Why is farming the best profession in the world?

[Robigus]

Well...... I copied that photo to a special folder so I could retrieve it quickly.......




I now can't find that folder!

TFF Calendar Competition.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Best get some Roundup on there whilst you can. Wheat will never thrive with all those Bluebells.

 

[Christoph1945]

The bible says that giants walked the earth in the early days. I recon that they must have been farmers and they are still walking among us.

Best profession in the world; without you we would become little more than dust, to be blown away on the winds of time.

Thank you farmers and farming folk.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

I take it you mean me Christoph..................

 

[Muck Spreader]

This is a very unnerving thread. Farmers being positive and upbeat just isn't a natural state of affairs. I had better go outside and see what's gone wrong or died in my absence, just to calm myself down.

 

[DrWazzock]

I find this "best profession in world" stuff a bit tiresome.

The industrial revolution happened because it was rubbish in the countryside. It was rubbish in the cities as well but the fact that people migrated there in droves shows you how bad it was in the countryside yet people paint country life as some sort of idyll. Yes, farming has some very rewarding moments and I feel lucky to be farming. But there are plenty of other worthwhile, rewarding and essential professions out there.

The people that fitted my dad up with his pacemaker last year and saved his life rank among the best professionals IMO. I think people need to get out more.

 

[Baker9]

TFF Calendar Competition.

It will be 5 weeks before I have any Bluebells, I am seriously annoyed looking at that photo but it is beautiful.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

I think it was taken in years past.

 

[exmoor dave]

I think it was taken in years past.

It will be 5 weeks before I have any Bluebells, I am seriously annoyed looking at that photo but it is beautiful.

Yeh old photo.....that dog is way fatter now.... cause she's boss dog so gets a share of my cake

And the gorse in the back round had a "accident" when I completely not on purpose in any way was skipping along the path with a lite gas torch and fell over catching it all on fire

 

[Baker9]

Yeh old photo.....that d

Yeh old photo.....that dog is way fatter now.... cause she's boss dog so gets a share of my cake

And the gorse in the back round had a "accident" when I completely not on purpose in any way was skipping along the path with a lite gas torch and fell over catching it all on fire

That was a bit careless, but then you seem to have a rep for playing with fire.

 

[Bury the Trash]

That was a bit careless, but then you seem to have a rep for playing with fire.

he gonna scald he's arse one day.......

 

[Christoph1945]

I find this "best profession in world" stuff a bit tiresome.

The industrial revolution happened because it was rubbish in the countryside. It was rubbish in the cities as well but the fact that people migrated there in droves shows you how bad it was in the countryside yet people paint country life as some sort of idyll. Yes, farming has some very rewarding moments and I feel lucky to be farming. But there are plenty of other worthwhile, rewarding and essential professions out there.

The people that fitted my dad up with his pacemaker last year and saved his life rank among the best professionals IMO. I think people need to get out more.

What you say of the industrial revolution and the profession of surgeons is perfectly true but surely both depended upon the foundations provided by the agricultural industry; if industry is the correct term. After all, wasn't it Napoleon who said an army marches on it's stomach? And who is it that fed the armies of the British Empire? Without you folk, wouldn't civilisation collapse?

 

[kfpben]

Farming is the perfect mix of challenges; you need to be organised, practical, financially aware, good with people an animals. A bit of a wheeler dealer. A self starter.

90% of people you meet are fascinated by what you do. A few years ago I went to a school friends birthday night out who I hadn't seen for years. In a London bar (much to my bewilderment) a small mob gathered to ask questions of me, the farmer. I think people were somehow re-assured that not everyone is a social media facilitator, programmes analyst or assistant PR consultant. By the end of the night I was (drunkenly) discussing the expansion of the Bangladeshi minicab driver's dairy herd, which he hoped to return to when his uncle gave up in a few years.

What we do is tangible and real. We are needed. There are many, many jobs out there where frankly if the employee didn't turn up for a month it wouldn't overly matter. If a livestock farmer didn't turn up for a few days everything could be dead.

I used to be in a better paid job, Monday- Friday, quite interesting and still in the agricultural sector. It just felt a bit empty though. I missed the physicality of farming. The dirt, the grime, the late nights and early starts. Meetings for meetings sake and a life of service station coffee as my waistline expanded just didn't do it for me.

Farming is the best job around. The community is superb. What other industry has an organisation like YFC all over the country, then Growmore clubs, discussion groups, Shows, competitions, skittles etc.? The only other career I was ever interested in was teaching- after a month teaching taster as a student I opted for farming. I just didn't think I could handle all the regulation and rubbish of a 21st century secondary school.

 

[DrWazzock]

What you say of the industrial revolution and the profession of surgeons is perfectly true but surely both depended upon the foundations provided by the agricultural industry; if industry is the correct term. After all, wasn't it Napoleon who said an army marches on it's stomach? And who is it that fed the armies of the British Empire? Without you folk, wouldn't civilisation collapse?

I'm grateful that you hold agriculture in high esteem and thank you for it. Not many people even think about such things.

But it is all a very complex web nowadays. Like it or not, (and I don't particularly like it) we as farmers depend on manufactured chemical fertiliser such as ammonium nitrate. The way we farm presently, we could not produce anything like the volume of food we produce today without ammonium nitrate. So really we as farmers depend on chemical engineers who turn natural gas and air into nitrogen fertiliser by means of the Haber Bosch process, first pioneered in the early twentieth century I think. Similarly we rely on fungicides to keep our wheat plants healthy or even alive. My concern is that while these chemicals are amazing things produced by very clever people, we as farmers have become reliant on them, and have sat on our laurels, complacent in the knowledge that science and technology will save our bacon. We have become rather more spectators, users and operatives rather than true pioneers in our own right, except for a few farmers who push the boundaries of research and development on their own farms.

We could change this if we wanted to. We could make more use of the plants like clover and beans to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil so we wouldn't need so much manufactured fertiliser. We could possibly make use of GM plants so that we don't need to coat our plants' leaves with fungicides.

So is farming the best profession in the world? No, it's one of many now interdependent professions.

It depends what you mean by "best" as well. "Best" job? Dunno. Certainly some very satisfying moments, lovely scenery and variety, but also a fair amount of tedious work, frustration at the merciless weather and at times downright despair at some of the things that go wrong.

I guess I do enjoy farming to some extent, but I'd appreciate the beauty of the countryside even if I wasn't. What do I see when I see a newborn lamb or calf? I see a little blighter struggling to keep himself alive in a haphazard way against the odds. I see his mother doing her best to help him as nature dictates. It's a kind of miracle I suppose but in the back of your mind you know that eventually it's going to end in tragedy for them as it is for us all and therein lies the mystery of the struggle for mortal life.

 

[michael N123]

Everydays different hours can be classed as flexible aslong as you never make anyplans and the best part is its easy to go a whole day and the only thing you talk to is your dog

 

[michael N123]

And a 8-5 job would make me go insane in summer going home while its still daylight and warm

 

[Old Boar]

I have had a variety of office jobs, and althought the work was OK, it was being stuck indoors that I resented. The first thing I did when I was mobile after a spell in hospital was to go outside and pick some grass and smell it! I just have to be out, with animals. I have always needed animals around me, I dont feel complete unless I am caring for some.
Being able to smell the earth warming up, watching the trees bud and bloom, the scent of nearly ready hay on a summers evening, even the smell of frost in the air - I need to be able to be part of that.
I have always been able to "talk" to animals, a sort of mental thing, and am getting into speaking sheep lately. After horses and cattle that chat endlessly, and pigs that never shut up, they dont go in for conversation in the same way!
It is also nice to be able to go into a field and swear!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I'm grateful that you hold agriculture in high esteem and thank you for it. Not many people even think about such things.

But it is all a very complex web nowadays. Like it or not, (and I don't particularly like it) we as farmers depend on manufactured chemical fertiliser such as ammonium nitrate. The way we farm presently, we could not produce anything like the volume of food we produce today without ammonium nitrate. So really we as farmers depend on chemical engineers who turn natural gas and air into nitrogen fertiliser by means of the Haber Bosch process, first pioneered in the early twentieth century I think. Similarly we rely on fungicides to keep our wheat plants healthy or even alive. My concern is that while these chemicals are amazing things produced by very clever people, we as farmers have become reliant on them, and have sat on our laurels, complacent in the knowledge that science and technology will save our bacon. We have become rather more spectators, users and operatives rather than true pioneers in our own right, except for a few farmers who push the boundaries of research and development on their own farms.

We could change this if we wanted to. We could make more use of the plants like clover and beans to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil so we wouldn't need so much manufactured fertiliser. We could possibly make use of GM plants so that we don't need to coat our plants' leaves with fungicides.

So is farming the best profession in the world? No, it's one of many now interdependent professions.

It depends what you mean by "best" as well. "Best" job? Dunno. Certainly some very satisfying moments, lovely scenery and variety, but also a fair amount of tedious work, frustration at the merciless weather and at times downright despair at some of the things that go wrong.

I guess I do enjoy farming to some extent, but I'd appreciate the beauty of the countryside even if I wasn't. What do I see when I see a newborn lamb or calf? I see a little blighter struggling to keep himself alive in a haphazard way against the odds. I see his mother doing her best to help him as nature dictates. It's a kind of miracle I suppose but in the back of your mind you know that eventually it's going to end in tragedy for them as it is for us all and therein lies the mystery of the struggle for mortal life.

I hear you loud and clear @Dr Wazzock
Agriculture and Nature seem to be moving ever further apart, just as the 'kind' in Mankind seems to be increasingly rare..
The more I try to bring my farm system back in line with nature, the more farmers I have questioning my intelligence and state of mental health.. as if failing to douse my pastures in branded product is an unnatural thing to do I know it bugs them to see us so happy, less reliant on the spending, and having fewer problems to 'fix'. I think it's the stewardship rather than the control (or lack of) that brings me the greatest joy, the grass still gets up in the morning whether I turn a key or not. The animals grow with or without my presence

No I haven't been drinking... [emoji6]

 

[Christoph1945]

DrWazzock,

many thanks for the enlightening reply. Sadly, like many others, I had totally forgotten you all and become engrossed in the mechanics of day-to-day living.

Having spent most of my working life in the heavy chemical industry, I can see where some of the pieces fit together and we are all dependant on one and other but I am tempted to believe that we have "all" become pawns in a far greater game.

I would often climb to the uppermost level of a chemical plant and watch the sun rise at dawn. I have seen the sun thunder up over The Cape and set so fast you would have thought that someone had turned off the lights but, sadly, I never gave a thought to the farming folk who would labour all day to put the food on our table; or the fishermen who fought the storms to provide an other part of our diets.

If only we could all have our eyes opened, so that we can see just how dependant we are on each other.

Hmmm, sorry for all that; this is supposed to be an upbeat thread!

 

[DrWazzock]

DrWazzock,

many thanks for the enlightening reply. Sadly, like many others, I had totally forgotten you all and become engrossed in the mechanics of day-to-day living.

Having spent most of my working life in the heavy chemical industry, I can see where some of the pieces fit together and we are all dependant on one and other but I am tempted to believe that we have "all" become pawns in a far greater game.

I would often climb to the uppermost level of a chemical plant and watch the sun rise at dawn. I have seen the sun thunder up over The Cape and set so fast you would have thought that someone had turned off the lights but, sadly, I never gave a thought to the farming folk who would labour all day to put the food on our table; or the fishermen who fought the storms to provide an other part of our diets.

If only we could all have our eyes opened, so that we can see just how dependant we are on each other.

Hmmm, sorry for all that; this is supposed to be an upbeat thread!

We are all much more dependent on one another these days. Every profession and trade is valued. It's a good thing. Specialist trades have improved efficiency and freed us from the drudgery of life 200 years ago where we were fashioning cart wheels out of wood in this village.

My only slight concern with this thread is that it can make some of us feel somehow inadequate or slightly a failure because we think to ourselves, well I'm struggling or hacked off with this farming job yet it's supposed to be the "best profession in the world".

Well it isn't the best profession in the world as far as I'm concerned. It's just another profession with all the same highs and lows as any other profession.

I used to work as a software engineer. If it was going well I didn't really notice that I was sitting in an office any more than I notice that I'm sitting in a hot dusty tractor cab because I would be engrossed in a project. It gave the same kind of buzz as growing a crop. Testing the software and signing it off was like a sort of harvest.

I didn't used to think like this. I used to think that farming and country life was the bees knees. But I don't any more. I'll be happy to retire to a flat in the city with a collection of books that I haven't read and my piano, all within easy walking distance of civilisation.

Life is what you make it, whatever you do, wherever you are.