Do you wallow in the trough?

This is something that I’m fairly conscious of as I have been guilty of this many times.  What I’m talking about is when things are tough (no rain or low prices etc.), or as a “chartist” would say you are in a trough.  Times like this it is very simple to fall into a routine of just doing “stuff”, working and not achieving, also not doing the important jobs when they are required.  There are very few places easier to do this than on a farm, there is always so much work to do you can just go out in the paddock, on your own and “do stuff” for days on end.

The work you should be doing is communicating to all the key business partners (Family, Bankers, stock agents, grain traders etc.) where you are at now, what are the future plans, what are the critical decision points, etc.  This is always hard as it involves facing the truth, fessing up to some wrong decisions and working through how we can help us, not someone else.

The attitude that I want to spend the most of my time in is “don’t care how we got here, how are we going to come out on top?”  In golf they call this “scrambling”, when you do a poor tee shot, end up in the trees/bunker/water and yet by summing up the situation you are able to salvage a par.  Without doubt the best opportunity for anyone is how they manage through tough times, for us droughts have been absolutely wonderful.

Some of the methods I use to try and keep my healthy state of mind are:

• Establish good communication habits with my wife/parents and good mates
• I minimise contact with people that can drag me down
• Keep budgets up to date (grass & money)
• Make sure that I have a project (normally fencing, because I love it) so you can see achievements.
• Make sure that you have weekends off & holidays
• Always try to be making decisions & moving forward, don’t get caught having decisions made for you, such as feeding stock because it is the only      option left.
• Understand yourself and your families needs

I remember watching a car rally on TV, the driver took a corner badly and rolled a number of times, they showed footage of him in the car and while it was rolling he was going through the gears ready to “floor it” and get back on track as soon as it came on its wheels again.  That is the attitude I like to have!

We have made the biggest leap in our carrying capacity by retaining more litter through droughts, we have taken the time when we have less stock to seek training and we have built very strong relationships with our key business partners.  We have profited enormously from droughts on a personal, landscape and business level that has meant as soon as it rains we are in the right “space” to charge ahead sailing past others that are still wallowing in the trough.

Who is responsible?

One of my basic principles/values is that I will always try to take responsibility for things that happen here that impact on us or our business.  It is only by doing this that we have been able to improve constantly as a business and empower us so that we are confident of achieving our goals. 

The way I look at it is as soon as you say that it is someone else’s fault/problem, then you become the victim as you lose control and become helpless.  I much prefer to take responsibility, saying “that is my fault” or “I’m responsible for that let’s see how we can fix it”. 

In my mind there is a big difference between taking responsibility for an issue, rather than causing an issue.  By taking responsibility I’m not placing blame, I’m just saying “OK “X” has happened and I’m going to fix it or at least make sure it doesn’t happen again”.  This to me is a very positive action, it encourages energy and importantly keeps people working together rather than looking around trying to find someone to blame.

So we try and always be responsible and we certainly demand that of people that are on our property as well as our key business partners.

I love some of the quotes/messages that Robyn Pulman has.

• “For things to change, I must change”
• “Don’t wish life was easier, make sure you get better” 
• “Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation”
• “Spend so much time improving yourself, that you have no time to criticise others”

There is no Future in Farming!

This is a very sad and defeatist headline at first glance, as I go on you will see the opportunity that this could present. There is in my mind, no future in the general farming practise that we currently use, which is as I see it: Using the soil simply as a medium to grow crops/grass, turning off a product that is reliant on chemicals/drugs to be healthy so that those eating it need to do likewise. This is a very general approach and I’m sure not all of the farmers fit into the box that I have outlined above.

Where we need to go to with our farming is to see it as the production as food/fibre so that in its production the land increases in health, while for the consumers of the food, they improve their health by eating it and reduce their dependence on supplements etc. While plenty out there might say that this is an idealistic win-win situation that only happens in fairyland! I would say that a relationship won’t last unless it is win-win, so we need to make sure that if we would like to exist on this planet we need to “listen to the land” more.

So if we can see “farming” as “health food production” or “land management services” then we are putting a much better emphasis on the outcome that we need from our relationship with the land. If we take this path we can produce much more food than we currently do, feeding many millions more due mainly to the quality of the produce. All of this while making the planet healthier and importantly making ourselves healthier, we need to improve together.

In order to achieve this we need many more people in agriculture, currently the norm is to live (more likely just survive!) very remote from your food. I don’t reckon this will change significantly until the economy falls over and we all just get back to the basics of food, health, education etc. While you may think that while this style of farming may be good for the environment, there is no money in it so why would you bother. Well since we changed our thinking 12 years ago we now have a return of investment of nearly 3 times the area average* (ABARES 2011-2012 figures)

I would like to think that there are enough people, aware of this issue who have already started down this pathway that the future is clear and bright, so that when the s&*t hits the fan the opportunity is there waiting.

* Our business returned 9.5% while the area average was 3.3%

Below are some resources for your reading/listening/viewing:

• Savory Institute website  
• Allan Savory TEDX talk
• Nora Gedgaudas Book 
• Wendell Berry Book 

Happy livestock in a Happy Landscape