Taking the long view of your farm operation can be challenging. Most people have to-do lists full of daily goals and priorities. But it is more rewarding to think about where you want your alfalfa enterprise to be in five years.

Although that may seem like a long time from now, five-year thinking allows you to make plans and changes that will help you achieve new levels of success with alfalfa. The following tips can help you establish a successful five-year alfalfa plan.

Write Down Your Goals

Good planning starts with the end result in mind. To help determine your goals, ask yourself questions like these:

• What do I expect to be different or the same in five years?
  
• Do I see my number of alfalfa acres increasing, decreasing or staying about the same?
  
• Will animal numbers change? How does this influence my cropping plan?
  
• Do I see any technology changes that might influence how I produce alfalfa?

When you have answers to these questions, use the information to write your goals.

Break Down Your Goals

Next, break down each of your goals into specific, short-term steps. For example, if a goal is to improve alfalfa forage quality and consistency, plan chronological actions that will keep you on track and make it easier to achieve your five-year goal.

Revisit Your Goals
To see whether your plan is working, revisit your short-term goals and five-year plan at regularly scheduled times. Five-year plans are not meant to be rigid and may need to be altered as your operation grows and changes.

Understand Your Risk Capacity
One of the most challenging things about change is dealing with the inherent uncertainty and risk. Planning and setting goals will reduce the stress of risk.

Ideally, you are doing long-term planning for your entire farm operation on a regular basis. Whether you are or are not, your local DuPont Pioneer forage expert is ready to assist you.

Click here to learn more about your alfalfa.

Learn more at the Silage Zone® resource.

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3.9.2015