From the sorting pens by John O’Dea: Like Grampa did it

There’s a push from the fringes of production agriculture and consumers alike to take food production “back to how Grampa did it.”  Well, here’s a newsflash: if a multigenerational farm or ranch is still in business today, Grampa and Great Grampa were early adopters of the technology they had available to them.

So many people have a mental image of the good old days. They remember eating fresh veggies and fruit from Grammas garden. My grandmother’s used seven dust like it owed them money.

Grampa milked cows. Well, Grampa also had the best surge milker he could afford because he knew that the faster he could milk a cow the more cows he could milk by himself in a day. Unlike his Dad having the kids home working once they passed 8th grade, Grampas kids went to high school and college. More cows meant a better chance at profitability. So he could help pay for college.  And clothes.  And braces. And show calves………

Grampa didn’t raise GMO crops or use glyphosate.  But he did use hybrid seed corn, atrazine, and dyfonate. If you don’t know the last two, look them up. I’m surprised we don’t all glow in the dark from exposure to it in our youth.

Grampa tilled the soil. Grampa also lost soil to erosion.  I’m in an area where no till practices were adopted in the early 70s. That means a lot of Grampas adopted it here as soon as innovators figured it out. Great Grampas generation also no tilled wheat between corn rows with a single horse drill.

Grampa didn’t need EPDs and $VALUE figures to select bulls. He did however utilize birthweight,  animal performance records, in herd ratios and indexes to select the best bulls that met his visual appraisal. 

Let’s not forget, the tractors and equipment that we thought were “old” growing up when we visited Grampa were actually newer then versus what we use now. We still see lots of 40- and 50-year-old tractors being used to feed and put up hay. Same thing with farm trucks. When I started hauling grain to the elevator in the 80s, I was running 20 to 30 year old straight trucks for farmers. We run 30 to 40 year old semis and trucks today.

The biggest irony is the statement “It was too bad that Mom and Dad and my uncles didn’t want to farm…..” 

Just like today, the operations that stay current and profitable with technology are more likely to appeal to the next generation.  If Dad and the Uncles had seen a little bit of upgrades to the quality of life on the farm they might have had a different point of view about returning.