Smarter decisions. Deeper roots.
Decision science and practical technology for serious small and mid-size farms. Born out of a working permaculture operation in Michigan.
Hard work is a multiplier. Not a strategy.
The hardest working farmers I know are not always the most profitable ones. Effort amplifies whatever system you apply it to. If the system is well designed, well informed, and honestly evaluated, hard work compounds. If it isn't, more effort just means losing ground faster.
The Intelligent Farm is about the part of farming that gets the least attention: the quality of your decisions. I'm a clinical neuropsychologist by training, and I've spent my career studying how people judge evidence under uncertainty. I also run a perennial polyculture farm with tree crops, berries, Mangalitsa pigs, and laying hens. This is where those two things meet.
What intelligent means here
Better Information
Knowing what is actually happening on your land instead of what you assume is happening. Sensors where they earn their keep, soil tests read carefully, and simple observation protocols that cost nothing but discipline.
Better Decisions
Doing the math instead of going with your gut, forecasting before the season rather than explaining it afterward, and running honest post-season reviews that separate good decisions from lucky ones.
Better Systems
Designing the farm so good outcomes happen reliably with less daily intervention. Paddock layout, water, harvest workflow, and monitoring, built so you prevent problems instead of chasing them.
For operators in the gap
Most farm technology assumes thousands of acres of commodity row crops. Most homestead content assumes you're farming for the lifestyle. This channel is for the operators in between: small and mid-size perennial and mixed farms run by people sophisticated enough to use data and frameworks, working at a scale where enterprise ag-tech doesn't fit.
Series
The Farm Decision Lab
Farming is what decision scientists call a wicked learning environment. Feedback is delayed by seasons or years, confounded by weather and a dozen simultaneous changes, and driven by variables you aren't measuring. Experience in that kind of environment can build real skill, and it can also build confident errors. The Farm Decision Lab is an eight-part series on what the research says about judgment under uncertainty, and how to build a farm that actually teaches you something.
Tested in the field. Reported honestly.
When I test a sensor, a method, or a piece of equipment, you get what it actually did on this farm, what it cost, and whether it was worth it. The things that failed get at least as much airtime as the things that worked. A channel that only shows success is selling something.
Field Notes
A short, occasional email with new episodes, the spreadsheets and templates behind them, and what I'm learning on the farm, including what didn't work. No filler.