Uncertainty about the ‘season’ is part of farming. Each year confronts us with a new set of possibilities.
This season, across the region, farmers are refining skills in the art of dry sowing. Reflections on past experiences of dry starts are informing current practice. We have been here before.
BCG is impressed by the way in which its members are taking everything in their stride, refusing to dwell on things they cannot control and focusing on the elements of the cropping recipe they can get right.
As a result, a sense of calm prevails across the farming community.
Equally important is farmers’ capacity to talk to each other about how they are approaching their cropping season. This sharing of ideas and experiences aligns exactly with BCG’s tagline ‘Shared Solutions’. Communicating with those we trust and respect around us is so important. Twitter and ‘What’s App’ groups have been getting quite a workout together with various sowing exchanges.
Sharing solutions has been a key consideration in the development of Tomorrow Farmer, a BCG forum planned for June.
To share solutions, we must first communicate effectively with each other. In so many farm businesses this is recognised as a pressure point. As an industry and individual farmers we let ourselves down by not arming ourselves with the right skills and knowledge to manage what is arguably one of the critical success factors in farming: honest, meaningful and effective business communication.
Very rarely is it a dry start to the season that brings a farming business unstuck. Rather, it is the avoidance of, or inability to engage in, what might be felt to be a difficult conversation. This can often be most difficult among family members.
Skills and attitudes can be cultivated; we can train ourselves to think positively and practically, and to make sensible, balanced decisions.
Tomorrow Farmer will offer ways and means to achieve this.
I encourage all BCG members to register for this event together with all members of their farming business.
