The Challenge
With over 170 landowners, it was difficult for an Indiana family farm to know what is most important to each and every landowner so that they can exceed landowner expectations and they felt a bit disconnected from their landowner base. They learned this the hard way when they lost a 600+ acre landowner, yet they thought the relationship was strong and there were no issues.
After talking through the possible causes it became clear that they really didn’t have a specific answer. This led to an awareness of (and great concern) that they may not know what’s most important to their other landowners – they cannot assume generalities are correct. They also questioned if the relationships with their landowners were as good as they thought.
The Results
The Indiana family farm attended UnCommon Farm's Landowner Relations training and employed many of the aspects of UnCommon Farms' structured 17-point landowner relations program. One of the items implemented was conducting a landowner survey to gather information and identify respective landowner actions to exceed expectations. UnCommon Farms' Landowner Relations experts assisted the farm in several ways:
- Prepared the initial question set
- Met with them to “fine-tune” the questions to receive better responses/information
- Suggested incentives to increase response rate
- Participated in analysis of results
This Indiana family farm learned what was most important to each landowner and assembled a plan to meet and exceed landowner goals and reinforce their tenant decision. Since then, the farm has retained 100% of their landowners.
Additionally, various actions that this operation has used have been shared other member operations, thus making all members better and stronger, which is the power of the group.
