Importance of an agroecosystems plan

Agricultural producers are always in constant transformation of the management they want to give to the systems in search of obtaining the best productive results. Any activity that takes place within the production unit must be planned, such as pasture rotation or weed management. However, a large number of producers are not clear about where they want to go with their farm in the medium term, much less how to get there.In this sense, a farm development plan or farm plan can be a great help to guide farm management.

In many agricultural areas it can be seen that some producers do not have a well-defined work plan and much less medium and long-term objectives, in this case they carry out agricultural activities in an improvised way to solve the day-to-day incidents. In that sense, we are convinced that producers could work in a more orderly and efficient way when they schedule their activities, guided by an action plan that includes a vision of where the farm wants to develop in the medium and long term. In addition, an estate plan can help solve problems, take advantage of opportunities that arise, make good use of available resources or more effectively manage the necessary resources.

To establish a farm plan there is no single formula, but to begin with some important aspects can be taken into account such as an inventory of available resources and a list of actions to be developed and goals to be met, all this, of course depending on the type of cultivation that is being developed on the farm, for example, in a livestock production unit, it is important to make an inventory of the plant species found in the ecosystem and determine which ones can provide some benefit to the livestock feeding system and in certain cases, such as legumes, the benefit it can bring with respect to nitrogen fixation to the soil.

Apart from the diagnosis of the resources that the farm has, one can also consider the potentialities and limitations that the farm has, for example, among the potentialities that the rural area where a livestock farm is located may have is that it has milk reception or dairy factories or refrigerators where it can market meat, with that the farm as an agricultural business entity is ensuring where to place its product in case its vision is to become a large meat or milk distributor.

On the other hand, we must know the limitations, for example, in our southern area of the lake of Maracaibo state Zulia Venezuela, in some sectors their limitations are the access roads to market the products or the floods when the rainy season comes, for that we must plan as much as possible through public or private entities the adequacy of the roads and also the elaboration of retaining walls and adequate drains to avoid floods.

In general terms, a farm plan is a description of the activities to be considered on the farm for a certain period, usually not less than one year, to solve one or several limitations and / or to take advantage of some of the opportunities offered by the environment, with the aim of making the farm more productive and sustainable. To achieve these objectives, the plan should describe in a simple way the use and treatment or the administration that will be given to the resources of the farm. The presentation of the plan can be a written document or a combination of drawings and text in which it describes in a few words how the farm is going to be worked in the medium and long term.