Most of us have watched closely as our favourite sports teams have gone from winning the cup to just a team in only a few years. A couple players get . . .
too old. A star player gets hurt and cannot return to his glory days. Another team gets the pick of the draft and the team scouts have not been lucky at finding a few hot new players.
The success or failure of filling the stadium or rink and the future of the club surviving financially, depends on rebuilding the team quickly.
Since 1991, we have had the opportunity to travel yearly with the Progressive Dairy Operators, a group of dairy farmers, nutritionists, bankers, dairy equipment manufacturers and other people interested in the future of dairying. My health has prevented me from doing this yearly educational holiday for several years.
This year, we renewed old acquaintances and friends when we again spent a week traveling with the group visiting 12 of eastern Canada’s best dairy farms. We even visited Canada’s first distillery to make vodka from a useless milk by-product; and a large marijuana grow-op that employs 2,200 people.
A few years ago, I wrote a series of articles called “The Seven Bank Accounts of a Farmer.” One very important bank account is the team which includes the family, the banker, the nutritionist, the crop specialist, the accountant, the mechanic, all the barn and machinery equipment suppliers, a lawyer, several university contacts and many others.
Every farm that we visited has successfully gone through a team rebuild during the past few years. At three of the 12 farms visited it is now the daughters who are the new team managers.
The farms visited ranged from milking 60 cows to 750 cows. They milked with milking parlours, 50 stall rotary parlours or robotic milking machines. All the farms visited were impeccably clean and well managed.
Some farms used computers and robots to mix and deliver feed. Some used robots to push up feed to the cows instead of using a man with a broom. Some used a robotic calf feeder but the farm where grandma managed and fed the calves had the biggest and best calves and heifers and her daughter was the manager.
In 2018 that was the most efficient dairy farm in Canada. Many farms now use foreign workers to do farm work because they are very reliable.
Every farm or other business goes through changes in the team and very quickly may have to replace a key team member. Not all families stay together for years.
Sometimes a feed nutritionist moves to another company and a decision must be made to follow the nutritionist or trust that the feed supplier has a new nutritionist, as good or better on staff.
One farm we visited had to form a new machinery partnership with a neighbour farm when their custom operator who chopped haylage and corn silage was suddenly arrested and is now resting in prison.
Several of the farms visited had come through a very harsh winter and most of their alfalfa was winter killed. They had to quickly find a new source of protein roughage to replace the alfalfa haylage. Some chopped soybean fields for protein silage. Some farms now buy wet brewers grain from the beer industry to make up for the lost protein and digestible fiber in the alfalfa haylage.
When I looked around at the dozens of computers, electric motors, controls, sensors and switches at some farms and think that one good crack of lightning could shut down the entire operation, I would get very nervous.
Other dairy farms could continue on quite well with only a small generator to run the milking equipment if lightning or a power outage hit.
The marijuana plant partnered with a local chocolate maker to manufacture chocolate in the same plant and be ready to produce marijuana infused chocolates when they are legalized.
Whether you are a dairy farmer or run some other business, be ready to rebuild the team quickly and successfully when you have to.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon
on land that has been
in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
