Are you a fan of Charles Darwin? I am a fan of what most people refer to as Darwinism. I must also admit that I have spring fever with all the recent warm weather.
Throughout most of this winter, I got excited when I could wake up and get out of bed without being stiff; and sometimes I got to celebrate because I slept all the way to 4 or 5 o’clock until I had to get up to go to the bathroom. Now I am excited about my 45th year of farming.
I’ve seen some changes in agriculture in my lifetime. My father, born in 1926, saw some radical changes in farming and life. He was born during a period of subsistence living compared to today. They had no electricity or running water, they farmed with horses and used firewood as their primary heat source.
By the time he was married and started his own family, electricity and plumbing, and whole house heating were common. He used gasoline and diesel technology to replace the horse and was part of the industrialization of agriculture that made the U.S. the breadbasket of the world.
By 1982 when my dad exited farming and allowed me to take over the family farm, he had become reluctant to change. This was obvious when he chided me for parking the plow and planting soybeans with a no-tillage system. Darwin believed creatures that survived were those that were most adaptable to change. Was my dad an example of Darwin’s principles or just ready to retire?
Now I must question if I am being stubborn like my father or am going to adapt and change enough to continue to farm for years to come. I will give you these examples.
Computer technology has improved in my adult lifetime. However, I don’t feel I need GPS to farm. I am still successful without it, but I fear that someday I will be forced to have it. I do not need a Wi-Fi connection to my tractor, or stove or refrigerator so that I can check the temperature wherever I am in the world. I don’t want AI in my life. With AI, I do not know the true source of anything I read online, and I definitely cannot believe any video or picture that I see. Every iPhone update changes the look of my phone and destroys all the muscle memory I spent the last 3 months acquiring. I don’t want 17 pages of apps on my on my phone; I want to talk to a real person and order my own fast-food at the counter. I do not want to have to spend countless hours per day looking at 2” x 3” screen to pay every bill, make every appointment and yada yada yada. Is this a sign of being old and stubborn or have we let technology overtake our lives.
On the flip side, I have been making changes on my farm to keep it profitable. I’ve been planting cover crops and oats for several years like my grandfather did when my dad was young. If the weather allows it, I plan to plant many acres of oats for harvest this year to reduce row crops. I am skeptical of the profitability of corn and soybeans and may even increase my hay acres even though my muscles and knees on long summer days tell me this is not a good decision. With the recent plantings of sunflower, pumpkins and sweet corn one could say the diversification of my farm makes it look more like the farm of my grandparents. I guess the old saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same” might apply here. Do not panic; I am not bringing back dairy cows and draft horses.
In closing, I want to believe that I am only resisting technology that is unnecessary and complicates my life. There is also the concern that my brain is forgetting things faster than I can learn; the senior moments are many!
I now have 4 young grandchildren who can probably navigate technology better than I can. Is it possible I can keep my farm viable long enough that my farm can skip a generation and be passed on to become a 5th generational farm? That would be outstanding!
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