The Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work

As a small organic vegetable farmer I have always found the task of efficiently organizing the business operations of the farm somewhat confounding. Many times I have been frustrated with working long hours into the evening, an employee who did not finish a task the way I asked, or growing a beautiful crop that no one wants to buy. The Lean Farm concisely introduces farmers to a valuable tool for streamlining farming operations and focusing your business on producing what is valuable to your customers. Lean manufacturing is a tool used by gigantic corporations to compete in the global marketplace, so I was wary of its applicability to a small farm context. However, the author makes a strong case for utilizing lean in farming or other small business settings. He even discusses many of the caveats that would naturally occur to a small farmer trying to adopt lean, such as letting your values influence how you implement the concept so that you achieve greater sustainability as well as profitability.The Lean Farm is a great read and well worth adding to your farming library. It will probably be most helpful to farmers or other small business people with at least a few years' experience who are struggling to make it all come together. Although it has many interesting glimpses into the author's farming practices, this book does not attempt to be an introduction to farming. If you are reading it as a beginning farmer, The Lean Farm should be one of many texts you read, though it may end up being the most valuable to the success of your business. I also think this book would also serve as a good introduction to the concept of lean for someone outside of the farming profession. The author provides some of the history and context of lean manufacturing including original Japanese terminology, as well as discussion of other prominent lean texts and guidance for further reading on the subject.

I was fortunate enough to receive this book a few days ago as a Christmas gift. I read it cover to cover and really enjoyed it! I appreciated many aspects of the book: the clear writing style, the clean lines of thought, the unique application of lean concepts, the colorful photos, and the intriguing references to other seminal lean books. Since lean is very contextual when it comes to implementation, I was delighted to find much detail on precisely how lean was applied at Clay Bottom Farm. Ben effectively describes both the overarching strategies and the specific tactics that were applied over the years. These will help spark lean deployment ideas at other farms for sure.I started to get a bit concerned when the discussion of cost cutting surfaced since lean is NOT another management driven cost cutting program. But Ben effectively addressed my concerns by adding his thoughts on this in "Lean Overreached" and "Lean for More Than Profit." I have seen lean reduced to just cost cutting which resulted in bad, long-term business consequences. As Ben explains, lean is a complete culture change where "respect for people" is paramount and where daily and long-term continuous improvement is knitted into the very fabric of the organization.Excellent book. Way to go Ben and team!(By the way, this is my first book review ever.)

What a great book for farming and how to use simple practices to produce maximum effort all the whole thinking consciously about your choices. A great read for any scale of farmer.

Overall I thought it was a good book, what I felt stopped it from being a 5 star review, is I didn't feel it was great throughout the entire book. The information on the 5S highly valuable, the case studies were good, though I would have like to have seen more on farm examples of perhaps other market farms instead of dairy farm from Denmark. Also the last part chapter 12 - on mega farms, is kinda like preaching to the choir. You figure most folks who get this book are typically going to be either market farmers, or small animal producers.I'd say it was worth the money, there were valuable examples that we'll put into use on our farm.

Easy to follow format with good illustrations and photos.

Many would be farmers start off with more of a philosophy than a business plan. Very few folks have the resources to operate a farm full time without the farm turning a profit. If you aren't careful, a small operation will work you to death. This excellent little book takes a total quality approach to farming while minimizing wasted resources; the most important savings (as far as I am concerned) is labor. If your operation is working you from daylight to dark and you are making less than minimum wage, this book is just what you need to get on track! Even if you are a successful farmer, I'll bet this book contains a few tips and tricks that can help you streamline your operation without hurting your bottom line.

This book is landmark in the application of lean manufacturing (and process improvement analysis and implementation) to the small organic family farm. As I have a background in quality management, I greatly appreciated his appreciation for the principles developed in the Japanese auto industry. I also was privileged to hear Ben speak last January (2017) at the Sustainable Food and Farm Conference in my home town of Grass Valley, California. He is working on a new book that will continue his important work. I also recommended that he acknowledge that the Japanese quality system owes much to an American consultant, W Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality management.

I am a lean fanatic and yes my name is in the book so i may be a bit biased. However, i think this is one of the best lean books that i have read. Ben has a way of explaining things so that anyone can understand these lean concepts. What a treasure to find if you are a farmer. Also, I think that this is more a book about small business excellence than it is just about farming excellence. So many small businesses think that they cant change the way that they are because they are too small or lack resources. This book tells you how you can compete with much larger businesses and remove waste so that customers rave! Read it often!

I ate it up! Beautiful style, well vulgarised. Easy to read, with toughful real life exemples. Step by Step how to become more efficent at what you, your team and your business do.

Livre en Anglais, relativement difficile à lire car très dense en informations et il faut changer sa manière de voir les actions. Il reste compréhensible et bien illustré.Il ne porte que très peu sur les pratiques culturales et énormément sur la gestion des tâches.

Toyota factory principles applied to a salad farm! a brilliant book not just for a small farming business like ours but for any business wanting to cut costs and maximise profits. loads of great ideas that can be applied to any production scenario. a real life changer. highly recommend to anyone involved in business especially primary producers and manufacturers.

I enjoyed the attention to efficiency

Good