When farm roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined and agreed, misunderstandings happen and conflicts take shape.
Based on our experience and the available recognised tools out there, Abunda has designed a quick and helpful approach to clarify farm roles and responsibilities, carefully tailored to farm teams.
What this resource is
A quick process accompanied by a template (spreadsheet) to fill out.
ARCI makes it clear how each person needs to relate to each work task for the different parts of the farm – from daily management of animals/crops/machinery to sales, distribution and admin/office tasks.
For each area of work, you define who is:
A = Accountable
R = Responsible
C = Consulted
I = Informed
A = Accountable (only 1 person):
The 1 person who makes sure everything gets done within an area of work, whether by themselves or by delegation. Has the final call on decision making.
R = Responsible (minimum 1 person):
is generally trusted to make decisions on-the-go but can be vetoed by the Accountable person.
C = Consulted (unlimited persons)
A person who is consulted (provide input) for an area of work and decision making, and needs to make themselves available for that.
I = Informed (unlimited persons)
A person who is kept informed regularly about an area of work.
See more guidance within the resource itself.
The template (Google spreadsheet) is formatted to fit a print-out to be posted on the wall (by exporting as PDF under “File” – “Download” or “Print”).
How to use this resource
Firstly, consider if you’d like some support for making the most of this resource. It is advisable to have an objective third party involved, whether that’s an advisor or another human with experience in facilitation.
There are usually 5 steps to using this resource:
- Introducing the tool itself to the team
- Giving people a bit of time to think about their role
- Having a (potentially facilitated) meeting to agree
- Having a print-out of the ARCI clearly posted on the wall in the farm office
- Revisiting ARCI-roles when things change on farm or you find out that something didn’t work as intended.
Getting the tool:
Go to the link below (Google Sheets template) and follow the instructions.
- You can access the template as “view only”.
- In order to edit, you will need to “Make a copy” or “Download” the file under the menu item “File”.
Open Licence
This resource is licenced to be openly available via Creative Commons. Specifically, we are using the Attribute-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
This means that you can freely:
- Use it however you please, also commercially
- Edit or remix your own version
- Share it to anyone
- Contribute to the resource and be listed as contributor
But always remember:
- No one can change the credits of who originated or contributed to a resource
- You cannot share it as “proprietary”, only with the same open licence
- Essentially, no one can ever fully “own” this resource. It needs to be freely available always.
How to contribute
Have you learned something, that others could benefit from?
Do you have suggestions for upgrades or already made some improvements?
Please share them back to us, and we will list you as a Contributor.
Please email us on hello@abunda.farm