. Use the budgets as a guide for your farm. Every farm has different systems, various costs associated with every component of the farm, and a unique blend of sales revenue. The best numbers are your own.

The Payroll Calculator simplifies payroll processing. It calculates employee gross wages, subtracts out Social Security, Medicare, federal and state withholding taxes to yield net pay, and tabulates employer tax liabilities by the month. The Payroll Calculator is designed for semimonthly paychecks for up to eight employees. All you need is a withholding tax table from your home-state tax department (available from their website or local office) and Publication 51 (Circular A) Agricultural Employers Tax Guide from the IRS (available at your local IRS office or by mail).

Last, the Vermont Farm Viability Enhancement Program Farm Financials Workbook is a comprehensive financial-analysis tool used to create important financial documents such as Balance Sheets, Income Statements, and Cash Flow Projections. Additionally, a scorecard evaluates key financial indicators of your farm business.

The Farm Crew Job Description template and Timesheet are ready to print out for use on your farm, with only minor changes to reflect your farm. The other three files are for making your own calculations (and printing out as well). If you are new to Excel workbooks, begin by clicking on the tabs along the bottom of the screen to view the different worksheets.

Enter your numbers into the relevant cells; the worksheet is set to calculate useful results based on the numbers you provide. The cells that contain formulas (subtotals, for example) are protected from accidental erasing. You can unprotect the formula cells if you wish. When in doubt, try the HELP button at the top of the screen. Numerous books, workshops, and online resources are available to learn more about working with Excel workbooks.

All of these files were created using Microsoft Office programs (Word and Excel). If you do not have Microsoft Office, you should still be able to use most or all of the files through compatible software packages, such as Apple iWork (for Apple computers only), Microsoft Works (for computers running Microsoft Windows only), or OpenOffice. OpenOffice is free to download at www.openoffice.org and is available for a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple OS, and Linux. Neither I nor my publisher has thoroughly tested the Excel files in these alternative programs, so we cant guarantee that they will retain their full functionality, or function entirely properly, when opened in something other than Microsoft Office. In our limited testing, it appears that OpenOffice offers the closest approximation to using the files in their native Microsoft Office habitat. If you are using Microsoft Works, we expect that it should be okay for the Farm Crew Job Description, Timesheet, and Vegetable Farm Crop Enterprise Budgets, but we do not think that it will properly handle the Payroll Calculator or Vermont Farm Viability Enhancement Program Farm Financials Workbook, due to their use of more-complicated formulas in certain calculations.

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