I have been reminded of this law in two ways today:

If you are not familiar with the law of the harvest here is my version:

First you till the ground, then you sow the seed, next you nourish the seedling and having been patient as the seasons pass, finally you get to harvest the bounty.

Now when it comes to alpaca fleece many farmers are intent on doing the harvest part first...and it just isn't going to happen. To build a fibre industry around alpaca we have to follow the stages of the harvest and we have to wait. Just as we must be patient as we wait for the seed to germinate and become the seedling, it will take time to build the fibre industry and some things we cannot accelerate. Such as the gradual consumer acceptance of a new fibre and its superior qualities. And how these will develop over time into a preference.

The second time I was reminded of this law was this evening when I discovered our website was finally onto the first page of Google results for the search term "alpacas". So when you have read this go search Google for alpacas and when you see my web site at number 7 out of 1.5 million results click through and help keep it there!!!

Joking aside. Getting there has meant that we have followed the law of the harvest.

We tilled the ground by building an alpaca web site that has interesting and useful content, next we planted the seeds by selecting the correct keywords , then we nourished the keywords by directing traffic to our web site via mailshots and other promotions, we were patient and watched the Google seasons pass by until eventually two years later we are set to reap the bounty of our efforts.

I guess I am so pleased that I have become quite romantic about the whole business...

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Click here to find out about National Alpaca Farm Day 2007.