It’s true that Attitude lies behind failed farms. I had visited countless of successful and failed farms. When I compared both there are clear cut differences between the attitude of the owner of the successful farm and the owner of a failed farm. What causes these differences besides the micro and macro? ‘It is the Attitude”
As usual when I visit farm I meet up with the owner and have a discussion on the history of the farm like who is the one who built it, what had he done before this , where and how he aquired the skill and information about Swiftlets farming and so on.
Besides the obvious issues of the micro, one of the most astonishing factors that cause farms heading for failure is the attitude of the farm’s owner. These are;
1) Over confident:
Its common that most who joined this industry would think that they will beat those pioneer farms otherwise they wouldn’t have got involved if they knew that Swiftlet farming is not easy and the failure rate is 80%. Most would think that they would be on the 20% side (successful side) instead the 80% side.
With such perception “I am the best and I already know what I wanted to know” 80% chances they are heading for failure. With this they will no longer seek more advice. To them perhaps buying few books and so on is good enough..
2) Arrogant and Selfish
Once they have obtained information or learned something about Swiftlet Farming they will keep it to themselves some may even brag about it how well they had known this industry. What they didn’t know is that the information that they had obtained is actually common basic information that most farmers had already known.
They yet to have the ability to evaluate the quality of the information they obtained whether the skill they had learned from someone could be potentially applied to Swiftlet farming, whether the information they received from someone is accurate as most of them are yet to own a farm.
3) Penny wise pound foolish
Because of the lack of ability to weight and even many had resorted to use cost as a measurement tool to measure success in Swiftlet Farming.
To them the lowest cost to renovate or to construct a building for Swiftlet farm will justify success.
The cost of involvement would be double in future when the farm fails and need to be revamped. Besides that time and effort also wasted. Many still believe closing up windows with plywood, erect few partitions and play some birds sound birds will come and make nests.
Some even build stand alone the size of a kitchen, no wall insulation and so on to expect their farms to have 100 nests in 3 months.
Therefore having the right attitude is most important if one wants to be successful in this field. Definitely there is no short cut here. No short cut in information and skill too.
Good Luck.