As the new century dawned, Bill Nightingale Sr. should have been one happy guy.

 

Twenty years of relentless innovation had paid off in spades. Nightingale Farms had been transformed by his early adoption of technologies such as drip irrigation and plasticulture. Three million pounds of vegetables and fruits were grown, graded and packed annually at the farm, located on 1,000 acres of sandy soil near LaSalette in southwestern Ontario.

 

It was one of the great success stories of Canadian agriculture, but Nightingale was anything but satisfied.

 

“We had lost our competitive edge,” he recalls. “By 2000, everybody was doing what we were doing, using plasticulture, growing crops like cantaloupes, and doing all the same things we were doing. What’s worse, we had totally run out of ideas.”

 

Flash forward to Mother’s Day, 2003. It’s been three years since Nightingale and wife Caroline’s “eureka moment” after touring a type of field greenhouse in Europe called high tunnels – poly stretched over semi-circular hoops – used by leading-edge Spanish and Portuguese vegetable growers.

 

Nightingale has imported enough of the 28-foot-high hoops to put high tunnels over 7.5 acres and on this particular day he’s watching those expensive steel hoops twist and buckle under 100 kilometre-an-hour winds.

 

For sure, this isn’t a happy day either, but one Nightingale will later describe as a “good disaster.”

 

“We learned so much that day,” says Nightingale. “We had a video camera out there and we had a four-hour-long tape to study afterwards. From that we learned how to strengthen the frames to hold up to our conditions, how to set them up and align them properly, and a lot of other things. So we learned, changed and then bingo – we hit it.”

 

Today, Nightingale devotes his full attention to his new high tunnel business (www.tunneltech.ca) and has handed over the family farm (www.nightingalefarms.com) to his son and daughter. He views high tunnels as the future of field crop production – something that will not only extend the growing season but create a better and unique product thanks to less disease and pest pressure.

 

Once again, he’s out in the forefront, and no doubt has the neighbours scratching their heads and wondering – as they have so often in the past – if Bill has taken leave of his senses.

 

It’s tempting to view people such as Nightingale as inveterate gamblers; entrepreneurial daredevils who just aren’t happy unless they’re doing something risky. But that’s completely at odds with how Nightingale views himself. His view is that you take little risks to avoid much larger ones.

 

“I would never take a risk that would jeopardize the company,” he says. “If something is very risky, then we’ll do a much smaller project. I’m forever looking for innovation, but I don’t do anything blindly.”

 

Take the first experiment with high tunnels. It cost about $150,000 or less than five percent of yearly revenues. His first little plasticulture experiment was just two measly acres – each planted to the same crop under identical conditions, except one acre had plastic laid over the ground – but enough to convince Nightingale that’s where the future lay.

 

“It was breathtaking,” he says. “The plants grown on plastic just kept on gaining speed in growth. They ended up being ready three weeks earlier, which was just unheard of.”

 

And in the fresh produce business, being first to market is where the big money is. Which is why Nightingale was so worried when he lost that competitive edge – for him, there’s nothing riskier than being in the same boat as everyone else.

 

“The most profitable businesses are the ones that are first to the plate,” he says. “If you’re just like everyone else, then all you’ll ever make is normal money.”

 

And here’s another odd thing. Even though everyone knew plasticulture was allowing Nightingale to harvest produce before them, it took seven years before his competitors caught up.

 

Why? Because it seemed risky.

 

“It was frustrating when a wind storm would come up and sometimes the plastic would lift up and blow for miles,” says Nightingale. “But over time, we solved those problems, and along with drip irrigation and fertigation, we were doing so well, they had no choice but to start doing what we were doing.”

 

Nightingale’s story is a reminder of how easily our perception of risk can get turned upside down.

 

When your business is grossing hundreds of thousands annually, spending a few thousand on something innovative is not risky. Risky is refusing to innovate and denying yourself the chance to gain a competitive edge.