January Farm Update
Team Forget Me Not for 2025. Words can't express my excitement and gratitude for this team!
Happy New Year and welcome to 2025!
This is one of my favorite times of year because I love blank canvases. Tater and I get to take stock of last season, create the master crop plan for this year, and in general collect our thoughts.
Last year was a mixed bag of tricks. The farm grew a lot, and I didn’t have the staffing at critical points of the season to share the load with. Which taught me a lot—I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, your best asset is your people. I am so grateful that we have a rockstar crew to start the new year with and this will help ease our growing pains and help me keep my sanity this season. I truly believe you have to have the right people on the bus before you can figure out where the bus is going. I think 2025 will be a spectacular year for our farm. I’m grateful for the opportunity for a fresh start with an experienced crew. Even though they are new to my farm, they all have multiple years of greenhouse experience. It’s going to be a great year for Michigan grown flowers!
Full disclosure: I am not a resolution-maker. I pick a word or a mantra for the year and use that help guide my internal compass. This year is the year of reset and recalibration. Last year’s word was resilience, and 2023's was relentless. (I seem to really like words that start in “re” so we might as well keep the motif going.)
Anyway, I dream of a more sustainable workflow and productivity for myself. This year will be the year of delegation and empowering people. It’s going to take some effort on my part, and you’ll probably keep seeing more Harvard Business Review articles in this twice-monthly newsletter. Becoming a great leader takes intentional effort. Obtaining soft skills is a great way to round out your edges, makes you more relatable to your employees, and a better communicator. After your farm achieves a certain scale you can’t do it all on your own. In the past this was a hard reality to accept because no one will be as efficient or passionate about our farm as I am. The reality is, in order to keep growing you need to bring people into the fold, and they can enhance your farm and bring talents to your business that you don’t have.
Ready to jump into 2025 with both feet? What’s your word for 2025? Tater and I would love to hear from you! Drop us a line at
ldaschner@ballpublishing.com.
In this edition of Bloom Beat we’ve got some goal setting tips, H-2A facts and figures and more! With all that being said, let’s talk shop!
SMART Goal Setting
New year, new plans and new dreams. Be intentional and strategic!
Here is my annual goal setting PSA. What are your goals for this upcoming season? Production, staffing, efficiency or something else? As you set your goals, be sure they follow the SMART formula:
Specific. When trying to make specific goals, think about answering the five “W” questions: What do I want to accomplish? Why is this goal important? Who is involved or influenced? Where is it located? Which resources do I need to mobilize to make it happen?
Measurable. How will you document progress of your goals? In order for goals to be measurable they should answer the following questions: How much? How many? There needs to be a metric for measuring success. That could be as simple as setting a gross dollar goal for your farm. Or can be crop-specific, such as, "I want to harvest and sell X number of sunflowers a week."
Achievable. Remember how I encouraged you to dream big for 2023? This is the part where we break down the big goal into smaller bite-sized pieces. Achievable goals usually answer the How question. How can I accomplish this? Once again, you don’t want to set the bar so low you can step over it effortlessly. Your goals should encourage you to grow and step outside your comfort zone. But you also want to be practical in your goal setting.
Relevant. Does this goal matter to you and does it align with other goals you have? This is your rally point. Goals are designed to propel your forward, but you also have to be in the driver's seat. You need to be in control of your goals. Relevant goals should answer the following questions: Is this worthwhile? Is this the right time? Does this goal align with my long-term goals and aspirations?
Time-Bound. Last, but certainly one of the most important aspects of goal setting. What is the deadline for accomplishing this goal? When are you going to sit down and take stock of your progress? Deadlines create urgency, which in turn will inspire you to make daily strides to accomplish it. Goals shouldn’t be nebulous concepts. Time-bound goals should answer the following: When? What can I do today to work towards this goal? What progress have I made over the last month to accomplish this?
Beginning Growers’ School Scheduled for March 18
The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) has some exciting events in the mill for 2025, and to start off, ASCFG opened registration for their Beginning Growers’ School this week. The event is March 18 in Austin, Texas, at the Grand Lady event venue.
This program is intended to help fledgling farmers find their footing and increase their knowledge about various crops and business models. They have a rock star list of presenters for this event. Melanie Harrington of Dahlia May Flower Farm will be speaking about branding and marketing. I had the pleasure of listening to Melanie talk at multiple ASCFG conferences in the past; she is a wealth of information and her enthusiasm is contagious! Dr. Melanie Stock of Utah State University will also be presenting; she has done a lot of work on early season ranunculus production and specializes in economic viability studies of high value crops for small farms.
These are just two of the speakers on tap for this event. Here is the LINK for the full schedule and registration. There are only 150 spots available and registration will close once the event is filled, so act fast! Also, if you register by the end of the month, you will save $50!
H2A Visa Growth Report
As the farm continues to grow, so do our labor needs. This year I am trying to learn as much as I can about the H-2A program because long-term I think we will need to implement this.
H-2A is a temporary work visa program that allows farms to hire foreign workers for seasonal agriculture work. For more specific information about the program, check out this
LINK from the Department of Labor website.
American Farm Bureau reports that 384,900 positions were certified in 2024, an increase of less that 2% over 2023. In 2012 there were only 90,000 certified positions, and from rom 2012 to 2022 there were instances where certified positions would increase by more than 10% year over year. Which begs the question: Why is the H-2A program growth declining in growth?
According to the American Farm Bureau, there are many challenges farmers face when implementing the program. One is the fees associated with the program. The Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department all play a role in this program. In 2024, governmental agencies across the country raised the H-2A petition fees by 65%, some as high as 267%. The minimum wages for H-2A workers has increased by 60% over the last ten years, and this is does not include the increased cost of housing and transportation. Inflation certainly has contributed, as well.
American Farm Bureau states that the H-2A program had over 3,000 pages worth of NEW federal regulations over the last two years. And this does not include state provisions. AFB speculates that the partial implementation of the “Farm Worker Protection Rule” may prove to complicate the program for 2025. Thirty three states have partial injunction of the “Farm Worker Protection Rule” and applications submitted before November will have to refile their application.
In my opinion, increased costs and additional red tape may make producers reconsider their staffing needs. I imagine producers are trying to invest in more technology to make their current staffing more efficient. It’s a tough line to walk, as the domestic labor force for agriculture is limited. AFB lists some eye-opening statistics about this in their full report. Limited domestic labor forces farms to rely upon visiting workers to harvest crops since domestic labor is not interested and/or unavailable for farms. Rising labor costs and more regulation is a challenging pill for family farms to swallow. According to AFB, this puts American farms at a disadvantage. The agriculture trade deficit is forecast to be $31.8 billion dollars for 2024. Forty nine percent of agriculture imports are fruit and vegetables (by value). AFB speculates that American farmers could produce more fruits and vegetables if more workers were available. Harvest technology for specialty fruits and vegetables is still in its infancy and hand-picking is the best way to ensure crop quality at this point. Sadly, only 80% of H-2A positions certified will result in someone getting a visa to work.
If you would like to read the full report, click
HERE. It’s worth the read. Farm labor is a complex problem, and the more you know, the more it can help you guide your hiring and strategic planning going forward.
Webinar Alert! How Square Can Boost Your Sales!
Hey, friends! Be sure to tune in to this webinar this coming Thursday. Don’t let the name deceive you, if you have a farm stand or brick and mortar store you should check this out:
Increase Garden Center Revenue & Customer Visits with Square
We all need a dependable point of sale system. According to the folks at Square, there is technology out there that can be used to encourage repeat business, build a loyal customer base and increase revenue. This webinar is geared towards independent garden centers and highlights the ways retailers can modernize with Square to achieve these goals, but I'm sure farm stands can learn a lot, too!
Guest experts are Katie Miller, Product Marketing for Square and Thomas Doumalin, Product Specialist for Square, along with special guest Amanda Thomsen, owner of Aster Gardens in Lemont, Illinois, and author of that “funky, punky” Kiss My Aster column in Green Profit magazine.
Be sure to tune in on Thursday January 9 at 1 p.m. Eastern to check it out. Here is the LINK to register.
Oh, you can get a special 50% off deal on Square if you click HERE!
Enthusiastically!
Lindsay Daschner (and Tater)
Editor-at-Large—Bloom Beat
Owner—Forget-Me-Not Farms
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