No Till Notes: 'Concepts and Attitudes'

Over the past couple of weeks, I attended No till On the Plains winter conference and the Colorado Conservation Tillage Association’s High Plains No-till Conference. I enjoyed both conferences and felt each had a lot to offer.

After getting home and taking some time to think about what I learned, it dawned on me that nobody told me anything about how to farm. Not one speaker told me how deep to plant my corn, what herbicides to use or what crops to plant. I still left both conferences with knowledge about how to improve our farming operation, but no one gave me a road map of how to do it.

What I did learn was concepts of improving our operation and attitudes. Concepts of improving the health of the soil we work with to the point that our production costs can be drastically slashed if I can move our farm down the path toward soil health. I also learned how to move down this path and have fun doing it.

Each conference had speakers who offered their perspective on the importance of accepting change within your operation and your life. They also taught me how to plan for these changes, even direct some change by building our own vision of what family members and I would like our farm and our lives to look like in the future.

Once you and your family or partners have a vision of what your operation will look like in 5, 10, 20 years or farther into the future, you can begin setting goals to reach your vision. On our farm, we don’t have a vision of what we would like our farm operation to look like in the future. We tend to stay in the present or short-term future of the next growing season. I suspect that without a vision for the future, we are more unwilling to accept change and tend to make decisions without any real thought to how our decisions will affect our operation in the future.

Change is inevitable and how we react or adjust to change will play an important role in our farm’s future. If we have a vision and set goals to obtain that vision, we will develop the road map for our farm to follow that will lead us into the future. I think if we have this road map we will be more likely to avoid the pitfalls of poor management decisions that will derail us from where we want our farm to be in the short-term and long-range future.

I think it is also important that we have the right attitude when we head down this path to the future. Our attitude will play a huge role in how we adapt to change. Our world is constantly changing and our first response is too often resisting change rather than embrace change as a new and exciting challenge.

If you resist change you may not be willing to take risks, fail, learn from your failures, try new things and change. I think the key is to begin to view your world of change and challenges differently. Once you accept change, you can begin to think differently and embrace the challenges that change often brings. If you plan for change then you begin to gain more control of changes in your operation and life.

Steve Siemens, who bills himself as the people builder, spoke at the CCTA conference. His first presentation was titled “When You’re Through Changing, Your Through.” His talk really got me to thinking about how our farming operation has changed over the years and through these changes we have made a difference in our lives. We have shown the willingness to change, had some failures, learned from our failures and adapted change that has made our operation better. I know we will continue to change as we strive to make our operation better this year than it was last year.

Siemens’ second presentation was titled “Don’t Die Until Your Dead.” He encourages us all to live each day, regardless of our occupation, with enthusiasm, passion and to always strive for excellence. Life has its ups and downs and bumps in the road. Life’s not always easy and doesn’t always go the way you want. But, you can control how these everyday changes and challenges affect your life by choosing to have a positive attitude each day.

These speakers gave me more than a recipe to improve my farming operation. They gave me the recipe to change and improve my life and the lives of those around me. That is much more important than telling me how deep to plant my corn.