Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Broadening the flat Iowa horizon

One thing that has really struck me after being in Iowa just shy of a week and learning about farming is just how interdisciplinary an occupation farming really is. It's not that I ever thought that farming was easy - I certainly never thought that I could do it, especially not now - but I never realized before being here and meeting so many agricultural minds that there's truly more to farming than meets the eye.

The fields of our group are varied: political science, accounting, neuroscience, theatre, music, history, English, Asian studies and Latin American studies, to name a few. This is helpful in providing a wide variety of backgrounds, knowledge bases, and experiences from which we can pull our opinions and explanations. I've found myself more than once wishing, too, that we had a Health Sciences major on board - or Business, or Biology, or Economics, or Earth and Environmental Sciences.

I suppose, to some extent, all jobs require a wide range of skills that are, in general, under-appreciated. Farming, though, especially, requires...

1. knowledge of geology: soil types, land history, drainage patterns, rock presence, etc. are all needed to understand planting, cultivating, fertilizing, and harvesting for a particular plot of land.
2. engineering know-how: HN's brother is incredibly gifted in mechanical understanding, and it seems to serve him (and the neighborhood) quite well.
3. IT experience: everything from planting to business management is so mechanized nowadays that even tractors are run by touch-screen monitors. Many farm owners even live off-site and contract out their work - we've come to know these people as "cell phone farmers."
4. nutritional knowledge: farmers generally produce food for animal or human consumption ("food and fiber" is the catchphrase we often hear; we'll focus on the "food" aspect.) I believe that you should know the target audience for your product; so, I think that farmers should have at least a basic understand of the human body and how it uses certain nutrients.
5. global studies understanding: farming is very much a global issue affecting worldwide markets and politics. Agriculture is an issue of social justice, government relations, business, and health the world over.
6. number-crunching skills: I can't imagine all of the data that must be dealt with on a daily basis: futures markets, yield, crop prices, soil condition, weather patterns, etc.

...and so much more. My appreciation for the profession has already grown, and I'm sure that my next two weeks will serve to increase it more so.

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