How to choose between crop farming and livestock raising? Rural households should pay attention to these points in production and business operations

Many rural people start businesses by doing crop farming and livestock raising at home. Farmers broadly demand to improve their management level and master business decision-making methods. Let's take a look at the points to note in rural household production and business operations.

1. Choose the right business direction

1. Focus on one main business, that is, a household takes one main project as its business object. This method can concentrate funds and energy, makes it easy to improve technical proficiency and management level, and makes it easy to form economies of scale. However, the risk is relatively high, so you must judge accurately and grasp it steadily.

2. Run multiple businesses concurrently, that is, a household engages in the operation of multiple projects. For example, mainly farming while also raising livestock or processing agricultural and sideline products, and so on. Its advantages are that agricultural and sideline products can be fully used, labor can be arranged reasonably, the various production activities can complement one another, and the risk borne is relatively small. But this method requires relatively large capital investment, and the technical difficulty is also relatively high. At the same time, it may also lead to a situation where you grab at everything and do nothing well. Therefore, it is better for a household to focus on one or two product projects and concurrently run one or two related projects.

2. Determine the business project

When determining the projects a farming household will operate, pay attention to their stability and long-term nature. Under normal circumstances, once determined, they should not be changed for a relatively long period, so that they can form scale and advantages as soon as possible. After the products to be operated are determined, you must consider how large a setup is appropriate. This should be determined according to factors such as funds, raw materials, technology, sales channels, and market changes. Households operating multiple projects must also consider how these production projects should be matched in production, do a good job of comprehensive utilization, choose optimized combinations, develop diversified operations, and strive for prosperity in multiple businesses.

3. Base decisions on the market

To make the products of a farming household's business projects stand firmly in the market and be in demand in the near term, you must go deep into the market, conduct research and analysis, and gather information from many sources, promptly discover new industries, and open up new paths. When making decisions, you should view the overall situation, think ahead and look back, and weigh the pros and cons. Do not rush in and follow others just because you see them making more money from something, so as to avoid causing an imbalance in market supply and demand and a decline in returns.

4. Seize local advantages

In choosing business projects and determining production varieties, scale, and combination forms, you must base yourself on local resource advantages and strive to turn resource advantages into commodity advantages and economic advantages. Rural areas everywhere have some natural resource advantages. If fully utilized and various production undertakings are developed according to local conditions, the prospects are broad. You should give play to geographical advantages. In places with convenient transportation, especially in the suburbs of towns and cities, you can rely on the radiating effect of urban economic system reform to establish commerce, service industries, transportation, construction, and repair services, and open up a wide range of business paths.

5. Assess your own capabilities

First, look at technical ability. Some farming households have ancestral special skills and can produce some products and services with unique functions; some are skilled craftsmen in rural areas and can win through technology. Second, look at financial capacity. As the saying goes: “How much flour you have determines how big a steamed bun you can make.” Everything should be done according to your means. Third, look at the labor situation. Households with sufficient labor should focus on labor-intensive industries.