Stan Rogers, in his inimitable way, captured in his song the feeling of urgency and grit, potentially also the lost opportunity and relief that comes along with the satisfaction cultivated when a farmer celebrates little victories in the process of growing a crop.
To have a meaningful harvest in the fall, good planning and timely implementation are important considerations in the years before planting. Over several seasons many things must come together to bring success to a particular crop. Executing on weed control in the preceding years, general soil conditions of the field you are cultivating and plans to satisfy the nutrient load of your cash crop are important in planning for success. A diversity of crops can be a necessary strategy to spread financial risk as crop failure can be economically devastating, especially in a monoculture.
During the growing year, the farmer manages field preparation, nutrient inputs, the seed source, (all the while trusting the quality of the seed), weed control strategies, irrigation, harvest opportunity and methods, processing and the all-important marketing of whatever crop the grower has decided to produce. Then there is the weather. Whatever the weather brings is whatever the weather brings, and disease and insect pressures can often be a function of that weather. Markets and the weather are live entities, and while forecasting is helpful, there are no guarantees. Which is why farmers can talk weather any time.
While all of the above sounds interminable, it can actually be logical and sequential, step-by-step, with variations and response to conditions, but with each stage a sense of progress, achievement and completion.
When Stan Rogers talks about plowing the field with cloud on the horizon, which brings the hope of lush germination and a season of promise or frustration and wet soils, muck, cold, stiff and fading hope, I know that feeling of dust and the steady tractor roar, the heat of the engine under the cold wind and the spitting drops of rain that sting.
When you turn around and look behind you, at the long straight lines, the even spacing and seeds at depth well prepared to grow, there is a satisfaction that is visceral, all that was accomplished laid out before you, that you have done what needs to be done, the field is prepped and planted and you can see it waiting, preparing to break bud and reach for the sun.
Farming is a complex, ideally multi-generational enterprise with tangible results, be they good or bad. How many tonnes of “X” at what price is a fairly simple metric.
Could agriculture be a good analogy for life in politics? There are many parallels, right down to insect/pest pressure (think Zika or SARS) that could come across your desk as a function of growing healthy communities. While that may be, in the political world, assessing progress is more difficult than turning around to behold the field behind the plow.
Editor’s note: MLA Jordan Sturdy can be reached at [email protected].
