Category: Agriculture

Do you want to Adopt a Farmer??

Seems like a strange concept, but in middle schools all over Oregon farmers are showing up in the classroom and middle schoolers are heading out to the farm! The Adopt a Farmer program is sponsored by Agri-business Council of Oregon and within the first year reached out to 400 students, last year 1200 students, and this coming year 3000 students is the projection!

The whole concept is to expose kids to a different side of our agriculture rich state and have a personal story about farms.  The program itself pays for buses for fields trips out to the farm, while the farmer dedicates their time to come into the classroom 3 times a year.  It’s a big commitment, but it’s also incredibly rewarding and something that I feel is well worth my time and effort!DSCF7864This is me explaining some of our equipment, and why safety on the farm is so important!

The class that I worked with this year wasn’t from a hugely urban area, I actually had kids that lived near farms, or a few who had grandparents that lived on farms.  But they still had so much to learn and had so many questions!  One of those questions that still rings in my ears, “So why are we developing all this wonderful farmland if we have so many people to feed?” (light bulb!)  I realized in that moment, that these middle schoolers are very observant, and these conversations are so important.

DSCF7918The kids had a great time out in the field seeing what harvest is like!

The farm tour was by far my favorite activity.  The class got to see our actual filbert (hazelnut) harvesting.  They got to put their hands in the totes of filberts and truly see the product that we take in to be sold.  It was so hands on, and so exciting to see them having such a great experience.  When I visited the classroom we covered things like world markets, the business of farming, how plants grow and so much more.  They were able to play a farming game where they had a farm of their own and had to rely on the roll of the dice to get good growing conditions, disease resistances, and good market pricing.  A reality that I could share with them because many times I as a farmer feel like I’m out there just rolling the dice too!

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We had a great day out on the farm, Yukon especially loved all the attention!

Programs like Adopt a Farmer aren’t easy to come by.  Mostly because it takes a lot of work and dedication by so many.  I am very thankful to the Agribusiness Council of Oregon for stepping up and making this a top priority and committing themselves to making it work!  It’s not easy, but it’s extremely important!!

***Agribusiness Council has teamed up with Farmers Ending Hunger and they have a fundraiser going on! You can click HERE to get more information on how you can help this wonderful program and enter to win 2 Southwest Airline Tickets!

Manager vs. Employee

There comes a time when you realize that you have to train someone to do a job that you are very capable of.  It’s an easy job, one that’s so easy, as a now manager of the farm you think to yourself, “Now there is a job where I can just relax.  I can think about what is going on at our farm, I can sing to the radio, I can sort of hide out from my manager jobs.”  While sitting in a John Deere the other day this “hiding out” feeling was exactly what I felt.

I don’t know if I’m the only farm manager who feels this way.  But there are times when having employees stare at you and ask,  “What are we doing today?”, or “What is on the agenda?”, or “How do I do this again?” can seem a bit overwhelming.  So the thought that it would be quicker if I just did it myself, creeps into my mind.  And the harsh reality I’m finding is that yes, it would be much faster to just do it myself, but it would never get done, because quite frankly I just don’t have the time.

So last week I finally trained someone to drive that very same John Deere I was trying to hide out in.  It went well, but as I drove away from the field after a few hours of training, leaving a huge tractor in the hands of a 15 year old with a cell phone I had a moment where I was pretty sure I was losing my mind.  Until I remembered, I was driving that same sized tractor at 14…I survived…the tractor survived… move on!

Going through this transition of becoming the manager on our farm I’m finding that it’s not always easy being the main decision maker.  And although some days, especially when it’s hectic in the summer time, I wish I could just go to the morning meeting and have someone just tell me what to do that day, what’s on the agenda, and how I do that again.  But then I drive away the second day from the field, leaving that same big old John Deere, with the same cell phone enabled 15 year old, and I know that finally taking the time to train someone is paying off.

I think that I’m getting a very small glimpse of what it must feel like to hand over any type of management or jobs on a farm where you have worked so hard your whole life.  When I think about succession planning a lot of times I don’t really understand why people wouldn’t want to retire and pass down what they have built to the next generation.  Of course there are many generational changes between myself and those who have built this farm into what it is today.  But I think that this feeling I’m feeling has something to do with it as well.  I can do it better myself, I can do it faster myself, because I’ve been doing it for decades!  So with my 7 months under my belt of management, I’m really glad I have a patient father who realized this part of letting go long before I did.  So I’m off to our morning meeting today at the farm to look at those faces and tell them, what they are doing today, what’s on the agenda and how they do it.

The Final Crimson Post…for now…

I know that I’ve been talking a lot about crimson these days, well it’s mostly because that’s what has been on the mind lately, along with it also being the best for picture opportunities.

Here are a few last pictures from the final field.  We had some research plots out in our field this year, to test some rates on a tool that we think will help us increase our yields in years to come.

2013-07-08_14-56-32_1902013-07-08_14-59-11_613That is what all the golf tee flags are for.

2013-07-08_15-18-47_61We dumped each small plot into a weigh wagon, where they took samples and notes on what the seed looked like.  Then we celebrated…because we were finally done with Crimson Clover harvest!

The next step on our fields is to flail them up.  This allows all the extra material to be chopped up and rot down over the next few months.

2013-07-10_20-02-24_728 2013-07-10_20-02-30_31This too is a dusty job!

2013-07-10_20-23-42_328The best part though…is this time I’m in the cab!!!