August 25, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Lundberg represents a growing sector of family farmers adapting to the demands of a specialty (higher quality) marketplace. The globalization of the food market allows for customers in foreign, as well as domestic markets, to custom grow rice with Lundberg that suits the tastes of the market.
If you sent all the rice grown in California for one year to Japan and replaced their existing supply, an annual California crop would be consumed in about 12 short weeks. Why then does Japan look to specialty rice farms, like Lundberg Family Farms, to supply them with organic rice? While the answer isnt obvious at first, after spending a day in their rice fields, it became apparent.
On a beautiful, sunny day in Richvale, California (about 20 miles south of Chico) I accompanied Bryce Lundberg, a family farmer of the renown Lundberg family, on a tour of their 10,000 acre farm. I say this, because no day would be too beautiful if it was steaming hot, as it is often apt to be in the 100 degree plus days that are characteristic of this agricultural region. The weathers been cooler than expected this summer, delaying the harvest season by about two weeks. I fully expected to see the wild rice harvest in progress, along with the long grain, medium grain, short grain, aromatic grain, and their colorful exotic grains. Unfortunately, I arrived just a couple of weeks before the harvest was to begin.
The cool temperatures this summer pushed the harvest off for, oh, about a couple of weeks, explained Bryce. He added, Were ready to go, the minute its ready to harvest.
PURITY OF SEED LINES
Lundberg Family Farm grows about 13 different varieties of rice. Many varieties will remain whole grain brown rice while others are milled down to white rice. While all Lundberg Family Farms rice is grown using sustainable farming methods, each variety is also grown organically as well. New varieties are always under development in their nursery and in experimental plots. They develop, breed and harvest their own seed and varieties not only to ensure varietal survival (and supply) for generations to come, but also in order to ensure the purity of the varieties.
Bryce continued, Many of the varieties we grow are not grown anymore by the California rice industry so we keep the varieties growing ourselves. We propagate our own seed. The varieties Im showing you are currently in the seed development program at our farm. We sow large seed paddies and we develop the seed that we use for planting.
As we drove by seed plots of Wehani, Arborio, California Basmati, California Jasmine, Black Japonica and many others, we came across a variety I had never heard of before. What is Hong Kong Black? I asked.
Bryce stopped the truck so we could get out to take a look. Hong Kong Black, I found, is another variety currently under experimentation on the Lundberg Farm. This variety originates from Asia, he explained. We do a lot of crossing. We take a variety that is in our nursery and clip the seeds, collect the pollen, and do a manual cross. Then we take the pollen, swap the seeds, and grow them to see what kind of cross we get to accommodate for the climatic differences that otherwise would make growing the original variety unfeasible.
Farmer Bryce Lundberg
The desire to create outstanding varieties of rice is an art form treasured by the Lundberg family. Only natural methods involving cross-pollination are used. Here is a new variety of sweet rice, Bryce indicated as he pointed to a small sized patch to our left. Its not new, its from Japan, but its a variety that our customer from Japan wants, so we are doing some experiments to see if it can grow here. This goes to a seed field next year, and it will be ready to be planted for crop the year after that. After this year, we will have a pretty good idea if it will come to fruition or not.
Purity is the focus here, and purity is always the goal. Unless we produce a pure strain of seeds in advance, wed end up with rice that may have desirable characteristics, but wouldnt be pure. Seed operations often strive for purity, but what is truly unusual at Lundbergs is that a crop-producing farm would set aside acreage to grow their own seed. Its because we produce so many varieties that are not grown commercially in California or anywhere, that we need to maintain these varieties for the future. Our small plots maintain our purity.
WEED CONTROL STRATEGY FOR ORGANIC RICE
Organic farming represents about 60% of the acreage at Lundberg Family Farms. While we do eradicate the weeds by flooding the paddy during the first phase, it does stress the rice. In our second phase we dry up the fields so that the remaining water hardy weeds are destroyed and hope the remaining rice is strong enough to thrive, Bryce comments.
Weed control strategy is a buzz term on this farm. Organic farming results from a love for the environment and a desire to always use natural methods to maintain the delicate balance of nature. But with it comes an extra commitment to observation. The Lundbergs keep a keen lookout to assure their current strategy maintains effectiveness. Weeds are capable of adapting to extreme environmental variances, so even though a natural weed control method works now, there are no guarantees as to the duration of time a particular method will remain effective ,so the Lundbergs are always working on an innovative natural solution to replace those that arent doing the job. One method of stressing the weeds through flooding then subsequently drying up is quite effective. The word of their success practicing this method spread, and other organic farms are trying their hand at this technique as well. Its challenging most of the time.
CROP CYCLE OF ORGANIC RICE
Early in the growing season, Lundberg Farms uses deep water to drown the grasses. Weed control is the number one challenge in growing organic rice. For every rice seed planted, there, are potentially 50 weed plants that could grow around it, choking it off. If you have a seedling at the beginning of the year and you put water over the top of the soil, grass and weeds start to grow at the same time. But weeds need to get through the water and get a leaf on top in about 20 days. Rice has a window of about 48 hours longer to get its leaf up. If it doesnt, then the rice will drown as well. Different varieties have a tougher time surviving. Akitokamachi, for example is really challenging. Over time, total weed control is not possible. We could anticipate over time, that the weeds will become more adaptive to whatever technique we are using, so we will devise another natural control method, explained Bryce.
Early moring, white rice stalk
During the second phase, the fields are drained of all water for sedge control. This dry-up phase is another form of weed control to eradicate the weeds and the weaker rice. Water management is always a key issue involved in farming organic rice. During the third phase, water is let back into the fields, so the crop can reach final maturation.
Lundberg Family Farms base acreage is roughly 3,500 acres, and they manage another 7,500 acres through their loyal family of growers. As we drove through the farm, I commented often on the natural ruggedness and beauty of the terrain. On all the farmable land, they utilize crop rotation as part of their strategy to build and maintain healthy soil. Also, all acreage is routinely fallowed, that is, given a periodic rests from planting to restore soil to its optimum condition.
THE WILD RICE CROP
Nothing surpasses the beauty of a wild rice crop. If youre inclined to marvel at natures creations, then you must include a stop to a wild rice field next August, just before the harvest begins. Standing over 12 feet high, the beautiful stalks of lavender, tan and golden plumes sway in the breeze to create a rippling effect with natures colors. As we got out of the truck to get a closer look, I chose to stay on terra firma, rather than schlock through the muck, because Bryce had the only hip-high wading boots necessary to walk through the fields. So dense was the field, the ground was not even visible. Bryce inspected the stalks of the rice to see if they were ready to harvest. The unexpected cool weather had slowed the maturation process down so harvest was going to be delayed.
AKITAKOMACHI
As we drove by the Akitakomachi, a Japanese variety, I was amazed to notice it sported an almost auburn hue. This paddy had just come out of the dry up cycle and the crop had not finished greening up. Akitakomachi is treasured for its beautiful round, pearl-like grain and delicate flavor. Typically milled to a white rice, Akitakomachi is favored for used in Pacific Rim dishes, sushi in particular. The Lundbergs successfully grow and experiment with several varieties of rice originating from Asian countries, making them the primary choice for Pacific Riclients desiring their crops to be grown in California.
RICE CAKES
The popularity of Lundbergs delicious rice cakes in Europe began with an American who relocated to Holland. After several months of buying and importing his personal supply of Lundberg rice cakes, this enterprising fellow became a European Lundberg broker. He assumed if Europeans loved Lundbergs rice cakes as much as he did, a great market potential could be realized. As a result of this vision, Lundberg Family Farms is enjoying an eager and growing market throughout Europe.
Lundberg rice cakes are different than typical European rice cakes. Now that the European markets tasted the thicker, crunchier, denser, tastier cake, they really like them! Repeat business is steadily increasing. In the U.S. markets, most of the rice cakes are about the same size, but ours have twice as much rice in each cake, VP sales and marketing Tim ODonnell explains. While it hard to note the difference between Lundberg rice cakes and conventional rice cakes while they are in the package, Lundbergs are deliciously dense. In the Euro market, traditional rice cakes are even smaller, thinner, and even less crunchy. Basically there is nothing like our rice cake in any other country.
The Lundberg rice cake package weighs about twice as much per package as other American brands, with an even bigger difference in the European brands. Repeat business stems from a crunchier, tastier, more nutritious rice cake. Lundberg rice cakes can even be very lightly toasted, an advantage that they maintain over all available other brands. The ability to toast the cake is clearly an advantage, O Donnell explains with a smile. The fragrance is similar to baking bread.
The Lundberg rice cake recipe is proprietary, of course. In the rice cake popping facility, located at farm headquarters, they have custom-designed and continuously improved their innovative system of popping delicious rice cakes, and they add a delightfully diverse range of all natural toppings and flavors to their 18 different flavors. Representing a large percentage of the Lundbergs business, rice cakes have been a favorite with their loyal American consumers for many, many years.
Customers want to know that they are eating a pure and healthy product. If you start out with a great grain, you are going to end up with a great rice cake. We will continue to support this product into the European markets.
August 24, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Housed in a spectacular inn over looking the southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua is an innovative new clinical program offering intensive couples and family therapy in the context of an extraordinary Central American vacation. Although only in its second year of operation this program has established a strong record in helping turn around struggling relationships.
Dr. Stewart, the programs director, indicates that the experience of being away from the distractions and habits of home, immersed in a distinct culture and the extraordinary beauty of Nicaragua provides a different kind of platform from which to address relationship issues. The combination of a wonderful vacation and relatively intensive therapy (daily couples, family and individual sessions) provides unique treatment opportunities.
Areas of clinical focus include couples struggling with poor communication patterns, emotional distance, entrenched resentment, substance use, infidelity, sexual issues, general parenting issues, step parenting, management of adolescent children and parenting children with special needs (i.e. ADHD & Autistic Spectrum).
The program is capable of serving couples and families, as well as larger extended families (groups of 8 or more utilize an adjacent hotel for accommodations). The program may also be utilized for clinically supported family reunions. Please note that unlike many relationship retreats, clients involved in this program have no contact with others clients, group work outside of ones family is not a part of this program.
This approach has been particularly effective in work with treatment-resistant individuals who have been drawn to the vacation aspect of the experience more than the therapy; allowing for relationship work to take place in a manner not possible in a more traditional therapy setting. The intensity of the work with its daily sessions often allows therapeutic gains difficult to establish in more traditional weekly sessions.
These therapy services may be provided as an adjunct to existing individual, couples or family therapy, or without involvement in prior therapy. When appropriate, Dr. Stewart will communicate with other treating clinicians both before and after participation in the program. The property used for this program is a former eco-luxury inn and offers exceptional accommodations with a fully open orientation to the ocean below.
In addition to clinical services clients are provided extensive travel and vacation support while in the program, as well as use of an all terrain vehicle to allow full access to this remarkable region. This region of Nicaragua offers wonderful vacation options including: spectacular beaches, many excellent beach front restaurants, exceptional surfing, sailing, horse back riding, canopy tours, yoga, Spanish lessons or simply sitting by the pool and enjoying the natural beauty.
August 22, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Family businesses have a different set of circumstances, then regular businesses, which they should be aware of.
This article will attempt to address some of the strengths and weaknesses of a family business, so that you can help to improve your family business, by addressing the weaknesses and optimizing your strengths.
First I will start off by addressing the 3 main weaknesses that come with owning a family business.
1) Less Concern over profits – Family businesses sometimes have a tendency to focus on things that don’t necessarily bring their company the most profits. They will often try to lower the price of their product, and raise their products quality, which will usually hurt the companies profits per sale.
Family businesses tend to have much lower profit margins that publicly owned companies. Studies have shown that the family businesses tend to have half the profit margins of publicly owned companies. This is partially do to the fact that public companies feel required to show growth, in earnings were as private businesses usually don’t feel as much of an obligation for increasing revenue.
2) Non-Financial Goals – Small business owners have the ability to pursue their own goals. These desires and goals may not always be in the companies best interest. Publicly owned companies on the other hand feel pressure from the share holders, and thus will be much less likely to do things that aren’t intended to help the company.
3) Nepotism – Family businesses sometimes feel an obligation to promote and hire family members, solely because of their relationship. The business owner(s) will often overlook people that are better suited for the job, in order to hire family members who may or may not be the best choices. This can wipe out a companies profits, and cause problems within the company.
Next, I will mention the strengths that family businesses have over public companies.
1) Greater Sacrifices – In family businesses, the members of the family are more likely to work extra hours, and get paid less, because they know that they are helping there company, and they are working to help their family. They will often not take dividends unless the company has a surplus cash flow.
2) Company Loyalty – There is less turnover in family businesses, specifically with management, this makes it much easier to keep employees for long periods of time. In non family businesses the managers of a company will often go to a competitors company, in order to get an increase in salary, or they may even set up their own company. If a family member does decide to quit the family business, it is very unlikely that they will go to work for a competitor.
3) Greater Employee Interest – Employees for family businesses are interested in improving the companies profits where as the employees of larger public companies, will often just work the 40-hour workweek, and then go home. Taking their salary with them. Family business employees on the other hand will try very hard to make sure that their company is successful, often putting in extra hours.
4) More Teamwork – Members of family businesses don’t have to try to figure out the motives of their fellow employees, they know that whatever the other employees want will usually be in their and the companies best interest. This makes communication, and teamwork much easier.
For any business it is essential that the company recognizes its weaknesses and deals with them, and that they also recognize their strengths, and try to utilize them for the biggest advantage. If you are the owner of a family business, you should figure out what your companies strengths and weakness are, and what you should do about them, to try to benefit the company the most.
August 21, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Time management tips are all about power – your power. To unlock your potential, learn how ancient assumptions about time hold you back. 7 simple questions provide the key.
How often do you find yourself restless with your daily routines? What do you do with the gnawing sensation that life may be passing you by? If you feel trapped in a fishbowl, remind yourself that with sufficient insight, you can create a paradigm shift. As the saying goes: :
“One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.” Marshall McLuhan
To make a strong start, focus on your family of origin. You can tap profound insights by traveling to your roots.
The rhythm of your family’s time choices moved through you from your first moments. So it’s hardly surprising that you may frequently overlook ways you restrict your options. Your family legacy about time use is a current that will run through you unchecked. That is, until you see it, claim it and use your power to change your scripts!
Family Origin Exercise – Identify Your Lifetime Scripts About Time Choices
Fill-in-the-blank exercises help generate startling insights. Explore your history with a relaxed and open mind. Take a few minutes to write down your responses. Fresh family insights will enrich you considerably! Broaden the exercise to include other family members too, if they influenced your early development with regard to time.
1. I liked the way my mother/father always took time to _______.
2. My mother/father always dreamed of __________ but never took the time.
3. When under stress, my mother/father would spend more time ________.
4. My mother/father spent lots of time _________ no matter what.
5. I felt valued when my mother/father spent time __________.
6. I used to promise myself in the past that I would not ever spend time ________ the way that my mother/father did.
7. When I look at where my life feels out of balance and think of my mother/father’s time choices, I see that ____________.
* What do you learn by completing this exercise?
* What takes you by surprise?
* Which of your family’s time choices have you adopted as your own? How do you use them in your life today?
You may experience a range of emotions as you consider what you now know. But this is the first step in your revising your approach to the rest of your life!
Keep in mind that the friendly acceptance you bring to yourself as you trace these patterns will help you forge new paths in the days ahead.
Why not return to this exercise from time to time to see what additional insights you gain? And while you are at it, ask your dreams, as well!
As you intuitively make your way forward, you will discover more and more possibilities. The best way to honor your legacy is to consciously choose what to bring forward, and what to release.
So invest the time and care in writing this upcoming chapter of your life enriched by wisdom from these family stories.
And to energize and mobilize yourself, sign up for our free Finding Time Success Kit, with “The New Finding Time Boundary Template: 9 Steps to Find More Time & Recharge Your Energy!”
This time template plus workbook will help you move beyond disappointment, and overwhelm. You’ll find 24 hours really are enough!
Offered to you by Paula Eder, the Time Finder Expert.
August 20, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Families are the most controversial social institutions (Gilding 1997). Each of us has connections to a ‘family’. We each have a biological mother and father, and most of us grow up within proximity of one or both of our parents. The idea of the family has connections that are embedded in our cultural, religious and linguistic history. When we speak of the ‘family’, we refer to relationships with what is familiar or well known to us within a household.
Historically, we are born into a culture whereby marriage is considered to be part of the ‘natural’ progression of life. We get married and become part of a ‘nuclear’ family, defined as consisting of two generations of biologically related people, typically a man and woman who marry, maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and have one or more children (Murdock 1949).
Today however, the idea of the ‘family’ as a monolithic notion has been replaced with the assumption that the structure of families is fluid and changeable. Contemporary families are inclusive of single parent families, blended families, step-families and homosexual families to name a few. To define the concept of the family as consisting of one pattern of attributes leads to controversial discussions pertaining to the ideologies of marriage, divorce, sex and children. The family is no longer a concept that can be contemplated within an essentialist notion, rather the concept of the contemporary family has evolved into a fluid ideology that is constantly shifting and changing throughout society.
Since the 1960s, Australians have seen the concept of the family change rapidly to include gay couples, childless couples and de-facto families. Such changes have not only occurred due to the shifting trends, expectations and norms of society, but have also occurred as a result of wars, economic depressions, changes in the identify of women and the decline in birth rate. Such changes, subsequently led to changes in other concepts such as ‘marriage’.
Since the 1970s, Australians have been rethinking marriage and the ways in which the ‘family’ is managed. More people are delaying marriage or simply opting not to get married and more people are having fewer children. Additional to those who are still making the choice to get married; more people are also getting divorced whilst others are journeying through cycles of marriage, divorce and re-marriage.
While marriage continues to remain popular, more people are opting to remain in de-facto relationship prior to getting married, with many never actually making it down the aisle. Statistics indicate that in 1975 only 15. Further reports reveal that by 1998, two-thirds of Australians had accepted that de-facto relationships were an alternative rather than a prelude to marriage. These statistics continue to rise, with more people delaying marriage or simply accepting the ideology of the de-facto status to be inclusive of the definition of the ‘family’.
The concept of the family has changed to incorporate the changes that have occurred within society and the attached ideologies. Marriage is no longer considered to be an identity marker that sets precedent for one to be part of a family, rather it has become a formality that excrete other social markers affiliated with status, class and power. To be ‘married’ or to be part of a ‘married’ family indicates stability and normality. Thus, it is easy to see why so many people embark upon marriage in order to gain a sense of belonging, and to be deemed ‘normal’ only to later realise that the marriage is far from normal.
The changes we see within the idea of the family and the concept of marriage will continue to remain fluid and changeable. We live in a society whereby change is inevitable. Whilst the idea of the ‘nuclear’ family remains popular, it is important to understand that modern families are diverse. We will continue to see a variety of ways in which people work individually and collectively. Today’s family incorporates a variety of notions, all of which fit within the definition of the family.