This page is about the solar production chain to new wealth in a farm business

Farmers are the people who benefit most from knowing about the solar production chain, although the principle and concept behind it applies to every business in the world. The solar production chain is indeed the passport to agricultural health and wealth.

Imagine a length of chain under tension. If sufficient tension is applied, the chain will break at its weakest link. To strengthen the piece of chain one must strengthen the weakest link. Working on any other link will not increase the strength of the chain. When the present weakest link is strengthened another link automatically becomes the weakest link. If that is strengthened the chain again becomes stronger, even though another link has now become the weakest link. It is a never ending process. Every time the weakest link is strengthened the entire chain grows stronger. So it is in a farm business. So it is in any business!

There are just three links or steps in the pathway converting sunlight into dollars in your pocket - the solar production chain. At any moment one link is the weakest link, and you should spend your next available dollar on strengthening this link. It is stating the obvious to tell you that strengthening any link other than the weakest link in a physical chain will not strengthen the entire chain, but sometimes people forget that the same applies to their business. At any time only one link in the solar production chain is the weakest link.

Number One - The 'Resource' link
The first link in the solar production chain is known as the resource link. This link is all about the capturing of solar energy by plants. Every day, in effectively functioning environments, large numbers of green plants are photo-synthesising, storing the sunlight they capture as vast quantities of new vegetation. This vegetation may be a crop or a shrub, it may be a tree for harvest, or a pasture destined for animal consumption.

In this link, solar energy is stored as plant material. Plants are the engine of every primary agricultural business.

In a non-farm business, including every secondary agricultural business (such as feedlots, intensive pig and poultry production units, and grain fed dairies), all of the resources that go into making the business work are included in this link. Here you include things such as the the raw materials that will be converted into another form, the buildings and the plant and equipment used to convert those materials, and the people who work in the business doing that conversion.

Number Two - The 'Product Conversion' link
Once the solar energy is stored it must be converted into some form of marketable or useable product or sevice. This is the product conversion link. The link looks slightly different, depending on your industry:

• Cropping
Usually the transition from a 'resource link' to the 'product conversion' link occurs at the point of harvest. Once the crop has been grown the discussion is no longer about capturing more energy, but is about moving that energy further along the solar production chain. When the grain is in the bin or the apple has been picked, or the vegetable harvested, a potentially saleable product physically exists.

• Grazing
When the energy has been stored as grass, it is grazing animals out in the paddock who convert it into useful products such as replacement breeding stock for a farmer's flock or herd, and into potentially marketable products such as meat on the hoof, milk, wool or hair, and in the case of free range poultry, eggs or meat. Some of these outputs need further work carried out on them in order to be marketable as a consumer product. In the case of draught animals the product is work.


• In 'down stream' agricultural industries
Just as in non-agricultural industrial businesses, in feedlots and other confinement feeding operations the raw materials of livestock, grain, minerals, silage and hay that were produced by primary producers are converted into potentially marketable products such as meat on the hoof, milk, wool or hair, or eggs, etc.
• In non-agricultural businesses
In non-agricultural businesses the forms of product conversion are wide and diverse. In factories raw materials are converted into products. In many industries it is the raw material of people, and their skills and knowledge that are converted into saleable services such as advice, nursing, teaching etc. It is the products of the solar production chain that sustain these people. If there is a shortage of food (ie not enough solar energy captured) then industries die with the people.

Number Three - The 'Marketing' link

In the economic system we have chosen to live in, for every business in every industry, the final link in the production chain is the marketing link. The farmer does not receive payment for his goods until he has sold his product for cash, or perhaps by barter or some other form of trade. Either way farmers must market their products in order to receive the best possible deal they can.

When farmers sell products they complete the direct line of the solar production chain - from sunlight striking the property to money in the bank. No other person or other industry has the ability to do this. Not even confinement agricultural producers have a direct line from sunlight to dollars, as they must purchase all of their inputs.

Here is the unique advantage that only a sun-harvesting farmer possesses:
By concentrating their decisions on increasing the effectiveness of ecosystem processes, at no extra cost a farmer increases the capture and storage of sunlight. Increasing the amount of trampled plant material (litter) on the soil surface is one way to increase ecosystem effectiveness. The increased amount of litter also directly decreases the amount of evaporation. If moisture is not allowed to evaporate then plants can access it for longer, and the more the plants will grow. The more the plants grow the more yield a crop will produce, or alternatively, more animals can be run on the greater amounts of grass growing. Productivity on a healthy farm will be greater than on a neighbouring farm that receives exactly the same rainfall. This is the unfair advantage of the farmer who uses good practices!

Other industries
Industrial companies do not receive revenue until they market and sell their products. Services industries are the same. Even the smartest lawyers in the world go hungry unless they actively market their services! Teachers must market themselves to education authorities, hairdressers to the public and tradespeople must market to their clients.

The production chain might mean for you...
Better targeting of your expenditure! When you know what your weak-link in the production chain is, you spend your money on that link.

If you target the weak-link EVERY TIME you spend money, your business will rapidly grow. A business with only the strength of a dinky little dog chain can soon turn into one with the the strength and resilience of a huge scrub clearing chain! In short, you will make more profit, regeneratively!

This is where you start...
Have a quick look at each enterprise in your business. Ask yourself, "what is holding back the growth of each enterprise?" You should be able to quickly identify where you must spend the next of your scarce dollars. If you are unsure, then you should seek assistance by making contact with Bruce Ward at the Gym or another Certified Educator near you.

You should monitor...
When it comes to the production chain to new wealth in your business, there are two obvious things to monitor:

1. Has my last expenditure to strengthen the weak-link had the desired effect?
2. Where is the weak-link now, and what deserves my next dollar?

Other things to consider...
Keep in mind that the weak-link is never static. Whatever your weak-link at the moment, when you address it the weak-link is quite likely to move, and it may do so almost immediately! You must be on your guard and watch all the time where the weak link is before you spend your money. Vigilance is very profit forming!

Money is simply the measure of success a farmer achieves in capturing, packaging and marketing the sunlight that enters his farm.