Farm Planner

If you’ve ever flown over the American Midwest, you know from looking down on Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska — a series of well-groomed circles and squares — that farms are orderly, organized pieces of land.

They don’t start out that way, however. The geographic equivalent of crew cut, they’re carefully trimmed and precisely maintained in order to simultaneously maximize the use of real estate and resources.

As a Farm Planner, that makes you the Stylist. A type of Conservation Scientist, you’re typically employed by local, state and federal governments, which pay you to assist private landowners with the creation of a farm plan: a document that’s designed to help Farmers effectively manage the resources on their land.

A farm plan has two goals. The first is to meet the Farmer’s business objectives, allowing him or her to farm the land for maximum agricultural output. The second is to protect the quality of water, soil and other natural resources on the property in compliance with local, state and federal regulations. As such, your main job as a Farm Planner is consulting with landowners in order to develop and then implement policies and strategies pertaining to: farm location, structure and size; crop types, quantities and yields; soil-building practices and procedures; type and number of livestock; water quality and proximity to streams and lakes; resources such as machinery, facilities and finance; and regulatory record-keeping and reporting.

Simultaneously addressing environmental problems such as soil erosion and groundwater contamination, as well business problems such as cash flow and crop yield, a Farm Planner is basically a Farmer’s guiding light to a profitable future.