Facing challenges are all in a day’s work in managing the farm and people – some steps forward, some steps backwards. These two weeks we walked backward.
In our blog “Fresh Faces (22-27 May 2017)”, we shared our delight in having four young Orang Asli men joining the farm on a training-cum-work programme. Sadly, three of them have dropped out, due to possible mixture of reasons:
- Clash in working styles
- Effort put in does not commensurate large enough rewards
- Loss of confidence in the farm’s lack of adequate high yields
We also encountered various problems with farm management. We had significant losses with our bitter gourds as they were not properly wrapped. This was in addition to inefficient management of diseased leaves and insects, and stunted growth projections and yields.
The reason given for this slack was a lack of team work. For instance, persons tasked to wrap vegetables were expected by others to complete the task all by themselves. Thus, those who had completed their own duties were unwilling to help, even though fruit wrapping was behind schedule.
To address the lack of team work, two working teams were formed; each team was responsible for the whole process of the plots they worked on. Much remains to be done in managing the farm and good team work.
