While you may not be able to predict a crisis on your farm, you can and should prepare for one. Anticipation and preparation will help your business recover. Should you ever experience a crisis on your farm, you will be ready to take immediate action steps to mitigate risks and resume normal operation for you, your family, employees and the overall farm.
In the agriculture industry, what happens on one farm can happen on any farm. A crisis is a major occurrence with a potentially negative outcome that affects an organization, company, or industry and its stakeholders or reputation. A crisis on a dairy farm can include accidents, severe weather, animal disease, property damage, cybersecurity threats, or any other event that interrupts normal business operations and threatens the health or even the existence of your farm.
During these challenging situations, emotions are high, brains are busy processing and events can continue to occur rapidly, making it easy for any crisis to escalate quickly. Even the simplest tasks can become difficult for everyone involved. Many people incorrectly assume they can maintain all their typical day-to-day responsibilities during a crisis. However, new and unexpected priorities do pop up.
Anticipation and preparation can help keep your farm on track during these situations and make business recovery smoother. Being prepared helps you and your employees respond quickly and efficiently in any situation. Too many businesses find themselves trying to devise a plan in the middle of a crisis, and unfortunately, this is often too late. We understand that being prepared for a crisis can’t prevent it from occurring, but it does decrease your recovery time. Investing time and planning into managing potential crises in ways that minimize market instability and disruption of day-to-day operations will benefit you in the long run as you proactively communicate crisis information to your employees and stakeholders.
Midwest Dairy is available as a resource to support farmers in crisis preparation and management. While Midwest Dairy cannot create a plan for or manage a crisis for you, we do provide crisis planning consultation and support materials. Our team has prepared tools, resources and guidance for developing a farm crisis response plan. These resources will help allow you to avoid problems, prevent potential accidents and avoid additional revenue loss if anything should arise; we also can help during a crisis through communications support and consultation to help farmers react to or recover from an issue or crisis on a farm or dairy-related event.
Ask yourself this question: Are you confidently prepared for a crisis on your farm? If you have any hesitations, I invite you to join the Midwest Dairy farm crisis webinar from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 6. During this training, we will provide tips, tools and resources to prepare you for and manage an on-farm crisis. Attendees will review the core components of a farm crisis plan, work through a sample planning workbook, and learn about preparation steps after the plan is developed and critical actions to take in the event of a crisis. Click here to register or contact your Midwest Dairy Farmer Relations
manager for more information.
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