Listen, I’ve spent 90% of my farming career, being at odds to one degree or another with my father. The experiences and lessons he learned growing up and starting to farm just never seemed to fit with my experiences. It seemed no matter what I did, it was wrong. I would explain in great detail the reasons and rational behind my decisions. I would point to lessons I have learned through trial and error, lessons that apply to today not 1965. At times none of mattered, because there was just no way he was willing to give an inch.
But then I figured out that this wasn’t about me doing things wrong and him being worried about my future, it was about him. He had a hard time facing the fact that he could have made better decisions. When I was growing 30 plus canola and his fields we’re in the low 20’s it never was the fact he only put down 50 lbs of N and I put down 90 lbs. I was never the fact that I would grow the newest varieties and he was growing whatever was the least expensive seed to buy. He would bitch because I wasn’t spending most of my time in the shop holding the trouble light for him, instead of spending so much time in my office in front of my DTN and crunching numbers.
This year was the first year since 1956 he didn’t have a crop and he’s a much more contented man. He was quite successful at farming and he made some good money and saved and invested even more. He never new the experience of an operating loan or a machinery loan, but his success was benchmarked to 1978, and getting a 1978 result in 2008 won’t cut it. Yet our industry can’t prosper if the big decisions are benchmarked to 1978.
So, I don’t think its right to use the label old fools, but our industry (including the cwb) has to operate in the world of today and the realities of 2008. CWB elections and plebiscites put way too much power in the hands of the people who still benchmark back to the 1970’s. This is a problem and it has to change, or we are all just a year or two away from retirement.
But then I figured out that this wasn’t about me doing things wrong and him being worried about my future, it was about him. He had a hard time facing the fact that he could have made better decisions. When I was growing 30 plus canola and his fields we’re in the low 20’s it never was the fact he only put down 50 lbs of N and I put down 90 lbs. I was never the fact that I would grow the newest varieties and he was growing whatever was the least expensive seed to buy. He would bitch because I wasn’t spending most of my time in the shop holding the trouble light for him, instead of spending so much time in my office in front of my DTN and crunching numbers.
This year was the first year since 1956 he didn’t have a crop and he’s a much more contented man. He was quite successful at farming and he made some good money and saved and invested even more. He never new the experience of an operating loan or a machinery loan, but his success was benchmarked to 1978, and getting a 1978 result in 2008 won’t cut it. Yet our industry can’t prosper if the big decisions are benchmarked to 1978.
So, I don’t think its right to use the label old fools, but our industry (including the cwb) has to operate in the world of today and the realities of 2008. CWB elections and plebiscites put way too much power in the hands of the people who still benchmark back to the 1970’s. This is a problem and it has to change, or we are all just a year or two away from retirement.
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