Why I Like Farming - Part 3: Innovation

Farming is a dying profession in the US.  Particularly when you start talking about small 100-500 acre farms.  Why?  Because on a per acre basis, small farms have a very hard time competing with big commercial farms: they're too big to go super small (and organic, with lots of highschool labor, direct marketing, etc.) but the owners don't want to split up their land into developments and quit farming (which defeats the purpose of trying to keep farming).  The small farmers also have to diversify to weather the metaphorical storms of bad prices, increasing cost of doing business, varying markets, and then the actual physical bad storms that can quickly ruin an otherwise excellent crop.   

Needless to say, the environment for operating and sustaining a small farm is challenging.  But, with these challenges comes opportunity for probably the most exciting thing for me: innovation.  In my humble opinion, a farmer absolutely must innovate and improve the processes employed on the farm to stay afloat and, God willing, get ahead.  

It has been an interesting journey for me since I came back to the farm in 2013.  I didn't know jack.  I still don't, really, but I'm far more knowledgeable than I was in 2013.  All I knew when I got here was my way around Excel and cost analysis.  Since then, I've learned how to weld, some minor fabrication, moderately complicated machinery fixing, spraying, planting, a smattering of head knowledge about fertilizer placement and rates, and a massive amount of information about cover crops which I haven't completely sorted out in my brain as of yet.  A final key point is that I'm just starting to get a handle on input costs, expected yields, and selling prices, too.  

What does all that information do for me?  Well, rather than just being told what to do, I can now have a moderately intelligent conversation with a farmer who happens to stop by, I can participate in planting decisions, and I can start experimenting with ways to reduce input costs, increase yields, and/or increase efficiency.  

Those last three items are very exciting for me: reducing input costs, increase yields, and increase efficiency.  Not that I don't enjoy chatting with the random farmer who happens to stop by, but innovation is what fuels my passion for farming.  For example: making a tool that allows you to spend less labor on a task, adopting a practice that allows you less time spent in the field, upgrading equipment to eliminate a pass in a field, or coming up with a new way to market a product or make a little extra cash.  It's all very fascinating to me to get your creative juices flowing and try out something new.

That's great.  You like to mess around with "tried and true".  So what have you done?  Excellent question!   Here's a short list of the bigger items: 

 *Switched the whole farm to no-tilling in 2017;

*Started intensive grazing our year-round herd in 2016;

*Started using cover crops to keep the topsoil from blowing away, to build soil aggregate, and to get the soil to come back alive and start cycling nutrients like it should;

 *Stopped ground-cutting our hay to maximize our regrowth times and limit evaporation losses from exposed ground;

*Manage grazing times to cover the ground with decomposing organic matter to limit evaporation losses;

*Educated ourselves on quiet livestock handling methods and tools; 

*Added a liquid nitrogen system to our planter in 2018 to avoid additional passes with a spin spreader;

*Started direct marketing our beef to avoid unfair prices at auction and provide a quality product to local consumers in 2017;

*Tried a U-Pick field in 2018 for the first time;

*Tried using the liquid N system to inject water into fall planted cover crops in 2018;

*Planted a seed plot of hairy vetch and winter wheat in fall of 2017; and,

*Planted the hairy vetch mixture both as a forage and cover crop in the fall of 2018.

And the comprehensive list is far, far longer than this.  It's rare that a week goes by that we don't try something new or different in an attempt to do things a little better.  Sometimes the innovation ideas don't work out.   Sometimes they do.  But, as was told to me by the co-owner of the Bomb Taco (located by the Scoreboard) trailer: "you never hit a ball you don't swing at".

So, in summary, I like innovating.  It's the cream to my coffee.  The ketchup to my meatloaf.  The air to my tires.  But I digress...

Be blessed. 

-Kenny

This is the hairy vetch and winter wheat mixture we planted this fall.  We added in a bit of Willow Creek forage wheat to increase the tonnage of the winter wheat.