So often when we’re putting the finishing touches on your next Country Guide, I find myself pausing and thinking, “If only we could get this issue into the hands of every Canadian… Imagine the impact if they leafed through even just this one issue and saw farmers as we see them all the time.”
In point of fact, though, an issue of Country Guide can and arguably should have a similar effect on all the rest of us too, no matter how deeply we’re involved.
I know we talk about crop yields all the time and we throw numbers around about farm size and efficiency and about equipment capacity and cost, yet we do this so often that hardly any eyebrows pop around the coffee table even though those numbers are so incredible.
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What we talk about less often are some of the non-numerical changes that are going on in agriculture, despite the fact they are every bit as revolutionary as today’s yields and productivity, just harder to see.
It’s why I feel I should stop right here and suggest every reader immediately read “Leading By Choice”, where you’ll see farmer Philip Wiedrick say: “As a leader, I know I’m not where I want to be. I tend to show people what to do rather than help them learn and grow into their roles and responsibilities. I want to be able to foster employees to be their own leaders.”
In the same story, you’ll also find the young Jayden Buchanan saying, “I recognize my leadership style is always evolving. I’m not perfect and I need to be open to different approaches.”
In fact, you’ll find quotes all through this issue, all supporting the idea that farmers have grown their self-awareness by leaps and bounds over the last 10 years, even if we haven’t always been as good at incorporating this awareness into our picture of farming as a whole.
Does self-awareness matter? Yes.
And I don’t only mean self-awareness in terms of what kind of team leader you are for family members or non-family employees. It applies to the kind of leader you are in the whole scope of farm management.
For more, check out “When She’ll Be the Leader.” Onlookers said for years that male farm leaders were standing in the way of young women entrants, yet now we find it’s father-daughter duos that are leading our way into the future.
Also read “Do the Kids Really Want It” on the HR issues surrounding transition in a much more scientific way than would have been possible during most of my career, as does “The New Farm Leader” by associate editor April Stewart.
In fact, it’s farmer and associate editor April who deserves the credit for monitoring and responding to this fundamental change in Canada’s farms and for targeting this issue at them.
I hope you’ll see it as more indication that Country Guide not only talks to farmers, but learns from them as well. It’s our whole business model.
More businesses should join us. And, actually, I feel confident they eventually will. Are we getting it right? Let me know at [email protected].
