Innovations for future development of farms: a case study of the implementation of an opportunity search method on a farm.

摘要

The management of farms and large agricultural holdings is becoming increasingly similar to the management of business companies, as circumstances in the market and in Europe have forced farmers into an entrepreneurial way of thinking. Traditionally a more conservative social group, farmers have had to implement methods of cost savings and offer products with a higher added value. Similarly to business enterprises, farmers and agricultural consultants must also follow new production technology. These changes in thinking also influence rural development. Farm diversification is becoming more and more important, especially in mountain regions. However, because they have no currently available method that would allow them to identify a suitable opportunity for future development, farmers are left to trial-and-error methods. The opportunity search method presented in this article, originally implemented in the industrial sector, can also be applied to farms. Searching for opportunities requires an interdisciplinary approach involving cooperation between farmers, agricultural consultants, and economists. In four steps, it is possible to identify a number of opportunities that can be used on a farm. In step one, the farm and trends are analyzed, while in the second step, opportunities are searched for by means of social, economic, technological, and legislative factors. In step three, unsuitable opportunities are eliminated, and in step four, the selected opportunities are closely analyzed and assessed. The method was tested on a farm where the objective was to solve the problem of traditional stockbreeding that was yielding very poor economic results. The application of the method resulted in a more suitable type of breeding that is already taking place on the farm, and as well as other opportunities (farm diversification). This successful implementation of the opportunity search method, which had previously been successfully implemented in industry, is an indication that knowledge and methodology transfer from industry environment to farming is possible. As a link between science, new technologies, and the farm owner, agricultural consultants play an important role.