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As I walk out into the field on a derogation grass measurement course, I feel a bit like the ‘bold boy’ in the ‘bold class’ back at school.
We are all here because we didn’t do enough (or any) grass measuring this year. None of us want to be here, including the poor Teagasc advisors - who now have to put up with our whinging. But the Department of Ag say, “Ye got to do this, lads, or you will be called to the principal (the EU) and they will take away your toys (payments).”
Not a square dance
I get talking to an auld lad on the walk over. He’s over 40 years farming and you can see the toll it’s taken on him – wind-beaten face, hands the size of shovels and a slight limp from too many falls chasing cattle. He’s not too impressed to be here, as you can imagine.
He says, “I never had to measure grass, I would walk into a field and just know what’s there. I would look to the sky and watch how animals behaved to get a sense of the weather. I would talk to my neighbours, merchants and advisors to plan ahead.”
Anyway, we get to the field and the young Teagasc fella has a metal square, some shears, weighing scales and a pole with some round thing stuck to it.
Now before you try to guess, no - we are not about to shear anyone’s hair, fat-shame a farmer or do a square dance. This is all equipment to measure the grass in a field. And now for the science (as they say in the ad): you grab your square, fire it off randomly into the field and then get down on your hands and knees. You shear the clump of grass in the square, weigh it, multiply this by that and - hey presto - that’s the amount of grass in the field. It’s almost exciting, but then you start to think, “I have to do this for all my 20 paddocks at least 10 to 20 times a year.”
Pip, pip, pip,” 30 pips later, he stops and says, “I got the measure
The new way
Then, the Teagasc lad pulls out the pole attached to the saucer. “This is the new way lads, watch this.”
He calls it’s a grasshopper (I always thought a grasshopper was a drink my dear auntie would swallow back on a Friday night). Off he goes - he pulls out the phone, complaining about a bluetooth (might want to get a dentist to look at that) and finally sets off across the field.
“Pip, pip, pip,” 30 pips later, he stops and says, “I got the measure.”
Before he says anything, the old man I was talking to waltzes over, grabs a clump of grass and announces, “1500.”
The advisor smiles. “You’re only 50 off.”
Race to be the best
After two hours of lecturing and wandering around some poor fella’s farm, I set off home. I couldn’t help thinking about the old farmer.
Here we are now, the current crop of farmers, obsessed with measuring this and that, uploading to databases, crunching numbers, comparing and contrasting. All to show we are best farmers in the EU, if not the world.
It occurred to me – in the race to be the best, we might lose the students at the back of the class. The ones who don’t get the new way and rely on instinct, old knowledge and hard work. I talk to the father when I get home and, as always, he comes out with a beauty:
“There are only two things you need to measure in life: the size of you as you come into this world and the size of you to fit the box on the way out.”
With those words of wisdom, I completely ignore him and go off to buy one of those poles with the saucer. Best avoid the principal’s office and do a better job measuring my grass.
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