Being Able to See What Others Can’t

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For many, summer brings the opportunity to drive on the national freeways, traveling from scenic spots to vacation destinations and beyond.

On this holiday weekend, you may find yourself, like many others, traveling up and down those roads.

Along stretches of these US highways, planted fields line and extend as far as the eye can see beyond the boundaries of the road.

In Central California, fields of Almonds, Pistachios, and Alfalfa extend to the horizon.

In the Midwest, there are Corn and Soybean plants neatly rowed and shooting skyward.

Here in Washington state, stretches of Interstate 90 have placards displayed in the fence identifying the crop being grown just behind the wire confines that make up the fence: Wheat, Potatoes, Alfalfa, and Sweet Corn, to name a few.

A little farther west and north along Interstate 5, you will yet again find an agricultural plethora of scenic proportions.

Flowers… Tulips, to be exact. Like a panoramic view one would expect only in the Netherlands. Mt Vernon, WA, Home of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors to embrace the beauty and wonder of field after field of colorful and ornate tulips.

Tucked amongst the masses is a small 12-acre plot of land that comprises Tulip Valley Farms.

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Starting From Scratch

Andrew Miller started his adult life in the Air Force.  A genetic anomaly nearly derailed it at the outset.  Andrew is color blind, a condition which affects 1 in 12 US men.  He had received a waiver from the Surgeon General to join the Air Force, which allowed him to pursue his career within the branch.

After retiring, he did as so many veterans do: he tried to assimilate his mastered craft into the corporate ships that employ so many vets.

Amazon and Expedia, but those lifestyles, high churn, and walls upon walls of call centers and office buildings were not what his heart desired.

He left the greater Seattle area, returning to the community where he grew up, and became immersed in the industry he had known as a casual summer high school laborer: farming.

First, as an economic strategist for the county and then taking on the job himself, he started a farm from scratch.

He had crunched the numbers and knew he could make it work, just not in the traditional sense.

Beating the Commodity System

By definition, a commodity is a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee.

Tulips, both as cut flowers and bulbs from which the beautiful flowers grow, are a commodity.  Produced on large industrial operations where size and scale lead to economic efficiency and business profitability.

But with only 12 acres, there is no way to beat farms in other parts of the world that have thousands upon thousands of acres.

So Andrew devised a new plan.

What started as a last-ditch effort to salvage something of his new business in 2020, when no one could visit the farm to see the plants.  He opened his phone and brought the farm to the masses digitally.

He saved lives: his own and those with whom he connected, telling the story of tulip farming.

Being raised on a small dairy farm with less than 100 head of animals, I knew the profitability of the operation was rarely enough to provide for our family.  By USDA records, 96% of farms rely on off-farm income to survive.  That number is highest for dairy farms!

96% of farms don't generate enough income selling the product they exist to produce to sustain!  It's shocking, right?

So, what is the alternative?  Think differently.

Beat the system.

Commodity production in and of itself is a race to the bottom.  Its consolidation, acquisition, and drive to the lowest sales price, while trying to maximize any profit.  Often, the profit is squeezed to the point where profitability is merely a percentage or a percentage of a percentage.

As many have discovered, it's a race no one really wants to win.

What is something impossible to commoditize? Feelings!

“Feelings Farmer”

Much of farming can be wrapped up in the experience of feelings.  Watching a new calf or lamb being born.  Seeing a crop grow from seeds placed in the ground.  Harvesting a crop knowing it's going to provide food, clothing, or homes.  It's so much about feeling.

Feeling and meaning.

I probably don't have to belabor this point very much; our world is yearning for meaning—connection to something more meaningful and bigger than ourselves.

In a world dominated by service-based jobs, creation jobs offer an experience our souls yearn for.

Not our creation per se, but the creation of something that didn't exist and became a reality because it grew from the ground.

It's gardening or landscaping.  It's raising chickens or puppies.  Having a hand in creation is cathartic because it induces feelings we would not have otherwise.

Farms like Tulip Valley Farms rely on feelings to exist.  Andrew himself identified that 70% of their income is generated from people visiting the fields and the operation.  The remainder consists of the sale of commodity-type items, bulbs, and flowers.

Here's what we can all take away from this lesson: whether you operate a farm or not, your workplace is about feelings, too.

Being a “Feelings Farmer” can be a role you can embrace.  It's helping those around you see, feel, and understand the value of the work they do and provide.

That's what leadership is: cultivating the environment in which each person is planted and providing the nutrients needed for them to flourish.

That takes feelings, for you and them.  Because a world without feelings is just a commodity, and that is a race to the bottom.  A race no one wins!

We can get there merely by seeing what others can't!

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