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Risk register and mitigation strategy

Purpose

Maintain a working risk register for the two-site, telemetry-heavy, family-labor farm business plan: market, weather, labor, capital, operations, technology, legal/liability. Likelihood and impact are local judgments—revise quarterly or after incidents.

Operational matrix: Business risk register — two-site smart farm (monthly review option).
Hub: East Tennessee two-site farm business plan — planning framework.

Decisions supported by this page

Decision This page provides
Insurance limits and umbrella Liability rows
Maximum debt and herd size Financial + operational rows
Automation scope Tech false-confidence + alert fatigue
When to downsize enterprise Mitigation tied to measurable triggers

Method

  • Score L (likelihood) and I (impact) 1–5; priority = L × I (optional).
  • Two-site and telemetry risks are first-class, not footnotes.

Register (living)

ID Risk Category L I Mitigation Phase
R1 Cattle price crash Market 3 4 Timing; smaller herd; lease buffer 2–4
R2 Drought / forage gap Weather 3 4 Destock policy; hay plan; water redundancy 1–3
R3 Key person injury / absence Labor 2 4 Cross-training; reduce complexity; insurance 0–4
R4 Equipment failure at peak Ops 3 3 Spares; custom hire number on fridge 2–3
R5 Fence failure / escape Ops 2 4 Inspection cadence; hot wire maintenance 2–4
R6 Debt overhang Financial 2 5 Hard stop rules; match term to margin 1–4
R7 Broker / comms down Tech 3 2 Runbooks; safe defaults at edge 1–4
R8 False alert fatigue Tech 4 3 Triage SOP; corroboration before mute 2–3
R9 Cyber / remote access breach Tech 2 4 Segmentation; 2FA; asset inventory mindset 2–4
R10 Liability (visitor / animal / road) Legal 2 5 Insurance; signage; separate agritourism if ever 2–4
R11 Regulatory / zoning surprise Legal 2 3 County conversation early 0–1
R12 Two-site delay cost (slow response at 120) Ops 3 3 Batch rules; water/gate telemetry priority 0–4
R13 Theft / vandalism at remote parcel Ops 2 3 Access control, neighbor awareness; not camera-only 2–4
R14 Terrain / road / sediment (steep gravelly soils; lane erosion) Ops 3 4 Earthwork + drainage with fence plan; Campbell evidence: Demory site intelligence 1–3
R15 Map / AOI mismatch (WSS session ≠ deed or ≠ ~120 ac operating area) Ops 2 3 Redraw AOI; clip map units to fields; label MAP_AUTHORITY 0–1
R16 WAN brownout + off-grid power stress collapses “remote triage saves trips” Tech/Ops 3 4 Local-first state + manual SoT; Pcrit metering per off-grid doctrine; no privileged remote actuation before Observability, secrets, and trust bar — homelab / farm edge trust bar; Off-grid degraded modes — power and connectivity 0–4
R17 Cumulative operator burden (travel + off-grid O&M + sensors/gateways + backup/restore + alert triage + drills) exceeds family capacity—hidden by “we have docs” Labor/Tech 4 4 Cut parallel pilots; calendar triage + restore drills; Operator burden review; enforce NS-2 / EG-LAB; hire or defer stack scope 0–1

What changed: R14–R15 from Campbell WSS + two-county NASS context; R16 from WAN-optional + battery-backed doctrine integration (2026-04); R17 hostile burden stack (2026-04); parcel facts still verify locally.

Mitigation themes

Theme Actions
Liquidity Operating reserve months (N); lease income where ethical
Complexity One major new system per year after Phase 2
Telemetry Alert budget (hours/week); annual de-scope review
Labor Weekly rhythm + documented surge overrides

Known facts

ID Statement
K1 Degraded-mode runbooks exist in the vault (Automation degraded modes and manual fallback SOP).
K2 Production risk concentrates on the 120-acre parcel; control functions concentrate home (Smart technology and telemetry strategy).

Assumptions

ID Statement
A1 Farm insurance is carried at levels lenders and comfort require—verify with agent.

Open questions

ID Question
Q1 Umbrella limit and exclusions?
Q2 Entity structure (LLC etc.) and liability isolation? → see Tennessee farm business compliance package
Q3 Right-to-farm / neighbor conflict exposure?

Iterative updates

  • Add owner name per row locally; close risks only when mitigation is verified.
  • After major weather or market event, re-score R1–R2.