Farmers often pride themselves on their independence but there can be benefits to overcoming that instinct and learning from, and teaching others. One option is a peer advisory group. Peer advisory groups are small groups that meet regularly to share insights on their experiences and performance. The recent Agricultural Excellence Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick, saw a presentation on building peer advisory groups by Terry Betker, president and CEO of Backswath Management Inc., a farm-focused business management firm.
A peer group can provide critical insight into important and potentially sensitive issues and opportunities from people who know what they’re talking about. The form and exact focus of the group could vary wildly. It could be a group for farmers who grow the same crops, or who have farms of similar sizes. The group could be short-term, focused on a specific finite issue, or it could be more open-ended and intended to continue in perpetuity. The group may reinvent or repurpose itself over time or the members of the group may cycle in and out over time. Smaller and larger farms can both benefit from peer groups, but it may not make sense to have groups with huge size disparities between members as their experiences may not be relevant to each other.
“It doesn’t make sense to have a very small, like 30-acre farm, and a 20,000 acre farm in the same peer group,” says Betker. “You can’t 100 percent discount size, but you can have quite a variation in size in a peer group. And you can absolutely have a peer group of farms that don’t have anything more than 10 or 15 acres of vegetables and they can benefit from it.”
Dustin and Kristi Burns, co-owners of Saskatchewan’s Windy Poplars Farm, spoke at the presentation, emphasizing the comradery and kinship that they felt with the members of their peer group. Another farmer quoted in Betker’s presentation, Ryan Galbraith of Manitoba’s RNR Farms, said, “We keep each other accountable on our updates, goals and target issues . . . As farmers, we tend to always complain about the same things that we cannot control, but what I like about our group is we try to look past that and really focus on what we can control i.e. financials, efficiency ratio of equipment, HR, the list goes on.”
Betker recommends groups of no less than six and no more than 10, and forming a charter that clearly outlines the purpose of the group, a confidentiality agreement and what is expected of members. One example would be a requirement that everyone share information on their farms. “No freeloaders!” That said, he is happy to freely share some of the concepts and benefits of peer groups to anyone who is interested.
“We organize them, we facilitate them, and that’s part of our business but I’m absolutely open to sharing,” says Betker. “If you want to be a group of small farmers in some part of Canada and want to get some resources or some ideas from someone, I’d be happy to talk to them. I don’t even mean as a consultant, I literally mean if someone wants to learn more about it or get some resources or some insight as to how this would work, I’m happy to just talk to them!”
— Matt Jones