Leadership and Sustainability - of Growing Well Organization - Case Study Example

Introduction

Agriculture is the underpinning base of human civilization. Agricultural farms are responsible for providing human beings with fiber and food. Farming – fiber, food and agriculture – is a vital part of the economy, availing job opportunities and important goods (raw materials). The constant degradation and depletion of earth’s natural resources brought about by caustic farming practices, changes in diet and the growing human population all pose immense challenges to agricultural sustainability. Business activities paramount to the overriding global economic standards many times underpin these critical tendencies.

Under the present prevailing paradigm, health challenges are increasing every day while deforestation and global warming effects increasingly creating unfavorable conditions for farming, resulting in hunger and starvation as witnessed in some parts of the world. Efforts to sustain this paradigm that is dependent on non-renewable energy considered “cheap” in some quarters are everyday proving inadequate. There is therefore a need to implement a paradigm shift to transform from the present destructive practices to a holistic and integrated approach purposed at enhancing and improving sustainable production, as well as food consumption.

Organic agricultural farming solutions hold the key for the conservation and restoration of natural resources. Organic farming is the fundamental base around which individuals can practice sustainable agricultural production. In addition, organic agricultural farming can assist in developing stable human societies as well as maintaining healthy ecological systems, giving the much needed support to nearly all forms of life. There’s however need to improve on the already practiced methods of organic farming. Continued R&D (research and development), as well as innovation must be ongoing to enhance the methods, skills and yield, additionally developing high quality varieties that are able to sustain drought and other unfavorable climatic conditions, maximizing synergies developed when involved parties adopt combined approaches to development.

Growing Well Organization

Growing Well is a community-based Mental health charity focused on organic farming and training enterprise. The organization operates on a 10 acre farm located at Low Sizergh just outside Kendal in S. Cumbria. The organization attends to approximately 1250 sq. meters of covered (indoor) growing space. The organization grows about 20 tons of fruits and organic vegetables every year that are subsequently traded through the Vegetable Bag scheme (Crop Share) (growingwell.co.uk).

The company grows an extensive range of salad and seasonal crops on its 10 acre piece of land. The produce is later sorted and processed and sold to the local community through the mentioned crop share scheme, as well as local vegetable and farm produce outlets including Sizergh Castle Café and Low Sizergh Barn. The organization additionally trains students on the farm through their yurt-based class lessons, in addition to using the spaces provided by the National Trust facility – Sizergh Castle. The organization’s courses are provided in a practical manner by experienced tutors who have hands on experience as gardeners and growers. The company additionally allows scheduled educational visits during summer months for schools, imparting important lessons on farming and food. Students are able to simulate the activities that take place in the farm. During the winter seasons, the tutors and the program officers offer the lessons to schools by running the food education workshops.

Integrating Sustainability into Business Practice: Theory and Practice

Companies increasingly tend to incorporate society’s prospects into their business plans and strategies, not just to react to increasing pressure from employees, clients and involved stakeholders but also to look for openings for developing and enhancing competitive advantage. In this regard, research analysts in the management field seek to identify the elements with the prospects for assisting effective assimilation of sustainability practices into company practices.

Leadership has been acknowledged as a vital element, upholding the commitment of companies as a whole, promoting cultural morals and standards in the direction of such commitment instead of perceiving it as a form of control (Robert et al 2004).

Similarly, other scholars have described come sets of idyllic organizational types, and for every form elaborates a framework of related institutional frameworks and values, for instance, governance and leadership roles. Scholars such as Fineman debate on the leadership roles in change processes indicating that green activities happen when business executives nurture employee obligation to belonging to a publicly and socially responsible company. Therefore, leadership is seen to be playing a significant role in the corporate implementation of sustainability activities.

There are scholars who have proposed that organizational commitment towards promoting sustainability is enhanced when top business executives accept the proposed idea, but also when the lower levels of the organization take part in sustainability efforts, for instance, when there is uniformity between staff members’ organizational values and concerns. Change agents can be internal or external, for instance, clients, regulatory agencies, suppliers and investors. Other scholars such as Sharma and Henrique (2006) have in the past suggested a typology joining various forms of stakeholder influence schemes with different sustainability activities applied by organizations.

Growing Well and Sustainability

Growing Well has adopted a purely organic agricultural production system. Through engaging organic farming, the company is able to effectively sustain the health of soils, individuals and ecosystems. The company is also able to depend on agricultural cycles consistent with local conditions, biodiversity, as well as ecological processes instead of using inputs with unfavorable effects. The company combines science, innovation and tradition to benefit the shared environment, as well as promoting good quality of life and fair relationships for all the involved individuals.

The organic approach with regards to sustainable development – involving the ecological and social transformations needed in the world – is reliant on the four values of organic agriculture, associated to fairness, care, ecology and health. Organic agriculture entails rounded and holistic ideologies to maintain and sustain the health of all living organisms and the systems that support life on earth. Fairness concerns stewardship, justice, respect and equity in the world shared by all living elements including human beings. Care comprises the observance of the precautionary principle, improvement of productivity and efficiency responsibly.

The underlying principle of sustainable agricultural development comprises the farm and all land surrounding the farm. It also includes the individuals living within the farm. Similar to all other human systems, farms do not exist separation. Processors and food traders are additionally accountable and responsible for providing support to all elements of sustainability in the main production systems (Fullan 2002). Rural development – cultural, economic and social – is of paramount importance to the world’s sustainability.

Special importance is directed towards family and community farmers such as Growing Well, including other small scale farmers along with their markets, as well as their agricultural communities. Family and small holder farms represent the main means of food production in third world countries, although Growing Well is a small holder farm located in the upper parts of Crumbia. However as noted earlier, this type of farm (in terms of size and mode of production) is common in the larger parts of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the highlighted systems are responsible for large portions of the staple food produced. Communities living within sustainable farms such as Growing Well have food sovereignty, have their own food and are largely free from poverty, consequently providing opportunities for improving the collective quality of living besides providing training.

Proposed Changes to the Company Practice

Growing Well needs to reduce the activities that unsettle biological activities. The organization needs to reduce compaction and tillage through avoidance of using heavy machinery, and substitute the heavy tools with the ones that have minimal disturbance to the soil. The company needs to maintain perennial crops and permanent sod besides integrating agro forestry in possible instances. Growing Well should additionally avoid soil loss emanating from deliberate or incidental exposure to human traffic, animal traffic, deforestation, water, wind or the sun. The soil needs to be covered and maintained that way through mulching and cover crops.

Growing Well needs to additionally obtain their soil fertility through the choice yields grown through the use of cover crops, nitrogen fixing techniques, recycling of waste elements, as well as crop rotation. If fertility sources are procured off the farm, there is need for the organization to know the source, with organic and local (preferably non-factory) farming sources preferred. The organization needs to recycle the farming system nutrients in a manner that minimizes loss and waste, maximizes efficiency while at the same time optimizing resource use, which are produced on-farm in close-loop frameworks.

Growing Well growers and on-farm attenders need to initiate efforts to comprehend the exact nutrient content of the soil in the arable lands. Expertise application of trace factors can enhance the uptake of macro elements. In those instances, productivity increases may far overshadow soil analyses costs. Growing Well farmers additionally need to avoid the use of elements alleged of having traces of contamination, for instance, residues of pesticides, heavy metals or GMOs. They need to investigate the material sources for determining any possible contamination threats, thus assist in guiding their choices accordingly.

Communications and Implementation Plan

Communication Goals

• Enhance the farm manager’s knowledge and skills regarding best practices in organic farming and promote sustainable farming methods for improved growth and development

Messages

Enhance the farm manager’s knowledge and skills regarding best practices in organic farming and promote sustainable farming methods for improved growth and development

Target Audience

• Company farm managers, community leaders, farmers

Concern of Target Audience

• How to increase yields
• How to ensure there is food security

Value Message

The Organization needs to reduce the activities that unsettle biological activities. The organization needs to reduce compaction and tillage through avoidance of using heavy machinery, and substitute the heavy tools with the ones that have minimal disturbance to the soil.

Leadership Learning Points

• Leaders should be at the fore front in ensuring there is organizational coordination
• Farming and business in general becomes better when leaders keep learning
• Supervision is good for the business
• Business leaders are of paramount importance to the success of the organization

Sustainability Learning Points

• Science is vital in finding sustainable alternative production methods
• Organic farming if done in the right way can ensure there is food security without experiencing the adverse effects of soil erosion and degradation
• The organic approach with regards to sustainable development – involving the ecological and social transformations needed in the world – is reliant on the four values of organic agriculture, associated to fairness, care, ecology and health
• Organic agriculture entails rounded and holistic ideologies to maintain and sustain the health of all living organisms and the systems that support life on earth