Hybrid corn, a one-row corn picker and a hand-tied pickup hay baler were just a few firsts pioneered in Shelby County, Iowa, by my grandpa, Will Buman. By 1950, Grandpa, was farming over 1,000 acres of land. For one farmer with 3 sons and one hired man, that was a lot of land. But let me qualify that.
Grandpa also owned 6 tractors; more than one tractor per field hand. And at the time, six tractors definitely exceeded the average farmer. Grandpa understood that technology, not workers, increased production. Grandpa also understood farming didn’t require more horses and mules for efficiency; it needed more tractors, along with those long hours of farming. Yes, my grandfather was ahead of his time.
Making the case for technology
Today, I often hear that a larger workforce is required to turn the tide on soil conservation and water quality. Every workload analysis I’ve ever read indicates that double or triple the number of staff is required to reach even the most basic water-quality goals.
However, I, along with many other people, have come to a sad realization. The conservation workforce will not grow in numbers. The federal conservation workforce has suffered significant reductions in the past 5 years and it doesn’t look like they are coming back anytime soon. From what I can ascertain, most state agencies are struggling to slow the bleeding and hold steady on worker numbers.
Lack of trained, technical staff, or the inability to grow the conservation workforce, cannot be an excuse for weak growth in conservation outcomes. With new technologies like GIS, LiDAR, drones, machine control, and cloud computing services at our disposal, we should be launching more conservation initiatives at a much faster speed. Now is the time for the moon-shot at conservation; and technology is the vehicle of implementation efficiency.
Just like Grandpa knew more than 65 years ago, new technology, not more people power, is the answer to getting more work done on the farm. More funding, for better technology, is needed to achieve our conservation moon-shot. We cannot get there without it.
Doing the math
Recently, I was told by a state administrator that the budget for one state employee was projected to be a yearly cost of $100,000. Let’s say a state was going to hire 5 new employees. This would come at a cost of $500,000 every year. In most Midwestern states there are approximately 80 counties. If time was equally distributed, this means each employee could only contribute the equivalent time of 12.5 days/county/year. An additional 12.5 days of staffing to help an average of 800 farmers/county seems pretty meaningless.
5 employees X 200 staff days/year ÷ 80 counties = 12.5 days/county/year of additional staffing
What if, instead, legislators budgeted $500,000 on technology that made the hundreds of current employees more efficient? This would have a much larger impact on the protection of our natural resources.
Better than average?
I’m all in favor of better technology that helps conservation employees become more efficient. I’d also like to see at least a few more employees, especially since I am an assistant commissioner in a county that now shares a secretary with two other counties, and that limited staff time is definitely having an impact. Unfortunately, I’m being told that getting more funding for either employees or technology is going to be a real challenge this year.
I would also like to take this opportunity to put in a good word for low-tech magic. I just got home from a watershed meeting at which the technology being displayed consisted of two clumps of soil, two jars of water, two pieces of coarse plastic netting, and a couple of rubber bands.
I had never seen a slake test, and it was so impressive to see the healthy clump of soil just sitting in the netting and water, looking bored, while the continuously-tilled clump of soil fell completely to pieces in a very fast shower of silt. What a great lesson in what is wrong with most Iowa rowcropped soil, and what we need instead. (Thank you, Jean Eells!)
I hope that Iowa will indeed invest in good new soil and water technology. Meanwhile, I wish that every owner of Iowa land could see that kind of slake test in person, and that several thousand Iowa elected officials could see it as well.
Cindy, across the nation soil and water conservation districts are doing without out staff. There certainly seems to be an aversion to hiring. I can’t imagine what it must be like to share a secretary with 3 other districts. Also I agree the slake test is impressive. However, if we are going to motivate farmers thru the slake test we must correlate it with yield or profitability.
Thanks, Tom. I think the slake test should also be used to motivate Iowa voters and public officials. The condition of Iowa soils and waters should concern all Iowans.
I also remember a meeting about the Nutrient Reduction Strategy that was held in Ames when the Strategy was first being rolled out. We attendees were told repeatedly by state officials, especially by Bill Northey, that farmers would clean up our water even though there were no requirements that they do so and in spite of limited funding, because farmers know that cleaning up Iowa water is the right thing to do.
From what I have heard of my Grandpa, Will Buman, he was very hard working. He would unload train cars with a scoop shovel. He crawled around in the rafters of a barn, catching pigeons to send to the meat market in Chicago. He sold Pioneer seed corn and Hy-Line chickens. The list goes on. Adopting technologies speaks to the sort of person he was. He also believed in efficiency. He bought another tractor because it was easier to leave the old front mounted cultivator on the SC tractor than it was to put it on and take it off. Of course, a tractor with a cultivator is more limited in its uses. So, he bought another tractor. He could make his current work force more efficient, without adding staff.
The problems faced by conservationists today have been experienced by many people in many industries. A lot of companies could have a bigger impact with more staff. But, for various reasons, it isn’t always “in the cards”. So, you can continue doing things the way they have been done or you change and adopt new and efficient technologies.
Hi Tom, and a really cool part of expanding the application of technology is that, as you know, it doesn’t have to be a purchase, it can even better be a partnership:
https://www.morningagclips.com/precision-ag-conservation-partner-for-water-quality/
So, yeah, that thing people always say is needed—retailers working directly with their customers and public agencies to actually change whole farm management to support conservation—it’s happening in Minnesota (and thanks for your helping in making it so).