Find The Innovators -- May 2017

Back in the good old days I’d go to discussion groups. We’d have a look at somebody else’s farm and have the same arguments about rotation lengths that we’d had at the previous month’s discussion group, then I’d be back home in time to help the bobby truck driver lift the calves onto the truck. Back then there were mechanical scales next to the door so you could weigh the ones the driver rejected as too light; he was always right and invariably took the weighing with good humour.

I haven’t been to a discussion group in a long time, but last week I was invited to a focus group by an agricultural company looking to develop apps for farmers. I sat in a room full of successful and intelligent people and listened as they discussed the challenges facing farming; environment, staffing, immigration, animal welfare and, after the reality of all these things, the public perception of them. Payout was only mentioned briefly and I assume the debates over rotation length have long been settled because it wasn’t mentioned at all.

By and large we agreed the apps the company were looking to develop weren’t that useful and if they did develop them we certainly wouldn’t pay for them. The facilitator looked on with increasing despair as we drank her coffee and took the conversation off track into areas we found more interesting.

Not going to discussion groups doesn’t mean I’m out of the loop though, I’m watching with interest as the farmers on Twitter show how they’re complying with the new bobby calf regulations. Of course I interject smugly that we’ve had raised platforms in Canterbury for 8 years now, driven by health and safety concerns from the trucking companies, and I haven’t seen roadside calf collection since I came to the South Island 14 years ago.

Some farmers aren’t content with merely complying with bobby calf regulations, they’re intent on eliminating bobbies from the farming process altogether. Jenny Aplin, a farmer I follow on Twitter, is well on the way to doing this with Wagyu sires. After some conversations with Jenny and others who use Wagyu I’ve looked into it myself. At $150 for a week old calf compared with $50 on the bobby truck for a 4 day old calf the numbers really stack up, minimising the number of calves going as bobbies is the icing on the cake but an animal welfare advocate’s dream.

I may not go to discussion groups and I may be guilty of not being fully focused at focus groups, but I take notice of the innovators out there like Jenny. I have access to the thoughts of hundreds of farmers via Twitter, from the mundane to the brilliant, and they’re happy for people to pick up their ideas and run with them. We’ve all got the same concerns and there’s people out there sharing truly imaginative ways to address them, you’ve just got to be prepared to listen.