Just Three Farmers

Yesterday I attended a field day at my local seed dealer. It's the typical end-of-season field day that occurs all across the Midwest where new technology, agronomic trends, and new hybrids and varieties are touted, the latest and greatest. I like it because it gives us an idea of what changes we might make to our hybrid and variety mix, and it also gives me a chance to sit and talk with other farmers in the area.

I sat down with Aaron Schaefer, a neighbor. We farm in the same neighborhood and use similar practices, and it's always nice to sit at those events with a friendly face. Throughout the evening we chatted a little bit about how our farms are doing, how our families were, all the normal catch up.

Aaron had some side conversations with another man at our table, a man that I knew by face but didn't know by introduction, his French accent solidifying who he was. After supper Aaron and this man, Benoit Delbecq, started talking about cover crops. As a cover cropper myself, my ears perked up.

It was interesting to hear Aaron's questioning about the ROI on cover crops because he's in an interesting position where he farms side by side with partners that use cover crops and he does not as extensively. His view was a natural, healthy skepticism, which I think we need around farming practices whether it's in crop fields or livestock pens. Benoit shared how they use cover crops in a rotation to utilize manure from a neighboring dairy. He showed some pictures of some mixes of cover crops, but he too was raising questions about the monetary value of the benefits we get from cover crops.

I threw in my observations about planting corn into living, standing cereal rye, my experience with the mat of cereal rye causing wet ground. It was one of those good conversations that farmers have where we were just talking. Nobody was trying to convince anybody of anything. We were just sharing observations and thoughts.

Later in the evening I was trying to find Benoit's contact information so I could send him a quick note. Hey, we didn't introduce ourselves, it was great talking with you, thank you for being honest and having a conversation. Little did I know what I'd find when I clicked on his LinkedIn profile.

What I found surprised me. We both attended Purdue and Kansas State. We also shared having PhDs. And that's when it hit me. At that table at that seed dealer meeting were three farmers talking about their experiences around cover crops. It was not two PhDs and a farmer. It was just three farmers.

This plays into a theme I've been exploring about finding expertise where you don't expect it and dropping the labels. Benoit has a PhD in Ag Economics. He could have jumped in talking about ROI, lecturing Aaron and me about the appropriate economic model, the theory behind calculations of intrinsic value versus real value. But he didn't. We just talked about planting cereal rye and cover crop mixes.

Thinking about the three of us sitting at that table last night, it was not Dr. Delbecq the Ag Economist, Dr. Jim Smith the Swine Nutritionist, and Aaron Schaefer the farmer. It was simply three farmers sharing, listening, questioning to learn, not convince or sell.