Monty Python - Bring Out Your Dead
Hey Everyone! I know it’s been a while. The last post here was way back in August 2022. And since then, it’s not that I don’t have anything to write, but the end of the year was full of work stuff that kept pen from paper and some family stuff to take care of.
But, I’ve been using that time to plan for what I want to do with Adding Value. Yes, Erin and I are still working on our sheep farm (it’s getting close!) but it’s not going as quickly as we might like for a whole variety of reasons. The short version is this: we don’t actually live on the farm - my father-in-law does. We are there frequently (1-3 times per week), but not with enough frequency for us to take care of the sheep. Sheep are not a commuter animal and we haven’t really come up with a practical plan for caring for them when we aren’t there. In the near term, it does look like we will start with part of the farming operations with Muscovy Duck. Muscovy Duck fits the bill … errr … model … and we know some folks who would like to buy some from us. So, it’s looking like duck this year and sheep … soon.
As for Adding Value: as you saw with last year’s posts, what has been occupying this space is more theoretical. A peek at what live-animal agricultural systems look like today. We did a three-part series on Direct-to-Consumer marketing, a three-part series on meat alternatives. And a whole bunch of posts on project and systems management.
Well, we’re going to double-down on these deep dives. When I think about the content I like to consume, what stands out is the focus, detail, and through-line storytelling. This often means short runs on a specific topic rather than just a constant discussion of the world. So, the near-term future of Adding Value will be that: series of posts, followed by a break, then a series of posts. It won’t be the forever-model, but it will be the model for the foreseeable future. And, I will definitely post updates about the farm along the way.
Posts will be every few weeks and will be accompanied by audio/podcast versions of the posts. Call them “seasons” if you will.
Season 1 (or is it 2, 3, 4?) will be our first test of this model. We are going to explore one of the throughlines that has featured in many of the posts here - the tension in value-added agriculture between centralized and decentralized systems. We will start with looking at the system as it is - a centralized behemoth that provides cheap commodity consumer goods at high environmental and social costs.
We will consider whether the incentives and policies that built these systems (bringing cheap, plentiful food and clothing to everyone in the world) are really relevant today, and if not, whether the system should really still be designed for it. Then we will look at alternative models that might better fit the incentives and policies that are more relevant to a modern live-animal agricultural system.
We will finish out the series looking at legal structures like cooperatives in its various forms that can help implement these ideas.
I hope you find this interesting. There are lots of graphs and links and things to engage with inside the articles, so if you are listening to the podcast, I would encourage you to check out the articles when you find yourself in front of a computer or your phone.
As always, let me know what you think!