If you are a farmer, you might find yourself at a con flux of chaos once society collapses whether you like it or not. People will be starving. At first, they will loot the stores. After that, they will begin to steal from homes, loot food distribution centers, attempt to fish and hunt, AND GO TO FARMS TO STEAL FOOD even if it's not ripe yet. So, when society collapses, you will have choices to make. Do you let people take whatever they need, since they are starving? Do you wait until harvest time and harvest like normal, since that will yield the most food? Do you harvest asap and stockpile all the food for yourself and loved ones? Or do you bug out asap and let go of your farm?
First and foremost, you should make sure that you and your loved ones are safe. Since society is collapsing, you will likely need to bug out. If at any time you feel like things become too dangerous, you should bug out in as safe a manner as possible.
That being said, if you make some proactive decisions and act quickly, I think you can save lives and prevent thieves from rising to power.
You have to start by assessing your situation. How close are you to a large city? How many people live within 10 miles of you? How close are you to harvest? Do you have crops that need to be planted every year or trees that remain multiple years? Is there typically a lot of crime in your area or are people generally peaceful? Do you get your water from wells or irrigation? These are important questions for figuring out your next moves.
If it is far from harvest time, you should be more inclined to bug out and leave it, than stay. If the collapse happens before you received your seeds, then obviously there's nothing to stick around for. If, however, you are nearing harvest, you might want to stay and utilize the food.
You can gather all your workers and friends and establish 24 hour security, with the promise that they will receive their fair share of the harvest. Arm as many men as possible. Do everything you can to keep water flowing. This might be difficult if no power is available for your well's motor or if irrigation has been interrupted, which will be a serious concern. Irrigation systems require constant human intervention from the major dams all the way to the smallest canal gates. It's an intricate system and when people abandon it, some places will dry up, while others will flood.
Once the food is ready to be picked, some of it can remain in its normal state, but most of it should be preserved. You will probably need to set up a system of drying and dehydrating. Set aside as much food as you and your workers will need. The rest can be traded.
When people from surrounding areas come looking for food, you can trade with them for items they have that you want. You can write down a list of items that you need, so people can see what you are willing to barter. The trade location will probably be at your farm, since it's your home turf. However, you might do the traditional thing and actually take your food to a market location in town, but that requires that a safe market location be established in town, which is assuming a lot. If you have huge amounts of food and a small population nearby, giving a lot of it away for free is an honorable thing to do.
Once all the food has been traded, you should bug out before roaming bands of gangs or refugees from large cities come into your territory. In some rare cases, you may not need to bug out. In order for that to happen, however, a few things are necessary. You'll need to be in a very rural location. You'll need guns and ammo for protection. You'll need access to clean water. You'll need the ability to continue to farm or grow gardens without access to gmo seeds, electricity, or gasoline. Lastly, most people in the vicinity will also need to have access to drinking water and enough food to eat for months and years to come. A lot of preppers talk about small towns coming together to survive, kinda like they did in Jericho, the TV show. It's a noble thought, but I believe it is much more difficult than people realize. In order for a small town to come together and survive after the collapse of society, some big hurdles will need to be jumped. They will need to ration enough food so everyone can survive until the next harvest and then plant enough non gmo seeds to grow enough food for everybody (supplemented of course, by hunting, gathering, fishing, and livestock). They will also need to organize, share, protect themselves against thieves, and reject starving refugees. I think it will be really difficult to get a group of 5,000 individuals to do such a thing. That's why I don't recommend the small town survival method unless it's 500 people or less and the town is in a very rural location.
When you do bug out, you might consider if you can remove any trees or plants and bring them with you. Also, if the collapse comes when you have your seeds ready, but have not planted yet, you can just bug out with those seeds.
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