This column isn’t about that, though. It’s about the community of Souris, Man., and the surreal/great experience my wife and I had there.

My wife, Jamie, and I were on a junior road trip. A colleague of mine at Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers asked if I’d consider meeting her at a crop research trial site a few miles east of Souris to snap some photos and take some drone footage.

I said “yes” before I finished reading the email request: A, I enjoy flying my drone; and B, I needed to get out of the house before cabin fever finished making scrambled eggs of my brain. I’m fine, by the way. But I did welcome the excuse to get out and do something work related.

I packed my camera, my drone and was excited to try out some new gear I had purchased since I was last commissioned for such services. Jamie had time and agreed to join me. We would make a fun trip out of it. The two of us really do enjoy exploring the nooks and crannies of Manitoba.

We arrive. Exchange some long-time-no-sees and then I begin unpacking my gear, splaying it out on my endgate like I know what I’m doing.

The new gear (a new, longer cable connecting my phone to the drone remote) didn’t work, so, after hours of troubleshooting and attempting to Google this issue with virtually zero bars of service, I discovered a workaround.

The crops represented by this particular series of plots looked unusually healthy. Souris is about two hours directly west of my farm. Not too far, in other words. I expected to see soybeans that looked dwarfed and parched, like ours did.

This was not the case. Instead, I was forced to confront an accurate representation of what healthy soybeans should look like at this time of year. They should be about four feet tall, bushy and bursting with pods. So, not 14 inches tall, the opposite of bushy and struggling to stay alive amid the crippling heat and drought.

We got the shots of these beautiful test plots and put them onto a flash drive, which we handed over to my colleague. We were then told that if we were to make it to the Souris bakery before it closed, we’d have to make haste.

And this bakery came highly recommended.

As we neared this mythical land called Souris, we started to get a quaint vibe, in a good way. I know you know what I am talking about when I say, “vibe.” The impressions we were receiving from what we could see on either side of the highway were positive and our decision to visit the town over heading home was fast becoming vindicated.

The topography started to become what I would describe as rolling and forested. The namesake river that runs through the town is a feature the community is proud of and has invested in. There were walkways, a park and tourist-oriented infrastructure built around the relatively wide (for Manitoba) river. There is a sizeable swinging bridge spanning its shores.

We arrived at the bakery before it closed. We bought a loaf of cheese bread and two sandwiches for the ride home. The friendly woman taking our order recommended we walk around the corner to Forty-Nine Degrees Coffee and Ice Cream. We did. It was fantastic.

All the while, we’re taking in the cozy restaurants, artisanal shops and the kind of wide streets you’d find in small, touristy towns.

We decided to walk around a bit with our coffees. It is at this point when our time in Souris took a strange turn.

At the edge of my peripheral vision, to the left, I could see something blocking traffic. Jamie and I were crossing a main street on our way to traverse the swinging bridge.

If that would have been the only glimpse I had of the thing and I was chatting with, say, a police sketch artist, I would have described something that looked like a peacock.

I looked again. Certainly, it couldn’t be a peacock.

It was a full-on, living and free male peacock. Judging by how the traffic was avoiding it and stopping for it, I guessed this peacock was something people knew about and were quite used to accommodating.

Then I saw another one. This one was on the meridian, poking around in some community-planted flower garden. Then another. Then another.

In case you are not following, Souris is a small town in southwestern Manitoba. It is not where one would ever expect to see peacocks roaming free.

I saw a woman walking with two children and approached, trying very hard to hide my nervous excitement/bewilderment, as I didn’t know how that would present to a stranger.

She affirmed they were, indeed, peacocks and they do roam free in Souris all summer. Apparently, they are a remnant of a bird sanctuary that used to operate in the area. They either were freed or freed themselves at one point in time, and now have become permanent and welcome residents of Souris.

They are taken in for winter and released in summer.

I’m not sure we could have digested any more adventure, so we drove home, and we tell everyone we meet about the peacocks of Souris and just how gorgeous of a community it is.

The post Toban Dyck: Adventure found in the most unexpected place appeared first on Grainews.

The disruption that has been thrust upon us, leaving us to choose between adapting to an ever-changing political and social landscape, enduring it, stubbornly opposing it and everything in-between has seeped into my farming plans. I’m looking at this spring differently. Arguably, we all are.

Most of us have in our tool kits an increased inventory of skills unwittingly acquired from living through a pandemic. This may be an opportunity to harness them. Maybe not.

I’m not trying to be blissfully ignorant. I am, however, acutely aware of the fact that, when nearly every stabilizing element of the structures we rely on is pulled away like Jenga pieces delicately removed from the proverbial towers we build, I believe our best response is to seize the opportunity to rebuild.

If you’re still with me, great. This will get agricultural. I promise.

I’m no longer shocked by disruption. I’m guessing many of us feel the same way. What does this all mean for our farm? When I look east, as I am doing right now, and see black bean and canola stubble on a field that is too dry to cultivate, my thoughts bend towards zero- or minimal-till.

Two years ago, the mere exploration of the concept would have seemed heretical, but now — you get it — the bar between “lunacy” and “worth exploring” has lowered considerably. If I had predicted the world we live in today in January of last year, how many of you would have believed me? Few, I imagine. “Impossible,” would have been my response.

Turns out, the world we live in today is not only possible, but actual. This realization is fertile ground worth extracting meaning from. For the record, I do not think zero- or minimal-tillage practices were ever lunacy. They were/are just unfamiliar to me.

It’s March 16 and there is no snow on the ground. Our fields are dry. Can I seed directly into canola stubble? What about fertilizer? Can we broadcast and work in with our hoe drill? What are the considerations associated with a zero-till plan on stubble?

There is always the internet, which can be a daunting tool when you ask it questions on topics so foreign and new that you don’t even have biases towards the kinds of answers you’re looking for. Starting from scratch is a weakness of online research. Confirmation bias (look it up) is, too, but that’s not for this column.

I’ve asked a lot of people about tillage, and not once did I get the impression that I was asking questions to which there are universally agreed upon answers and that I was obviously too naive or inexperienced to know what they are. Quite the opposite, in fact.

These questions and others like it seem to keep their relevance. Tillage practices seem to be a feature of farming often treated as a set of thoughts and considerations that shouldn’t change. Tillage is foundational, but we seem reluctant to play with our habit surrounding it, like, say, we would with chemical mixtures, crop varieties or machinery.

Conditions change. Trends change. Science tugs at tradition. And weather is that thing humans can’t control just yet. The practices we galvanize on our farms are subject to change.

In the wake of COVID-19, few things remain sacred. I mean this in a good way. In this case, it’s tillage. How often we cultivate, at what depth and if it should be done at all are new considerations for this farm. We’ve started to explore this over the last few years, as a way to store as much moisture as possible in our soil.

We’ve been happy with the result, though that isn’t to say we’re ready to dismiss the consideration that black soil heats up faster in spring and that a well-tilled field both looks good and makes for a great seedbed.

I can’t say for sure what changes this farm will implement this year. Right now, with warmer than aver- age temperatures, we’re trying our best to resist the urge to get the machinery out. It’s still March. Those of us who remember ’97, know that this is a historically unpredictable month. I hope we get a large serving of moisture, but I should know better and be more careful about what I ask for. Here’s to a great growing season!

The post Toban Dyck: The bar between “lunacy” and “worth exploring” has lowered considerably appeared first on Grainews.

Prodding forward when the path ahead is invisible or unclear is one of the most challenging things to do. I have done this many times, and likely you have, as well.

My wife and I have spent an inordinate amount of time this year thinking and talking about the future of our farm and our off-farm career paths. If the world was functioning like it was pre-COVID or pre-trade wars, I’m not sure we’d feel so challenged to re-evaluate these aspects of our lives.

I am returning to university to further study policy development and analysis. I am considering becoming a pilot and I have taken steps to formally set up an advisory business to formalize some of the work I get asked to do outside of my day job with Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers.

My wife, Jamie, is similarly thinking of ways she can develop and enhance her career as an educator, a vocation she is passionate about and is quite exceptional at.

In our house, we have prioritized this process and we’ve taken seriously the creation of physical spaces where each of us can think clearly about our next steps. Our house has a nice home office, but we’re moving things around to create another one. As trivial and frivolous as it can seem to spend time and dollars on such things, if they aren’t taken seriously, whatever happens in them won’t get taken seriously, either.

I don’t want to find myself exiting the proverbial, platonic cave scrambling to pick up the pieces of a life put on a hold. I want to be invigorated before the fog of 2020 lifts, so that when it does, I can fully take advantage of it.

This is a tricky subject to write about and I find myself feeling bad about trying to paint what is a dismal year for many as something I am utilizing for adventures and self-exploration/betterment. Privilege is something I want to acknowledge and apologize for, but, linguistically, I feel it weakens my point to do so.

As a farmer during COVID, I have noticed a tendency in the industry to want to play along and cry wolf with everyone else. Things are bad and, yes, the economy will have to find a way to open up before long, but commodity prices are relatively strong and 2020 was, by and large, a banner year across much of Canada. The ag sector’s whining is now part of a larger chorus of complaints, which is a unique position for it. Usually, we’re bitter and alone.

The sense of exploration and curiosity that has so far been my 2020 motto has permeated more than just my off-farm pursuits.

When you’re not surrounded by other farmers at events, coffee shops, etc., you’re left to your own devices to make decisions on such things as cropping, tillage and whatever else you may subconsciously rely on the mob for guidance. It’s a unique challenge to make decisions and execute them in the vacuum of your home office.

This year, we tilled very little of our land, having had good experiences fertilizing and lightly cultivating in spring. This is a new look for our farm. And while new things usually take courage to execute and justify to the farmers down the road, in a pandemic setting where I am not seeing or talking to other growers, my decisions are expressly my own.

If the pandemic has given you extra time to think, take that time. Explore the possibilities. Test your thresholds as a person. See how far you can go.

I have only taken my discovery flight, so far, but I look forward to the process of getting my licence. Returning to university scares the heck out of me — it’s been a while — but I am excited about what new synapses going to school will re-engage. The advisory business? Who knows. It may be nothing. It may be everything. Stay positive, everyone!

The post Toban Dyck: Looking back on 2020 appeared first on Grainews.

This year’s CropConnect Conference in Winnipeg had a layer of complexity and drama to it. At five of the commodity group AGMs that were scheduled to take place during the two-day conference, members would vote on a resolution to amalgamate into a new group called the Manitoba Crop Alliance.

A fragile whisper of an idea that took shape over about five years would come to this moment — a ballot with two boxes: one for in favour and one for opposed. It wasn’t just one moment, though. It was five.

In order for the resolution as presented to pass, there needed to be a two-thirds majority in favour at each of the five participating AGMs. An AGM without quorum would cripple the process. An AGM without the required yah votes would do the same. The amalgamation of Corn, Winter Wheat, Sunflowers and Wheat and Barley into the Manitoba Crop Alliance hung in the balance of what was a full plate of unknowns.

The background work

It would be the culmination of years of work and strategizing done by the staff and boards of those groups. I know this. I was a part of it once. I am the communications director for the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, a group that was once involved in the proposed amalgamation but took a step back in 2018.

I sat in those meetings. I wanted so badly for every farmer in those meetings to know and appreciate the watershed moment they were voting on. I wanted them all to understand the hard work that went into developing a plan that really did try to address all of the concerns raised by the farmer-members of the participating organizations.

I have wanted this for a long time. When I was involved in it, I would write press releases and click “send” as though the world was about to change. I would brace the various executive directors for what I thought would be a deluge of requests for interviews.

They weren’t met with complete silence, but close to it. Crickets make a noise, right. No. There were calls. There was interest amid media. Farmers are hard to reach, though, and it’s hard to get a reaction out of them when what’s being proposed doesn’t really change anything on their end. “Sounds good,” they’d say. “Didn’t that happen already?”

The communications people behind this amalgamation process did everything they could to reach people, but rarely did farmers engage.

A picture emerged for me about just how growers interact with their commodity groups, and I get it, but it was different.

I do believe commodity groups offer something incredibly unique and important to the agricultural industry. I’m on their payroll to say things like this, but I am also a farmer who pays check-off to the organization. As a farmer, I want independent, unbiased groups to exist. It’s vital.

The result

I thought this process would strike a nerve and either evoke fierce approval or opposition. This did not happen.

I attended most of the AGMs and voted at the ones I could. I was nervous at all of them. Each one of them was like walking into a potential war zone. I would scan the attendees and think about who would vote which way, as if generating lists of allies and enemies for when war would break out. It never came to that, but every time I entered the Wellington A at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg, I was ready for the worst.

It was a secret ballot. There was time for discussion, but when it came time to vote, people checked a box and stood up for their ballot to be collected.

The person in front of me at one of the AGMs voted in opposition to the idea and this set the tenor for me. It wasn’t going to pass. That’s where my head went. That single ballot that I saw, but wasn’t supposed to see, represented a silent majority of people who couldn’t be bothered to speak up. They would just vote “opposed” and this whole thing would be dead in the water.

That AGM was relatively early on Day 1. I had the rest of that day and the whole of the next to get through, my mind running amuck with theories.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was the closing keynote speaker. The results of the vote would be presented after his talk. It would be the final announcement of the conference.

The auditors read out the results from each of the AGMs, in escalation from Sunflowers to the pivotal Wheat and Barley. Every AGM had quorum and every one achieved a two-thirds majority. I was relieved. I couldn’t have been happier for the many board members and staff that worked hard to see this through, no doubt having to battle uncertainty and doubt along the way.

I am looking forward to seeing how the Manitoba Crop Alliance will take shape, and you should be, too.

The post Toban Dyck: Voting yes or no to amalgamation appeared first on Grainews.

We are days away from finalizing the purchase of 120 acres of cultivated land. I won’t disclose the agreed-upon price, because I don’t need more farmers gasping at how land prices have skyrocketed since the 1980s. It has happened. Let’s all get over it.

Today we issued the cheque for the deposit, sent our lawyer the official offer to purchase and over the course of the next week we will work out the details associated with the purchase. We had many years to prepare ourselves for this day, but didn’t. “We’ll start thinking about it tomorrow,” was our usual refrain.

The fiscal realities of this purchase have spurred us to analyze and evaluate our attitudes towards risk and opportunity. It’s been an interesting process, and one we’re not quite done. It’ll be a work in progress. We are close to knowing the attitudes we want to hold towards such things. Once we do, the challenge will be figuring out how to develop them.

I took two classes with Professor Douglas Walton during my undergrad degree. One was logic and the other was argumentation. Dr. Walton is a world-class thinker on both of these subjects. I did well in these courses and I will never forget Walton’s expressionless delivery. For class, he would read a chapter of the textbook, which he wrote, then, when he was done, he’d open it up to questions. If there were none, he would close the book, say something quietly about class being over and walk out.

I really liked him. He was old, wise, distinguished and had the driest sense of humour.

In argumentation we learned about logical fallacies and how to spot them. A logical fallacy, put bluntly and in a way that Walton would scoff at, is basically a flaw in reasoning. One such fallacy is called a false dichotomy. It’s when a question is asked or a hypothetical situation is presented and the respondent is only given an unfairly limited amount of choices. For example, “What colour is your truck? White or blue?” If it’s neither, that’s a flaw in reasoning because you can’t answer the question honestly under such parameters.

This form of reasoning is often used in court, where the prosecution purposefully limits the choices to two bad ones, drawing the defense into a line of reasoning that may see him or her believing that the least “bad” choice is the best one, when in fact, they are both wrong and the whole line of questioning should be dismissed as fallacious.

My attitude towards risk has fallen prey to faulty reasoning. I believe taking risks can either be the arbiter of tremendous opportunity or the actions of a dimwit and the cause of financial ruin. This is a form of the false dichotomy fallacy, as I have interpreted it.

I am terrified of taking risks, and thinking about them in such a black and white way hasn’t helped. I am working on it.

For some, taking risks is par for the course. Some things work out; others don’t. That’s just how it is. Some are trepidatious but not averse to risk. Some have a smart eye for the kinds of risks that are most likely to end up as opportunities, and I know there are farmers out there who wouldn’t differentiate between those two things.

I yearn to be better at seizing chances at things that may be good, may be bad, may be mediocre, or may be amazing. I have heard from people much smarter than me that failure is the best teacher. Wise, perhaps. Reassuring, it is not.

We don’t want our purchase of the land to result in failure, but we have already walked through the what’s-the-worst-that-can-happen scenario, and, you know what? Even that doesn’t look so terrible.

There is a world of possibilities for our farm and yours and I yearn to have a mind that sees that, believes it and has the courage to act on it. We are not averse to risk. We are not averse to risk. We are not averse to risk.

The post Toban Dyck: Taking the plunge and writing a cheque for farmland appeared first on Grainews.

A few cold days, a bit of snow, a break from work and almost all the negativity associated with the 2019 growing season has been pushed out of my mind. There are still realities to face, but right now I am hopeful about the year ahead. Let’s call it the snow-rotation effect.

In the three years I have been working in the commodity association world, a few things have sunk in. I repeat, only a few things.

There are a tremendous number of voices in agriculture. Every producer groups has a board made up of at least a few who are willing to travel to Ottawa or their provincial legislature to represent the interests of their corner of the sector. It’s a great opportunity for farmers to visit Parliament Hill or shake hands with a cabinet minister. And having our federal leaders hear farmers’ concerns is a critical element of a functioning democracy.

There is a palpable push in the agriculture sector right now to be loud. We have a lot to say to our lawmakers on a variety of issues. We want Canada to do its part to restore our beleaguered markets, raise commodity prices and ensure farmers are being considered intelligently on files like carbon tax and sustainability.

Some of us have quick answers to these complex issues and some of us are quick to give our opinion at the first sight of an open mic, believing that the only reason our version of what should be happening hasn’t materialized yet is because nobody’s heard it yet.

It’s not my intention to come down with anything resembling a hammer, but I do think there are times when we need to think, act and speak strategically and intelligently instead of impulsively.

If you don’t believe in climate change, you should know that to say as much out loud to groups of people neither gives you nor the industry you represent any sort of advantage. It does the opposite. Good policy doesn’t come at the hands of people unwilling to bend nor at the hands of people unwilling to work with the current political and social climate.

I attended a conference in 2019 where a presenter spoke for quite some time about the upcoming green technology revolution. He got a lot of opposition from the mostly farmer audience. Then the speaker who followed offered some context. An audience member had mentioned that despite all of green energy’s claims, coal was still a booming business in the U.S.

The speaker offering context said that the coal companies that foresaw the shift to greener, more sustainable practices and started implementing them are the ones that survived. The ones that dug their heels in and refused to make their operations more sustainable shut their doors.

The presenter made this point with the diplomacy and grace of a thousand Yodas. It was impressive and the agricultural sector needs more people like him.

We’re all burdened by the great purpose of enlightening Trudeau’s government on agriculture’s needs and challenges, but we need to be careful. Despite the fact that media is often merciless and imbalanced towards agriculture, we don’t need to be the same towards the very people we need in our court.

Rigid thinking is not a show of strength or confidence. It’s something much different.

We can’t all speak. We shouldn’t all speak. Boards need to choose their spokespeople and making sure they represent the interests of their farmers and that they are equipped with a full picture before getting in front of the mic.

Let’s use the snow rotation to clear our heads and think about what it is we want to say and to whom.

Agriculture is full of smart people. Let’s not shroud that fact under stale and stubborn attitudes. Before you think I am blameless here, I am not. I bend towards rigid thinking. When I hear it in others, however, it motivates me to change. It’s not how I want to represent myself nor my industry.

The post Toban Dyck: Do we have too many speakers in agriculture? appeared first on Grainews.

The accusation wasn’t especially impactful, as it was obvious the person only read the headline, but it did make me think. There are a lot of things I would rather be than a whiner, and I’d be willing to bet a lot of us feel the same way.

From where I stand on the curve right now, it seems as though one could spend a lifetime learning about farming and the global agricultural network of which it is a part and still not figure everything out. That is itself fascinating. I believe, perhaps wrongfully so, that everyone would at some level also find agriculture as endlessly interesting as I do if they were only given a glimpse into how it works.

I think if the average Amazon shopper could watch a massive container ship lumber into port knowing that his or her purchase was in one of those colourful rectangles, that person’s perspective of how important rail and transportation, in general, is to Canada. This is the nugget. This is what the farming community wanted everyone to understand when CN’s workers went on strike. It wasn’t just farmers affected. It was everyone.

Systemic disruption and bad policy affect everyone.

People don’t know what we know and we shouldn’t assume otherwise. This holds of any sector. You don’t know what the person next to you is thinking and the only way they are going to know what’s going on in your head is if you tell him or her.

I write on the theory that if modern agriculture’s fiercest critics suddenly, by some strange stroke of magic, found themselves running a farm their minds would change.

When trade is healthy, policies are good enough and prices are high, we operate in the shadows. When that all changes, we throw the light on and expect a public and government that once couldn’t see what we were doing to suddenly take an interest in the details and start rallying behind us.

I would like nothing more than for some of my city friends to really understand the nuances surrounding the glyphosate debate. It would be great to have an earnest chat with someone who doesn’t farm yet has a solid grasp of how the chemical is used, how the chemical has impacted agriculture, and a basic understanding of the unique regulatory environment that currently holds its fate.

When carbon tax was just a rumour, the ag sector wanted everyone to know how in a complex value chain it is a price taker and would ultimately be vulnerable to the inevitable increase in input costs.

When Canada detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and China retaliated with trade embargos, followed by accusations of contaminated commodity shipments, farmers pressured government to fix a very large problem it had ostensibly created.

It is largely unfair for us to accuse people outside of our industry as being ignorant. I don’t know much of what it means to be a doctor or an assembly line worker at GM.

This is our challenge: to talk without whining; to apply smart and specific pressure without asking for things we shouldn’t; to understand and ultimately reconcile the fact that not everyone knows or understands what it is we get up to on our farms.

I sometimes wonder if critical theory or argumentation shouldn’t be a necessary part of the curriculum in university ag departments. The ag sector needs to be able to see the other side a little bit better and it needs to be able to self-assess in ways independent of profitability.

Whining isn’t becoming of anyone or any industry. The sector has a fine line to walk. I want everyone to understand how the ag sector functions. I want everyone to demand a strong agricultural vision of his or her political representatives, and I want every single person to be as enthralled with all of this as I am.

I’m perfectly okay with the odd person misinterpreting all of this as whining, especially if it means a dragon is paying attention.

The post Toban Dyck: Explaining agriculture, not whining appeared first on Grainews.

I spent a few days away from the farm in late September. My dad and his friend harvested soybeans while I, the very guy poised to take over the farm, flew to Vancouver to take in the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation conference.

It’s a conference like any other, the raw value of which is the conversations that take place outside the sessions and the general sentiments you come away with after steeping in a topic for a few days amid like-minded peers. The sessions were fantastic, too, I should add.

We toured the Port of Vancouver and had the privilege of seeing the terminals of some of the Canada’s and the world’s largest grain buyers. The Port of Vancouver, I learned, is the largest export port in North America.

The Alliance Grain Terminal (AGT) we toured has a capacity of about three million metric tonnes and is on course to exceed that. AGT’s wasn’t the largest. The magnitude of operations at the Port of Vancouver was a challenge to comprehend.

It ties the Prairies and B.C. together in a critical way. The rail cars feeding the port rip across the Prairies and cut right through the City of Vancouver before transferring their cargo to a vessel.

It’s a bizarre and important thought process to imagine the crops we grow traveling through a densely populated area and onto a ship. It’s good to be reminded that agriculture and export was once such a priority in Canada that it prioritized the efficient movement of commodities over a few people complaining about rail crossings and living next to a bustling port — the needs of the sector against the complaints of those surrounding it. It’s a tension that still exists there and it’s one the ag sector, in general, is used to hearing about. Everyone on the tour could relate to it.

We spent a few hours on the harbor, on a nice vessel, avoiding Panamaxes coming into port to fill up and hearing about the challenges of running such a large operation. It was mind bending.

I write for Grainews and I write for the Financial Post. For each of these papers, I try to affect a voice that is national in scope. But I have limitations. I am from southern Manitoba and, at the end of the day, can only speak to what I see in front of me and what I hear from my peers, which thankfully are scattered across Canada.

Agriculture in British Columbia, it turns out, is affected by similar challenges to the Prairies. I left with that feeling. Ag in B.C. is not the same and you won’t catch me saying so. What they grow is unique to their climate and markets and consumers, but farm labour is a hurdle and so is the appropriation of arable land, which, in B.C., is in short supply.

To spend time with fellow writers from across the country learning about our value chain and seeing it in action, as well as be reminded of how agriculture from the east coast to the west has a lot in common was an absolute honour. We too easily forget that and pass judgment on the needs of other provinces as selfish. There is more that binds us together than drives us apart. I need to be reminded of that every so often.

It’s still raining. I’m hoping to get to my soys by midweek. It’ll be nice to have it all in the bin.

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Traditionally, I lose a few balls to the bush off the tee box. Then, also traditionally, I lose just as many attempting to jump the creek.

I did not grow up playing golf. It’s a sport I picked up only a few years ago. Even that is misleading. Rather, I should say, two or three years ago I bought a used set of clubs and a couple of times every summer I’d play a few holes at our local golf courses.

I hoped golfing more often would correct my slice and allow me to connect with my irons. But, in reality, I had quietly and subconsciously resigned myself to the fact that due to my tall, inflexible physiology I would never really be good at the game.

My wife, Jamie, and I took lessons this year and everything changed. Now I can’t shut up about drawing analogies between learning how to golf in my late 30s and everything else in life, including farming.

I believed I had tried everything to correct my game — YouTube videos, articles, practice. It wasn’t working. I wasn’t seeing progress. I lacked the tools to visualize myself getting better at golf, fervently believing that I had tried everything.

During the first lesson, I learned that the correct way to grip and swing a club wasn’t comfortable. It was painful. I had blisters on my hands and my body actively rebelled against the torqueing I was forcing it to do.

The results, however, were immediate and positive. I went from frustration to possessing the language and tools through which to diagnose and fix my game.

While it’s just golf and it’s not for everyone, this was a eureka moment that highlighted the benefit and hope attached to asking for help and doing things correctly, regardless of how uncomfortable and disruptive they are.

Tackling change

In the recesses of my mind and perhaps in yours, too, there exists a list of large-sized items that I hope to address at some point in my life. This vague and fluid list includes things such as the desire to read more, write more, travel more, develop a better understanding of farming and agronomics, learn new skills and spend less time watching television.

There’s nothing stopping me from doing all of these things, save for how disruptive they would be to my current routines. Establishing new habits is a difficult thing to do, but I’m inspired by my recent experience with just how rewarding doing so can be.

The corollary to all of this is complacency. Grooves are easy to stay in. Every time I grip the club, it takes a concerted and intentional effort to do it correctly, which must look hilarious to spectators (and there’re always spectators at hole 1). Every swing, be it practice or real, requires me to concentrate on the many elements that make up a straight shot. I still get it wrong and it’s still challenging, but it’s getting easier every time I’m able to practice.

I learned about farming in my 30s and I have since settled into a groove that, like my golf game previous to lessons, involves a few things I’ve convinced myself I’ll never learn.

I’ve never been more motivated than I am right now to tackle these things, knowing that correct often means temporarily uncomfortable.

I returned to hole number 1 at the rural golf course near Roland, Manitoba. My drive was straight and I only forfeited one ball to the creek. I need to move my hips more and my follow-through still needs work.

The post Toban Dyck: With golf or farming, concentration matters appeared first on Grainews.

The lesson for both of us is that it’s OK not to know everything.

Sometimes, in my weaker moments, I will refrain from asking a question or making a comment because I fear it would expose what may be interpreted as a critically high level of ignorance.

I was recently participating in a business risk management, or, BRM, consultation. We were asked to list what we think are the most critical factors affecting our operations.

All the things you’re currently thinking about made the cut: unpredictable and inclement weather; the current trade war that seems just as unpredictable as the weather; Donald Trump; the shortage of skilled, dependable labour; access to capital; and many other things that wouldn’t stand out as odd in a farming crowd.

The gentleman sitting beside me leaned over and said, “I know this one isn’t going to be popular, but I think one of the biggest factors is our inability as farmers to live within our means.”

He wrote it down and it was treated equitably. It got posted to the wall, just like the others.

“Why do we expect so much from government?” he asked me, rhetorically, I presume, as there was no way for me to think of a response and whisper it back to him while listening to the in-progress consultation.

He is a seasoned farmer. He’s been to many consultations and understands the mechanics of BRM programming much better than I do.

His point, if I am to put additional words in his mouth, was not that BRM isn’t important to a healthy agricultural sector. Rather, his point was that in a sector such as ours there are a tremendous amount of opportunities to complain and pass responsibility down the line. We don’t set prices. We are forced to accept them. We don’t control weather and we certainly don’t control our lawmakers. We’re stuck in the middle of a value chain and we’ve become too accustomed to blaming the links down the line and the links up the line for the challenges we face. We do need government support. But we should never rule out the possibility that there’s room for each and every one of us to improve how we manage our farms.

His is a point worth thinking about. His is also a point I think many farmers are afraid to agree with, believing that doing so would mean sacrificing any political gains the sector has made in increasing agricultural supports from government.

The ag sector, in general, needs to be cognizant of just how tight its messaging has become. As much as it is important for ag to apply constant pressure to our lawmakers, it’s equally important that our messaging doesn’t omit the obvious. We need to be careful about this.

I would have made the comment. I’ve thought about this before, but I haven’t brought it up because I thought it would be perceived as silly or as something so wildly misguided that it would ultimately reflect on my credibility as a farmer. Extreme? Yes. But I’m willing to bet we’ve all experienced something similar when we’ve wanted to say something, but didn’t.

But it stood out as rare that in a room full of farmers someone had the gall to say something serious that was received with laughter. Even I laughed, and so did the person who made the comment. He knew how it would be taken. He said it anyway. And I am glad he did.

I’ve always been relatively comfortable asking seemingly naïve questions, but I have found this gets harder the more years I’m on the farm. The pressure I put on myself is that I should know these things.

At this consultation, I again learned something about assumptions. Hopefully, it’ll stick.

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