Ideas and Meetings

Well here we are after Valentine’s Day already it seems like only yesterday that the first blog post was done. We were hoping to blog about everything by now but the time has slipped by this past month so fast. It has been a good month here at MZTRA all things considered. We are finalizing some research plans and trials, buying inputs, and going to meetings and seminars. We were at Ag Days and met a lot of people with some good ideas and a lot of concerns about agriculture. We also gave out a lot of candy and newsletters. We had a great time and also met a lot of other exhibitors. We had a new booth which we had a lot of comments on and that was great as well.

So with all the meetings and networking we have done we hope to make MZTRA a dynamic place with friends and influences from all over. There are so many people out there with great research ideas and questions about agriculture. At MZTRA we love questions. They mean that someone is thinking outside the box or it means they want to do something better or easier or both. Better can mean they want to make more money or do something in a more sustainable way or both. It is the times when both things occur that we feel we have succeeded. Should we stop there? The quick answer for me is no. As farmers things are always changing and one year is never exactly always changing and one year is never exactly like the last one. So we should never be just satisfied with the status quo. As farmers we can always do better, either economically or environmentally.

That brings me to the point of my first paragraph. Those meetings, booths, products and people can all be contributors to the success of your farm. Now I am not saying to try everything that you read about in the latest issue of your favorite farm paper or to run out and try everything that you hear about at a producer meeting. However if open your mind to the ideas and put them into your own farm context some of those ideas might not be so far out there. There are as many ways to do something as there are farms and farmers. Without that idea there would be no Prairie Farm Report to keep us occupied on Sunday afternoon. Those guys had an idea, some welding rods and a pile of scrap metal. An idea or concept is born. Sometimes in an agronomic sense those ideas are hard put in a tangible sense because something like increasing the soil organic matter doesn’t happen as fast as welding some metal in the shop. We have to stick with projects like that because those projects that don’t have an immediate result can however lead to long term sustainable health of our farms and economic returns based on lower amounts of inputs used. Those projects may not pay off as fast as welding something in the shop but long term they can pay us back.

Ideas like that come from meetings and producers who have done it or have asked the right questions. They have tried it on their own farms or have been involved in a board such as MZTRA where we have producers with questions that we turn into demonstrations and trials. I was told by someone a while ago that in agriculture it is a mix of what you know but also who you know. Thanks Pam. That is true as the ag community shrinks. We have fewer people involved so our ideas are even more important to research and put into action. So once again to blow our own horn here at MZTRA that is what we do.

So get involved in a producer organization, get out to some meetings keep your mind open, sort through that pile of ideas in your mind like that pile of brochures we got all picked up at Ag Days. Find out what might work and try a small part of your farm with something new. Get involved in MZTRA and have us try it.

Don’t forget our AGM on March 20 at the Riverbank Discovery Center in Brandon at 9am