a bad taste in my mouth... young "farmers"

[John_PA]

had an experience with a young farmer...

It lasted over several years. She is a young perky blonde with tons of ambition and can talk a serious game.

Her knowledge? Not that great but impressive... Her actual skills?

Really weak and borderline absurd...

She made me out to be a monster and she has lots of clout with the local papers(mostly democratic in nature, all for the sob story of a young girl farming)

What they don't say is that she is from a background of private schools and her mother is a prominent attorney and father is a retired teacher.


I tried very hard to explain to her about actual farming. a lot went o]ver her head as she could recite the amount of magnesium a tomato plant should have. ask her how to run a tractor, and she boasts confidently, but in practice, it's pathetic.


I come across being a jerk, total and complete. I did a bit of yelling when it came to matters of safety or loss of tools. regardless, it was such a bad experience I can't believe this is where truck farming is headed. the neighbor gets a series on GAC about the same kind of farming, if she is included, I will cuss and spit at teh TV.


I am pretty upset.



Why do I have to see this happen and where is the line drawn where the young farmer is clue'd in to how things work? I am just disgusted.


I will never again help a young farmer out. I am now bitter tot he experience.

 

[495man]

So her experience is now in the media?

Sounds like a book smart person with no actual opportunity to practice those skills....and you gave her an opportunity which she apparently didn't appreciate (?)

As far as running equipment, some people just can't!

 

[John_PA]

I wasn't going to do this... but I will...


http://triblive.com/home/1683749-74...iving-agriculture-county-deemer#axzz27HoUWp8y


sounds so smart... fooled a lot of people... I'm the one who called BS on her and now I am the monster. I'm just glad I'm not a politician or my name would be all over teh papers. She makes the news every month... what a joke...

 

[Anonymous-0]

If you have not already spoiled things just go over there with a half a case of beer and sit under a cottonwood tree and she will gentle up.

I knew a similar girl in southeastern Iowa but she could actually perform with machinery. She could calibrate a sprayer, change combine headers and castrate calves. After I gentled her up and got her interested in rodeo a bull rider took her away from me.

 

[Dick2]

Relax and just watch from the sidelines. A few major equipment breakdowns, crop failures or an accident for which she is held liable for will get her out of the farming business eventually.

Media hype works sometimes until reality sets in.

 

[Lamar Fudd]

(quoted from post at 11:43:06 09/23/12) Relax and just watch from the sidelines. A few major equipment breakdowns, crop failures or an accident for which she is held liable for will get her out of the farming business eventually.

Media hype works sometimes until reality sets in.

She doing by herself? No family? Surely not 10 acres of beets, for Lord's sake. She'll be gone within three years trying to keep up, especially if going organic. I read her comments about the FarmerS in the Amazon plains. It may be neat to think you can do it all by yourself, but after awhile, you'll get to hate your own company.

 

[ASEguy]

I would not "walk away" from all young people because of one. Sounds like she needs to mature. She is probably afraid she doesn't have the skills and is over compensating. You will run into young people that will listen. I do. I had a high school student on Friday get a 3/8's ratchet for taking mains off of a GM big block. I had explained to the class about the leverage needed on larger bolts and decided to watch him struggle. He was red in the face and veins were popping out of his neck when I finally stopped him and had to tell him to get a 1/2 breaker which he did and they broke free much easier. Experience is a great teacher. Sounds like she needs some. At least she is well read. I'd let her stumble until she softens a little.

 

[Erik Ks farmer]

John sit back and think about this. Anyone involved in ag can see right through the veil of smoke she is throwing up. A crop failure, a few equipment break downs, a day or two of missed social events and a lack of funding from mommy will slow this one down real quick. That does not mean that you can lump every young farmer into this category. There are young men and women all over this country busting there butts to whom your attitude is a slap in the face. It appears to me that this attitude is one of selfishness where in the younger generation should crawl in a hole and flounder once the older generation is no longer able to care for them.

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

Can't really tell the whole story from your description but my
experience is theres the same type of folk as young farmers as
older ones.

This summer I drove past a farm with all the square bales out,
black as can be, in the field in stooks. I asked a neighbour of
this fellow what was going on since I saw the same thing last
summer and had assumed he got sick or something and couldn't
bring them in.

Neighbour tells me guy is 70 odd years old and has been
stooking hay and leaving it all summer for all his life. The old
mouldy wet bales are picked up a few at a time late summer and
fall and fed to his beef cattle. They've tried to tell him for 50
years how much better the hay would be if it was put under
cover immediately but he won't listen.

 

[Traditional Farmer]

In my area I run into these types all the time
and I've learned to not to try to deal with them and I'm an organic grower so thats not the issue,stupidity is the issue.As the old saying goes "No good deed goes
unpunished"

 

[Billy Shafer]

If she has the I know it all mind set. Let her go it alone.

But I would not give up on all the young ones.When I was in the Navy. My father hired a kid to work with him on the farm.Everyone said it was a lost cause.

Dad told me many of mornings he would come out and find the kid sleeping in his truck. Ready to go to work. Kid made his share of mistakes. But he worked hard at every job he was given. Never complained (more than normal).Did every job my father gave him. Learned from the ground up.

Went on to own his own farm. Never got rich but he made a good living at it.

 

[jeremy in NE]

So what exactly are you upset about? It looks to me like she is
trying pretty hard and according to the pics is growing some nice
veggies.

 

[Its like this see.....]

This gonna sound very se3ist but.....How many women go it alone and are successful owning/running a farm operation. I am sure that there are a few.
After she falls on her face go to her and say, "find a husband that will put up with you and grow your veggies" Chemistry is a good thing to know for farming, but so is fixing tractors, planting, irrigation and experience.

I know of a few guys that own there own small farm, their wives help by canning/storing/selling the food, they dont fix the machines or want to deal with the everyday stuff.

 

[Anonymous-0]

My oldest daughter owns and operates a business that is typically "male only". (Surveying/civil engineering) She's succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dreams. I've heard (on numerous occasions) men talk down to her in a VERY condescending manner, acting as if they knew everything and she wasn't capable of doing her job. Those men, as often as not, didn't know as much as my daughter, and their results bore that out. She used to stand her ground and argue her side. Now she just let's 'em go on thinking they know it all. Even the well meaning usually come off as belittling her. I know of several instances where men have (in their words) "kindly offered their advice", but facts be known, were VERY condescending towards Isabella. I'll be the first one to tell you that doesn't get you very far with her. (Just like her mother....)

Long story short, in 10 years since she started her own business, she's grown it quite a bit, while watching 3 others in our immediate area go out of business.

IMHO, if someone wants or needs advice, it's usually easy to find it, especially in todays world. Trying to push one's opinion on someone else who wasn't looking for it in the first place is a wonderful way to get told where to get off.

 

[BFO]

We have a few of them here too, some of them women. Soon no-one rushes to their "crisis-of-the-day", and they either humble up or fall by the wayside. It's too bad that most of them burn so many bridges along the way.

 

[David G]

Why worry about it, mind your business and let her mind
her business. A good farmer wil survive in the end, a bad
one will not.

 

[Anonymous-0]

If you talk to most millionaires, they will tell
you they have failed miserably at a lot of things
before they made their fortune. If I didn't know
better, from what you wrote and the link to the
article, you sound very jealous of the publicity
she is getting. Everybody has to learn things and
everybody makes mistakes in the process. Cut her
some slack, she's doing something she wants to do
and like everything else it's a big learning
curve. I'm sure it would be much easier for her to
just live off of her "prominent" parents. Why is
it any of your business anyway what what she does
or who she knows?

 

[David G]

I read the article, sounds like you should have kept your mouth shut and let her run her own business.

 

[paul]

That can be frustrating.

Mentioned before, some tree hugger gal, started n organic garden in town, tells how good it is, model to teach from....

It's built next to the river on 'toxic soil' from an old levee; had several companies donate $100,000 in topsoil, drainage, and irrigation equipment because it produced nothing the first 2 years. This is on less than 10 acres.

Kinda sad to read how organic and 'better' and cost effective this type of farming is over 'regular' farmers. And folks in town can't put it together, what a crock that line is....

--->Paul

 

[NY 986]

A far bigger problem here is crooks passing themselves off as honest and hardworking. Now that makes me intensely angry.

 

[old]

Funny how things do not really work like it is told in books. I have a friend who's wife took a few classes to learn to grow a garden and then tells me how to do it but there garden is never as good and never produces as much as mine does but they still tell me how to do it LOL or should I say they try to tell me how

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 08:37:40 09/23/12) That can be frustrating.

Mentioned before, some tree hugger gal, started n organic garden in town, tells how good it is, model to teach from....

It's built next to the river on 'toxic soil' from an old levee; had several companies donate $100,000 in topsoil, drainage, and irrigation equipment because it produced nothing the first 2 years. This is on less than 10 acres.

Kinda sad to read how organic and 'better' and cost effective this type of farming is over 'regular' farmers. And folks in town can't put it together, what a crock that line is....

--->Paul

Was just something in the news about organic studies show no real difference in the value of food. Only real difference is that the herbicides and pesticides haven't been sprayed on em and the artical didn't go into that.

Rick

 

[JDseller]

John_PA. Welcome to the club!!!! Older farmers screwed over by younger people. It is getting to be a pretty big club too. LOL

The young woman in the story is not making any type of living from that ten acres. She maybe making it through public relations gimmicks. It seems to be a carry over from the hippie generation in the 1960s. Many of them are now the professors at these colleges. They are polluting another generation with their hair brain ideas.

We have the safest and most affordable food supply ever known to man. We have an abundance of food. So much so that 20-30% of us are obese.

The people that are pushing these type of things are doing so from a safe place with money behind them and a full belly. There are wonderful things being done with the GMO crops but many developing countries have banned them. So I guess it is better to starve rather than eat a GMO crop. It is funny that the ones deciding the issue are all well feed.

The thing these people don't tell anyone is that if we went to producing all the food for everyone like they want to, there is not enough land to provide for all of us. The small farm in the past supported a world wide population of under 2-3 billion people. We now have 6.9 billion people. I always asked the real militant ones of them which people are we going to let starve so the rest can have the supposed "healthy" food??

 

[wisbaker]

Two sides to the coin, and this is from someone who did
a term paper on "small scale sustainable" farming while
earning his BS in Animal Science. I still believe in
what I learned in school-that world hunger is an
economic problem, that we have the capability to feed
the world, it's just they don't have the money to pay
for it. ANYTHING THAT INCREASES THE COST OF FOOD IS
MAKING WORLD HUNGER WORSE. Yes small scale farming CAN
be done in ways that are more environmentally friendly,
but the down side is cost. If the person farming 40
acres gets 10% more from each acre you're still counting
on that 40 to provide a living for that person/family,
compare that to a BTO who might generate his livelihood
from 2,000 acres, we might get slightly less food per
acre but the person farming BTO or Commercial is
contributing MORE food at a LOWER cost. If we remodel
our agriculture into small scale labor intensive
practices that's fine but the cost is farmers with a
lessor life style working 60 hours a week for probably
less than they could make elsewhere and we'll pay MORE
for our food. So many of the small scale, organic or eat
local initiatives are more a marketing plan than an
agricultural practice out universities need to teach the
economics alongside the science. Or to put it another
way farming is a business we need to teach the young
people that want to farm business as well as
agricultural science, when I was in school they closed
all business classes to non-majors because they were
over enrolled, one of the nation's first Land Grant
Universities can't get their arms around the fact that
agriculture is a business and needs to prepare their
students to deal with that reality.

 

[Fullers Farmalls]

I do feel bad for your experience with her. We have all dealt with
"those" people. I pretty much learned all about farming from you
guys on here and trial and error. My dad never really farmed till i
bought some tractors and equipment. And I see where you are
coming from but not all of us in the younger generations are like
that. But again enough are that there is the general consensus that
we are all rude, arrogant, and just dumb. Well most are but not all.

 

[MarkB_MI]

I don't know what your dispute is with this person, but posting your grievance on a public forum isn't likely to help. And posting the link that identifies her by name crossed a line. You might want to ask Chris to delete this entire thread.

 

[Bill(Wis)]

JohN: You have to get a grip on yourself. People like her come and go. I've seen dozens. TIME! TIME! You'll see more of it/them. Tell her to read up about VICTORY GARDENS! George C Marshall made an important visitor wait while he made out his BURPEE seed order. This is in our HISTORY. She's doing what she's doing without knowing whither or whence or why!

 

[flyingace]

(quoted from post at 06:22:03 09/23/12) So what exactly are you upset about? It looks to me like she is
trying pretty hard and according to the pics is growing some nice
veggies.

Guess I have to ask the same question. I read the article and reread the posts. What exactly is the issue? Is it just her attitude, or is she a know-it-all or what?

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 12:03:57 09/23/12) Two sides to the coin, and this is from someone who did
a term paper on "small scale sustainable" farming while
earning his BS in Animal Science. I still believe in
what I learned in school-that world hunger is an
economic problem, that we have the capability to feed
the world, it's just they don't have the money to pay
for it. ANYTHING THAT INCREASES THE COST OF FOOD IS
MAKING WORLD HUNGER WORSE. Yes small scale farming CAN
be done in ways that are more environmentally friendly,
but the down side is cost. If the person farming 40
acres gets 10% more from each acre you're still counting
on that 40 to provide a living for that person/family,
compare that to a BTO who might generate his livelihood
from 2,000 acres, we might get slightly less food per
acre but the person farming BTO or Commercial is
contributing MORE food at a LOWER cost. If we remodel
our agriculture into small scale labor intensive
practices that's fine but the cost is farmers with a
lessor life style working 60 hours a week for probably
less than they could make elsewhere and we'll pay MORE
for our food. So many of the small scale, organic or eat
local initiatives are more a marketing plan than an
agricultural practice out universities need to teach the
economics alongside the science. Or to put it another
way farming is a business we need to teach the young
people that want to farm business as well as
agricultural science, when I was in school they closed
all business classes to non-majors because they were
over enrolled, one of the nation's first Land Grant
Universities can't get their arms around the fact that
agriculture is a business and needs to prepare their
students to deal with that reality.

Couple of things wrong with that statement. Only if the small farmer is going to alternative markets are the prices higher. Farmers don't market products they sell at the current rate established by the buyer based on availability.

Small scale farming can indeed work if treated like a busniess and not a way of life.



Rick