Sometimes we have to look back to appreciate what changes lie ahead. One evening in the 1960s while listening to my grandfather and some of his friends reminisce about changes in farming, my grandfather stated that the two most important inventions in his time were the hay loader and the milking machine.
The hay loader was a flimsy looking machine attached to the rear of a hay wagon that when pulled over a windrow of hay, lifted and conveyed the hay from the ground up onto the rear of the wagon on an endless conveyor made of wooden slats connected by endless ropes. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the hay wagon with hay loader attached was pulled by a team of horses attached to the tongue of the wagon. After the tractor appeared the long horse tongue was shortened up for the tractor to pull the wagon.
My first job on the farm was to drive the little gray Ford-Ferguson tractor pulling the wagon and hay loader while my dad leveled, by hand, the loose hay lifted onto the back of the wagon. At four years old, I had to stand on the clutch with both feet and push up on the steering wheel to push the clutch down. I was only allowed to drive in a flat field with no hills because I couldn’t push the brake. If this happened today, CSST would put my dad in jail and Children’s Aid would take me away to places unknown.
Before the milking machine came to our farm, my grandpa and grandma milked 23 cows by hand both night and morning. My grandpa always said that grandma chose all the easy milkers.
The first milker pump was powered by a little gas engine. When the hydro came to our farm in 1948, the second thing powered by hydro was the milking machine. The first was lights in the house for grandma.
During my lifetime of farming, the three best things that came to our farm were the TMR feed mixer which mixed all the cows’ feed together so that every mouthful was balanced for her needs. Computerized feed ration balancing allowed us to develop a recipe for each group of cows balanced to match her needs regardless of weight, stage of lactation, milk production, temperature of the barn or how fat or skinny she was. This recipe could be completed in an hour.
Before computers arrived, it would take all day to develop a ration which only took into consideration a tenth of the criteria used on the computer generated ration. This can only be completed successfully by having all the home grown feed used in the ration tested in a lab. These lab tests have only become affordable in my lifetime.
This balancing of food supplied for the need is not possible for humans even today because of the amount of processed food we eat. It has been known for decades that 90 percent of health problems are diet related. It’s no wonder that our health system is overloaded.
The smart phone is the latest and third most important invention that came to our farm. Even though we have used the cell phone to keep in touch since 1990, uses for the smart phone are still being developed. We can use a smart phone to monitor a cow’s eating and digestion, her stress level, watch the calving pen by a signal sent from the camera aimed at the pen and dozens of other uses like taking a picture of a weed that the farmer cannot identify and sending the picture to an agronomist for immediate turnaround.
Many farms now use GPS to steer planters, sprayers, and combines. This helps prevent missed strips where weeds then grow. It can prevent overlaps where too much fertilizer or seed is applied. GPS guidance can reduce the stress of driving equipment for long shifts. GPS allows precision work even after the sun goes down. Drones were first used for unmanned surveillance of the enemy by the military but are now commonly used on farms to scout crops for weeds or insects, planter or germination misses in crops. Some large drones can apply crop sprays even at night because they can be GPS guided.
All these new tools can be misused like a drone used to snoop on a neighbour or fly into the path of a commercial airplane.
So now to look ahead a little. This will be the last year for one major car company to produce a gas or diesel powered automobile. From 2019 on, everything will be electric powered. Another European country will not allow any fossil fuel powered cars to be sold in that country after 2020. Electric busses are now being tested in Canada. Driverless cars are now being road tested by several companies. An all electric powered tractor trailer is being road tested now in North America.
The major automobile manufacturing companies are terrified about these upstart companies!
The first driverless farm tractor was unveiled in the summer of 2017. Some major farm machinery companies have been collaborating on universal computer software for future farm machinery.
Today, many North American manufacturers have their own computer system and no one but their own mechanics can work on a disabled machine.
Remember that only a lifetime ago, even the king used horses for transportation. Are you ready both mentally and financially for the future?
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
