A Lean Farm Collection

This week’s guest on the No-Till Market Garden Podcast was Ben Hartman and, although we do not dive into what lean manufacturing is, we do mention that we will cover it on the blog. As promised… I’ve gathered some of the best lean content on the web for you to watch, listen, and/or read at your convenience to learn more about lean farming and Ben’s approach.

Ben’s Lean Farm E-Courses

Ben offers several different lean-based courses on vegetable growing

Books

(Use offer code NOTILL for 35% off any Chelsea Green Books, in case you forgot)

The Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work - This is Hartman’s debut book and it outlines what lean is, how it started, how he got into it, and how it applies to agriculture.

The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables: More In-Depth Lean Techniques for Efficient Organic Production - Field guides are typical in lean circles, but this is an excellent and detailed outline of Hartman’s operation.

Articles

My Article for Civil Eats on Lean Farming
What Can Small Farms Learn from a Car Company

Another from Civil Eats I wrote: a Q&A with Ben
A Method for Growing a Lot of Food on Little Land

Videos

Ben shares his story with Diego Footer

Farmer Ben Hartman talks about how lean principles turned their farm around.

Hakurai Turnip Production at Clay Bottom Farm

Ben Hartman, author of The Lean Farm, teaches how to grow delcious Hakurei Turnips that sell. How shows how to get them to market early in colder climates. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Visit http://claybottomfarm.com

Podcasts (we’ve posted all of these from YouTube, though you can find each wherever you get your podcasts)

“Five essential Tools” with Diego Footer on Farm Small Farm Smart

Ben Hartman, author of The Lean Farm, will explain the five most-used tools on his farm--and why you don't need much more. He will also talk about cutting edge new tools on the market, and how to use lean thinking when selecting new tools.

Ben on the Farmer-to-Farmer

Clay Bottom Farm’s Ben Hartman is the author of The Lean Farm, a book on minimizing waste and increasing efficiency on the vegetable farm. He has farmed full time for the past ten years with his wife, Rachel, in Goshen, Indiana, where they’re both making a living on less than an acre of production, selling 90 percent of their produce within ten miles of the farm.

Ben on the Intellectual Agrarian

Our guest today is Ben Hartman from Claybottom Farm in Goshen IN, and author of The Lean Farm and The Lean Farm Guide To Growing Vegetables. Together we'll discuss how he started farming, what lean thinking is, and how it became implemented on Claybottom Farm.

Webinar

Last, but not least, a great webinar with NOFA MASS

Sometimes less is more. Learn organization strategies from Ben Hartman of Iowa's Claybottom Farm. Ben an experienced farmer who has improved his farm management based on Lean principals, originally designed by the Japanese auto industry. Lean allows him to cut waste, increase profit and make his farm more environmentally sustainable.

Our purpose is to bring you—the farmer—the best no-till growing content out there for free. Did you get something out of this collection? If you found this post to be of value, and want to see No-Till Growers grow, support our work for as little as $2/month on Patreon or Venmo/Paypal. We need your help to reach $1,000/month to do season two of the podcast, run the site, and bring you EVEN BETTER no-till and regenerative veg content. Folks, we’re just getting started. Let’s move no-till veg forward!