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Northsheep HRM article (fwd)
To: Recipients of CHRM-GENERAL <chrm-general@igc.apc.org>
Greetings,
I have found the postings on this subject very informative and pertinent.
We have been attempting to practice holistic management on our own farm
for four years or so. I am currently involved with a SARE grant in our
southern region for developing small scale dairy processing facilities.
This grant was one of the very few awarded to farmer generated projects.
There was some hesitation on the part of SARE as we didn't have any
institutional structure in place. The group agreed to try using holistic
management to administer the grant. We had a training session this fall
taught by Ed Marstoff. Prior to this training session, Rick and I were
the only participants with any exposure to holistic management.
The problems we are having implementing holistic management have been
suprising to me, but mirror what is being discussed on this conference.
As farmers, we have resisted the academic approach and the wordsmithing.
As primary communicators(by default) in this group we have learned how
important our choice of words can be.
The word "goal" has given us a great deal of trouble and misunderstanding.
We have settled on using the word "goal" only in reference to our holistic
three part goal. We use "objective" to describe the conventional problem
solving meaning of "goal". As individual practitioners we had no problem
with using the same word for two completely distinct meanings. However, in
working with our group, we've found it extremely important to make this
distinction.
By far our most intimidating and frustrating problem has been lack of
committment to the holistic process.
We are dealing with people that have never even heard of Holistic
Management or worse yet have only read about it in terms of "a rigid cult"
like Karl mentions. I can certainly see the value of trying to make the
process less intimidating and difficult. From our experience, the use of
acroynms like HRM or HM add to the confusion. I agree with Tina Pilone
that the use of the phrase "Holistic Management" might be more effective
in building committment to the process. Perhaps the continued repetition
of the words "holistic" and "management" is in itself a useful teaching
aide.
I think Karl's proposal of introducing Holistic Management to farmers with
the support of SARE is an excellent idea. Working from the ground up seems
to be the most effective means of implementing change. If our participants
had already been exposed to Holistic Management through a source as
eloquent as Karl's article, administration of this grant would be much
easier.
Helen Feete
Crooked Furrow Farm
Galax, VA
cff@tcia.net