Dad once said, “A day that you don’t learn something is a lost day.”
Last week, we had the privilege of getting together with three other couples who we first got together with 31 years ago while on a dairy tour to British Columbia and Washington. I’ve lost track of how many dairy tours and dairy seminars we have attended together since.
Some years, we meet at two or three sessions. A few years, we missed a session. As we crisscrossed North America visiting some of the most progressive farms and listening to nutritionists, engineers, financial experts and psychologists at seminars; we learned that;
If you see a mistake that someone else has made, don’t make that one at home.
It’s less expensive to make mistakes and correct them on paper than after the cement is poured.
Before any business or project is started, remember that location, location, location is extremely important.
As we sat and reminisced one evening, one of our little group of four dairy farmers either retired, semi-retired or in the process of transferring the business to the next generation, mentioned how lucky we were to see our farms continue for another generation. We also agreed that we had all chosen great mates/partners, who were just as much a part of our success as any one of us.
As we witness some of our weather stations become dismantled, it becomes increasingly difficult for farmers to predict when to cut hay or grain, plant a crop, or prove to crop insurance that rain or lack there-of has caused a loss in crop yield or decrease in crop quality.
In one of our little exchange of information sessions on our little get-together one couple mentioned that a group of farmers in their area recorded and shared weather information with an app on their smart phones. A free app called Climate Field-view allows them to share rainfall information, yield information, etc. As we sat around the breakfast table one morning, the farmer showed how much rainfall had fallen on each farm the night before, even though they were three hours away.
Much of the cutting edge information that was taught at universities has been revised or even totally replaced only a few years after. Some of the information that we receive in shiny brochures produced by the advertising division of various suppliers gives a very shaded or one-sided view that only a lot of dedicated research will confirm or disprove. Often a small test strip in a field will show if a new product is worth investing in and also show lasting effects.
A neighbour once explained to me what “Banker’s row” was. Some farmers would fertilize the rows closest to the road much heavier than the rest of the field. When the banker drove by, the very green and tall crop next to the road would look excellent. Often the less fertilized rows farther away from the road would dry faster and be more profitable at harvest but that would be much more difficult to explain to the banker.
The field with the highest yield and the tallest crop may not let the milk yield per acre be more profitable. Some seed companies will not allow their seed varieties to be compared side by side to other seed varieties unless they get to choose the competition. It often pays for the farmer to do his own comparison in his own fields.
In an attempt to reduce the cost of funding universities to do research, shared cost research was implemented where the government would match private funding which was usually willingly supplied by large companies. By doing this, the seed, chemical, etc. companies got the government to pay for half of their research. Also the private company usually retained control of the research. Most of these trials were a three-year trial. If the companies newly developed product was not doing well after two years, the trial was mysteriously terminated before the results were published.
In past years, many attempts have been made to persuade the federal government to totally fund basic research but often before a three year project can be completed and published, a different government is in power to claim the benefits of funding the new research.
Whether it’s a farmer, doctor, teacher, psychologist, nutritionist or whatever, a basic formal education is a great start, but education goes on until the day you die. Grasp every chance that you can to bring yours up to date. Our most advanced high tech companies (Microsoft, Google, etc.) encourage their employees to spend as much as 30 per cent of their paid time continuing their education!
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail-com
