Lean Farm Start-up June 24-25
Take the stress out of start-up. Receive focused, practical advice on setting up and running a high-profit micro farm. Increase your profits with less work.
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Online Courses
Lean Market Growing Masterclass
A lifetime-access, fully comprehensive online course in using the lean system to set up a farm for high-profits with less work. For market growers. FIND OUT MORE.
Lean Hemp Production
A course detailing how to set up a profitable micro-scale CBD hemp enterprise on your existing farm or on a new farm. Lifetime access. LEARN MORE.
Books by Ben Hartman
The Lean Farm
The Lean Farm tells the story of how Clay Bottom Farm stumbled upon the lean system to turn their small farm around. It is the winner of multiple awards, including the prestigious Shingo Prize.
The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables
The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables is a field guide companion to The Lean Farm, describing how Clay Bottom Farm utilizes lean thinking to grow their specialty crops.
The Lean Farm Story
In 2011, one of Clay Bottom Farm's CSA customers approached Ben and Rachel, the owners, with the idea of applying the lean methods that he was using in his trailer factory to their farm. The result: the two farmers cut their growing area from five acres to less than one, got rid of most of their tools, and started to work far fewer hours. Yet every season that they downsized, they grew more profitable. Together, The Lean Farm and The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables make the case that farming can still be a viable career for anyone willing to farm "smaller and smarter."
Farmers from Edo Japan
The car company Toyota is often credited as being a pioneer in lean thinking. But who were the first workers at Toyota? Many were rice farmers and descendants of rice farmers.
During the Edo Period (roughly 1603-1868), the people of Japan innovated waste-free systems for nearly all aspects of society, including agriculture. In the 20th century, farm workers carried this thinking with them into car factories and other industries.
For more on sustainability during the Edo period: Japan in the Edo Period: An Ecologically Conscious Society by Eisuke Ishikawa
The No-Waste Pioneers of Tuskegee
Cultures throughout history have used no-waste thinking to farm smaller and smarter.
In rural Alabama, in the early 1900s, sharecropper land was divided and subdivided into smaller and smaller parcels. Poor farmers were forced to do more with less, to farm lean.
George Washington Carver (pictured left), as head of the Tuskegee Experiment Station, stepped in to encourage diversification away from cotton, pioneering growing systems for peanuts, produce, and other crops that can be grown in high volume on small plots. Thousands of farmers received small farmer training through Tuskegee and its bulletins. According to Carver, "Take care of the waste on the farm and turn it into useful channels" should be the slogan of every farmer.
"Everyone strives for efficiency in vegetable farming, but Ben Hartman has actually achieved it."
Lynn Byzynski
editor, Growing for Market Magazine
"We give every new employee a copy of Ben's writing to study. Adopting lean principles has been critical for bringing organization, focus, and harmony to our vegetable farm."
Pete Johnson
organic farmer and owner of Pete's Greens, Craftsbury, Vermont
"Ben Hartman is that rare person who could describe the lean farming revolution and then provide proven practices from his own farm."
Jim Womack
founder, Lean Enterprise Institute
Follow Clay Bottom Farm on Instagram...
Instagram is Ben's microblog. Follow for lots of photos, tips, and lists of things he has put kickstands on recently.
CLAY BOTTOM FARM INSTAGRAM PAGE
About Ben Hartman
Ben is a farmer and author of The Lean Farm, winner of the prestigious Shingo Prize. In 2017 he wrote a field guide companion called The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables, and was named one of 50 green leaders in the US by Grist. He is a senior consultant for USAID-funded projects. Clay Bottom Farm offers on-farm workshops and online courses teaching farmers how to farm smaller and smarter.
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