Tessa Weaver: Ever a Farm Girl

Sometimes when I talk to people, they are surprised to hear that I am a farmer.  They don't expect a woman to be a farmer, and they ask me if there are many other women who farm.  There are, and today, I'd to introduce you to one of them.  Tessa Weaver is a good friend of mine from my days at Olds College, where two shy girls eventually decided that they should try talking to one another.  Since then, we haven't stopped.  This blog post is a tiny sample of one long conversation we had a couple of months ago.

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Who is Tessa?

Tessa was born and raised in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, and still lives in the area.  She is 21 years old and grew up near the family's beef ranch, where she currently works.

Tessa and her siblings didn't really grow up doing chores or other work on the ranch, as they lived down the road from the main ranch.  Tessa's father worked part-time on the family ranch with his brother, but mainly worked (and still works) in the logging industry.  In speaking of her growing years, Tessa said, "I guess when I was little...I always felt so attached to agriculture and cattle... I never really was involved in it...I never really did anything.  But I always knew that even if I didn't want to farm as a full-time job, I wanted to have a job and then have a farm on the side...  But, I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to just keep doing the farming - on our ranch - doing that full-time.  But I never thought that that was an option, that I could do it full time, 'cause my dad never did.  You know, he always had to log and then he'd do the farming whenever he could."

When Tessa was in high school, the world of agriculture opened up to her in a way that it hadn't before.  Tessa participated in Project Agriculture through her school at the beginning of twelfth grade and was introduced, over the course of three days to a local dairy farm, the auction mart, and a vet clinic.  It was at this time that Tessa realized that she wanted to work in agriculture: "on the way to Project Agriculture one day it kind of clicked...I finally figured out this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."  During the course of the project, Tessa and two friends were also presented with the opportunity to work on the dairy farm.  The girls began working at the dairy in October of that year, and Tessa remained until the end of the next summer, when she left to attend college.

Tessa attended Olds College, taking the Agricultural Management program, where she learned a great deal about cattle handling, gained computer skills, and grew her knowledge and skill base to supplement the skills she would gain from working on the ranch with more experienced ranchers.  During school breaks, Tessa would return home and work full-time on the ranch.

The Ranch

Tessa's family ranch is managed by her uncle and dad.  In terms of acreage, it is quite a bit larger than the average farm size in Alberta (according to the Stats Canada 2011 census).  Currently, Tessa's dad and his brother manage the ranch, with Tessa and one other ranch hand helping with the main work.  A few other ranch hands are hired for the spring to fall season.  Additionally, various family members come to help out on cattle processing days.  Come mid-April, about 300 head of commercial Angus cows (with a few other genetics thrown in) will start calving, and that will keep Tessa and the other workers busy for a while.  During winter months, however, Tessa keeps busy in the ranch office, entering records and completing analyses to find areas efficiency in the ranch operations.

The ranch is located in the Nechako Valley, where cattle ranching is the norm.  There are a few small crop farms in the area, but the most of the land is more suited to livestock farming, due to topography that is not well suited to cropping.  With so many cattle ranchers around, of course many of the crops grown in the area are grown to feed cattle.  Naturally, ranching comes with challenges, especially in areas like the Nechako Valley, which has so much bush land.  The area sees a lot of cattle losses to predators, including grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, wolves, and cougars.

Challenges and Opportunities

Tessa and I talked at length at the opportunities and challenges surrounding young farmers and female farmers.  In terms of opportunities, Tessa spoke of being able to learn from those who have experienced farm life for much longer than she has.  She has been able to garner information from her father, uncle, grandparents, and older farm hands.  Furthermore, as a female farmer, Tessa has found a great community among other women in agriculture, both within her family and social network, and in the greater online community through social media.  From these women, Tessa has been able to find support, encouragement, and extra sources of shared knowledge.  Tessa also has had the advantage of growing up with technology, which allows her to have an easier time figuring out computer work and analysis than the older members of the family.  The final opportunity Tessa spoke of rather derailed our conversation for a while: women's work clothing is becoming easier to find all the time!  We spoke at great length about the various boots, gloves, and other articles that we've found that are actually made to fit women (and when our gloves fit our smaller hands, the men on the farm can't steal them anymore!).

There were also a number of challenges that Tessa detailed.  First, she spoke of sometimes being hesitant to assert her own authority or make her own decisions.  She says her uncertainty has caused her to take longer with a task than she should have, because she felt she had to go back to check with someone higher up that she was doing the right thing, rather than having acted on her first instinct.  Certainly, it can be difficult for younger employees to find the line between "I am capable to make this decision on my own" and "I have overstepped the bounds of authority."  Additionally, as a woman on the farm - and a small one at that - Tessa found that it can be difficult to undertake basic farm operations, such as opening gates that are built by much taller, stronger men (seriously men, they don't have to be that tight).  Tessa also identified a "challenge of being Tessa on a farm," in her emotions, speaking of the difficulty she encounters when a calf dies despite her efforts to save it, or when a good cow needs to be sold.

The biggest challenge identified by Tessa, however, was the almost unconscious habit that causes men to want to defer work to other men: "as a female in agriculture, I am often - or more often - overlooked for a job for which I have qualifying experience and skills, as opposed to - or when compared with - a male counterpart who has none of the experience or any of the skills."  We acknowledge that it is kind of the men to want to spare the women the hard work, but it is also frustrating for the women to not be allowed to do our jobs "and to be treated as though we are less capable just for being a woman, unconsciously and well-intentioned or not." 

Looking to the Future

There are a few goals Tessa has set for herself, personally and professionally, for the future.  On a personal level, she would like to get married, have children, and raise her kids on the ranch (or on the dairy farm where her boyfriend lives.  But the ranch would be first choice for Tessa, of course.)  She would like her children to be involved in the ranch, and to be able to pass something on to them when they are grown.

On a professional level, Tessa would like to improve how the ranch runs, particularly increasing the efficiency of the grazing system.  Additionally, Tessa would like to one day manage the ranch, should her uncle ever decide that he would like to retire.

Quick Facts

For fun I asked Tessa a few rapid fire questions.  Here are her answers:

• What is your favourite breed of dairy/beef cow:  "Beef is my favourite over dairy, and I like my Anguses.  And then, for dairy, Jerseys."  

• Do you prefer beef ranching or dairy farming?  Beef ranching.

• Which province has the best scenery?  "B.C., though I will say that...Olds College has a beautiful campus, but B.C.'s got the best scenery.  Sorry.  I'm loyal to the home province."

• My favourite part of working on the ranch is... "calving season.  It's near and dear to my heart."

• My least favourite chore is... [Tessa had to think about this for a while, and eventually came up with three answers.]
• The worst is "having to scrape scour-y calf butts...it is a horrible job." [Scours is diarrhea in calves.  At the Weavers' ranch, if the calves are weak and need to be brought to the barn, they get their bums cleaned off.]
• Winterizing the watering system.
• Pulling apart beaver dams

• The best farm ever is... C4 Ranching

Why One Dairy Farmer Went to College

In my last blog post, I introduced you to my friend, Josiah, who is a dairy farmer in British Columbia.  Josiah and I met during our time at Olds College, where we both studied agricultural management.  During our interview for his blog debut, we had a lengthy conversation about education for farmers, and I would now like to share with you the portion that, due to the length of the post, did not previously make it to publishing. 

After graduating from high school, Josiah made the decision to further his education.  When asked for the reason behind that decision, he replied that he wanted to "grow my knowledge for not only just agriculture, but business as well.  I think that was kind of the big thing for me...There are certain things that are really easy to learn on the farm and other things that are possibly better learned in a classroom.  I mean, experience teaches you so many things, but it's good to have some head knowledge going in, so that's why I'd say I went to college." 

As previously mentioned, Josiah chose to attend Olds College for his post-secondary education.  I'm always curious to know why people come to Olds from other provinces, so I asked Josiah, "Why Olds?"  He referenced the good reputation that Olds College has as a top agricultural school in western Canada.  He had received good recommendations from others who had attended the college in the past, including his dad.  Josiah says, "I definitely don't regret going there...It's not perfect, but they lived up to their reputation." 

Josiah had a bit of difficulty pinpointing the one most useful thing he learned in school (in all fairness, it wasn't an easy question to answer), but he did pick out a few things that he found useful.  He mainly talked about the practical, hands-on things he learned, such as agronomy and communications.  Josiah spent his third year at Olds studying agricultural mechanics, so he has found that to be very useful as well.  Since Josiah has not taken over the farm, these hands-on things that help with his immediate work on the farm are currently most useful to him.  Looking to the future, Josiah can see that the financial and business training will also come in handy. 

Of course, one can't learn everything about farming simply by attending even the most prestigious agricultural school.  Outside of school, Josiah says that the most useful things he has learned has been working with animals: "That's something that, it's hard to learn if you don't actually get the experience.  So that's been sort of one of the biggest things that is just, for us on the dairy farm, it's a day-to-day thing.  You're always working with cows, moving cows.  If you know how they think, then you can move them and work with them a lot more efficiently.  So that's probably the most useful thing when the rubber meets the road for me as a dairy farmer." 

I so enjoyed speaking to Josiah about his education.  I have written before about my own views on the necessity of education for young farmers, but I always like to hear of the opinions and experiences of others.  I hope you, my readers, have also learned a bit about the importance of education and how experience is also key in the training of a young farmer.

Josiah Schut: Dairy Farmer of the Mountains

A while ago I had a great conversation with a friend of mine.  Despite a few technical difficulties, I had the chance to learn more about his life on the family farm in British Columbia.  Josiah Schut is my good friend, my most challenging academic competitor in college, prankster extraordinaire, and much more.  Today I'd like to introduce you to Josiah, the dairy farmer.

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Who is Josiah?

Josiah is twenty-one years old and operates the family dairy farm in Salmon Arm, B.C. with his dad and the rest of the family.  He grew up on that farm and returned to it after completing three years of education at Olds College (keep an eye out for a future blog to find out about Josiah's time in college).  While Josiah and his siblings had their own chores to do growing up on the farm, he says, "we maybe weren't quite as involved [in the farm] right from birth, maybe as some farm kids were, but definitely expected to help with chores.  We had our daily thing with the calves and we were definitely allowed and expected to get out and help, but we weren't necessarily driving silage truck from the time we were seven years old, you know?"  As a boy, Josiah was also involved in 4-H for 4 years in his teens, which he really enjoyed.

Dairy Farming in British Columbia

It's time to introduce you, the readers, to the farm we have been referencing.  The farm, which is about 350 acres in size, is located in a valley between two mountains, which as Josiah says, "that's the case for most farmers in B.C."  The Salmon River Runs through the property, which allows the Schut family to irrigate their crops.  Josiah and his younger brother, Micah, run the farm with their dad, and their mom and sister, Nicola also help out. The farm also employs another four full-time (or close to full-time) employees.  They run about 200 cows through the milking parlor every day.  Currently, there are about 450 animals on the farm, including all of the calves and heifers.

Josiah's favourite part of working on the farm is the variety of tasks that he encounters.  He enjoys the fact that "you can work in the fields with the tractors, you can fix the equipment, you work with the cows."  However, he did pin down working with the cows as one of his favourite tasks: "I like working with the cows a lot and that kind of ends up being the thing that I do the most, is the breeding, and the animal health end of things.  And yeah, just moving them and organizing which groups they're in and stuff."

As a young farmer, Josiah acknowledges that he does face some challenges, although none could be identified as a big challenge.  Mainly, he would like the opportunity to experience more and learn how to do more tasks on the farm.  However, with the farm being fairly large, he often ends up doing jobs that are more labour intensive, which he already knows how to do and for which he doesn't need training.  He does not get to experience the business end of the farm, since his dad takes care of the business decisions, phone calls, financials, etc.  There are several opportunities that Josiah has as a young farmer, though.  He likes being able to look what might be improved and having the ability to use technology to work towards improvements.

I was curious to know whether there are any major differences between agriculture in Alberta and agriculture in B.C.  Who better to ask than someone who grew up in B.C. and attended school in Alberta?  Josiah tells me, "it's a different world between the two provinces."  He says that there is a lot more land in Alberta, but that it is generally poorer quality that the land in B.C. (judging by organic matter content).  British Columbian farmers typically have more access to irrigation, as well, so although Alberta farms are larger in land base, the soil quality is a major benefit for those in B.C.  Josiah also tells me that Alberta has a culture that "is very much more so geared towards farming...B.C. is definitely more of an urban-minded province, if you will."  He points to political issues to prove his point, saying that politicians in Alberta are more prone to think of how decisions impact farmers than politicians in B.C. are.

Looking to the Future

As with all family farms, the desires and plans of all siblings must be considered when discussions of the future arise.  While Josiah has finished his schooling and is working on the farm full-time, Micah is still finishing up his education at Olds College and will join Josiah in working on the farm as soon as he is done.  Nicola is currently studying to be an animal health technician at a Thompson Rivers University in B.C.  At the moment, it is unclear whether she will have a larger part in the farm once she returns, although she has expressed interest in the farm.

Josiah's goal for the future is to always continue learning, and to keep from getting stuck in a routine on the farm.  He would like to expose himself to situations where he needs to make new decisions, in an effort to keep learning how best to run the farm.  He says, "if I were to get stuck in a rut...on our farm, I would potentially be interested in maybe going to work for a different farm where I'd be given different responsibilities, just so that I'm always exposed to growing myself as a young farmer."  As for the immediate future, Josiah will be travelling to Indonesia this coming January to participate in YWAM for 6 months, as he sees the opportunity to grow personally in this adventure.  The experience "will take [him] away from the farm for a bit, but once [he's] back from that, it will be back to full-time farming."

Quick Facts

I thought it would be fun to ask Josiah a few rapid fire questions to get his perspective on some highly important topics.  Here are his answers:

• Josiah's favourite breed of dairy cow: Holsteins
• The province with the best scenery: B.C.
• Josiah's least favourite chore: Working with cows that have metritis (a really stinky infection) because, "farming's a smelly job, but certain smells are just not pleasant, regardless."
• Josiah's coolest farm-related injury*: He got kicked in the chest by a cow and it left a hoof-shaped mark on his chest. 
• In Josiah's humble opinion, the best farm ever is his: "I like mine the best.  'Cause it's mine."
• The one thing Josiah wants people to know:  "Farmers care. We care about our animals.  We care about producing good quality food for the people."

*Please note that no farmer likes to get hurt and we do our best to avoid injury.  However, every farmer has a few interesting work wounds with cautionary tales behind them.  Josiah has several interesting injury stories about both himself and his brother.  Unfortunately, most of them are not farm-related, so they didn't make it into this blog.

Landon Driedger, Part 2: The Man of Many Hats

When I began thinking of this blog series, I originally was only going to interview farmers.  However, as I thought about the many different people required to make the agriculture industry run smoothly, I began to realise that this blog would need to encompass a much larger group of people.  I would also need to talk to mechanics, veterinarians, weed inspectors, ag retailers, and more.  Today, I would like to introduce you to one such person - or rather, I will re-introduce you to him, since I have already introduced him as a farmer.

In Part 1 of Landon Driedger's story, I introduced you to a young rancher looking to take over the family ranch in La Crete, Alberta.  Now, I'd like to introduce you to Landon's off-farm job, which allows him to bring home some extra money, as well as to keep learning and working in his local agriculture industry.

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Overview

Earlier this year, Landon started an off-farm job working for the county as assistant agricultural fieldman and weed inspector.  Although the county is the biggest in terms of land area, there are only two members of the local ag department: the ag fieldman, and Landon.  Because this county is in the northern part of Alberta, it is what might be a called a newer agricultural area.  A lot of land in the county has been cleared for cropping in the past decade or two, so the ag department is looking to prevent problems that have come up in older farming communities, especially in terms of weeds and other pests.  It's a challenging job, but Landon certainly seems to enjoy it.

Landon's favourite part of the job is getting to talking with farmers, although he notes it's not always fun to talk with farmers: "We often get a lot of complaints, but a lot of them have real concerns and are looking to work with you and it's not often about your job that you're talking about.  You're talking about the farming community as a whole, and other issues and what's going on in the farming world.  So I would say just interacting with farmers and getting their perspective.  It's a lot of different opinions and you can learn a lot that way."

Assistant Agricultural Fieldman

As the assistant ag fieldman, Landon wears more hats than I can count.  When I asked him for a job description, he began listing more jobs than I thought could fit into a summer.  It was quite the overwhelming list.  Allow me to share some of it with you.

As assistant ag fieldman, Landon helps oversee the following jobs:

• flood control
• putting in new ditches where there is new land
• seeding grass into new ditches
• coordinating mowing and spraying contractors to complete work in the county ditches
• checking for and controlling weeds (more about that in the next section)
• getting professionals in to remove problematic beaver dams
• removing trees along roadways
• coordinating the local ag fair and trade show
• coordinating events like crop plot tours and special speakers
• delivering and maintaining the irrigation pump and mile of pipe that farmers rent to fill dugouts, etc.
• performing crop disease checks (ex. fusarium and clubroot)
• performing pest checks (ex. grasshopper and wheat midge)

 And that's just what he came up with off the top of his head from working at the job for a few months!

Weed Inspector

During the summers, Landon is also the county weed inspector.  As weed inspector, Landon drives the county roads, searching the ditches and farmers' fields for weed problems.  If the problem is in the ditch, he can simply spray the weed with the appropriate chemical.  However, if the weed is on a farmer's land, or in a "do not spray" zone (which would be beside an organic farm), then Landon needs to discuss control options with the farmer: "we discuss how we can control it within the fields and I have to talk with the farmer to come to an agreement."

One of the biggest challenges Landon faces as weed inspector is dealing with weed problems on organic farms.  Landon tells me, "in the last five years there's been a really sharp incline in organic farmers."  Due to the recent opening of a lot of crop land, "organic farming has worked because there's not necessarily weeds coming into these new fields and on the margins, just natural [referring to native plants] weeds that you had to plow down."  A few years later, though, weed problems are beginning to show up.  Due to dry conditions, thistles have begun to come in and take over, as well as other weeds that generally would not be a problem with conventional farming.  And the problems are not just on new land, either.  Some organic farmers are renting land that was cleared several decades ago, and now those fields are getting new weeds, many of them noxious (like scentless chamomile).

I would like to note that this blog does not intend to disparage organic farming.  I am simply acknowledging the challenges that come with organic farming, particularly in regard to weed control.  Please look for future posts to hear from the organic farmers.

I asked Landon to explain a bit about why certain weeds (those on the noxious and prohibited noxious weed lists as legislated by the provincial government) are so bad.  Some are rather pretty.  What's wrong with having one or two in a little flower bed?

Landon's response was too good to summarize: "Noxious weeds are on the list for a reason.  They are definitely a bigger nuisance than your annual weeds.  Annual weeds are the ones that pop up during the summer and you can easily kill them with spraying.  Noxious weeds, we can learn from the U.S., or earlier farming communities where these weeds have come in and taken over.  One weed, for instance, scentless chamomile can produce up to 300,000 seeds, just in one summer, and if they're all blown out, that's a lot of weeds that can be spread if you miss that one plant.  And let's say you're plowing your field and you drag it all over your field, that's a lot of weeds that are coming up in the next years and that's just from one plant.  And then those plants all make hundreds of thousands more seeds."

Landon went on to explain that some plants like thistle can grow underground, so just cutting them off above ground won't kill the plant.  In comparison to relatively benign weeds like foxtail barley, which can be easily controlled, plants on the noxious or prohibited noxious weeds list come back each year with a vengeance.  Weed problems can "decrease crop yield and increase chemical costs or labour, as a whole, just to control the weeds.  And that's just noxious weeds.  Once you get into prohibited noxious, their legislation is to kill all of them on sight, wherever it is - exterminate -  and those weeds are usually really hard to kill without very strong chemicals.  Those types of weeds can destroy a whole habitat or ... destroy a whole field.  You can't do anything."

Balancing Ranch Life and Work Life

Of course, I had to ask Landon how he balances his off-farm job and his work on the ranch.  He told me that he would like to be able to help more on the ranch, but the job does allow him to be close to home to have input and help out as he can.  He is able to help with calving for two months in the spring, and he works on the ranch on weekends.  Landon also gets to help with the big events, like vaccinating, branding and mustering.  The job also allows him to continue learning: "it's been a good experience this summer working more on the crop side.  But there's multiple other jobs that are included in just working with farmers, mostly crop farmers, and seeing how they run things.  I grew up beef, so this has been a good summer of learning."

When Landon goes home from work, he is able to take what he has learned and apply it on the ranch.  In particular, he told me about implementing information he gained on seeding rates and weed control.  He is also able to take his perspective as a producer to his work with the county, which is especially beneficial when he needs to discuss a weed problem with a farmer.  Rather than going into the conversation saying, "you have to clean up your weeds today," Landon is able to see where the farmer is coming from and help the farmer to find the best way to control the problem in a reasonable amount of time.

Although he enjoys his job with the county, Landon notes that he really would like to be a full-time rancher: "The perfect thing would be just to work on the ranch full time and have a steady cash flow, but that's not going to happen, unless I would be full owner of the farm.  Yeah, it's kind of tough, but we'll get there, where hopefully I can be full time on the farm."

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I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Landon with me.  Check back again soon to read about more awesome people in the agriculture industry!

Landon Driedger Part 1: Rancher

I first met Landon in my first year of the Agriculture Management program at Olds College.  We were assigned to be lab partners in the introductory livestock class.  Now, just a couple of years after bonding over the innards of various dissected livestock specimens, Landon is one of my favourite people to visit with because of his wealth of practical knowledge and amusing anecdotes.  For that reason, it was my pleasure to call him and ask all sorts of questions pertaining to his work and farm so that I might introduce him to my readers.

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Who is Landon?

Landon is 22 years old and lives in La Crete, Alberta, where he was raised on the family farm.  His family has been in the area for just a few generations - both of his grandfathers moved to the area from different provinces.  After graduating from high school, Landon, who watched his dad learning things the hard way, made the decision, with the encouragement of his dad, to spend two years studying Agriculture Management at Olds College.  When asked why he chose to pursue formal education, Landon replied, "To sum it up in one sentence, I one day want to run, or own, or manage my own outfit, so [what I learned in school will] help me one day."

After completing his schooling, Landon spent almost a year working on a ranch near Cochrane before returning to La Crete.  When speaking of his decision to return, Landon said, "I would love to get a ranch job, you know, just have a job steady on a ranch.  But, for me I would really like to take over Dad's farm.  That's why I decided to go back to La Crete.  That's just something that I decided, that it's better for me to be close to home, and help out whatever way I can."

Landon says his favourite job on the farm is "handling the cattle.  So, pasture management; getting them into a new pasture, checking herd health.  I guess calving would go into that, but after two months of calving you get pretty sick of that.  Yeah, I really enjoy working with the cattle."

History of the Ranch

The family farm started with Landon's dad, who began homesteading in 1985.  Having grown up with "a very small farm base," he started off growing crops, and eventually turned the farm into the cattle ranch it is today.  There are a few crops, like hay, corn and canola, still grown in the crop rotations on some of the land.

Landon speaks proudly of the way that his father has kept experimenting and trying new things through his years of farming.  He explained that because the farm is so far north, they need to work harder to find grasses and legumes that will work well for their pastures.  Many species that work well in other areas of Alberta may not establish well or last very long in the northern climate.  Landon summed up his father's work, saying, "he's really tried to always improve.  One thing's he always done, is he's always never said, 'This is good enough.'  He's always researched and tried to improve...  His main priority is the soil, so working the manure and the fertilizer back in the soil, getting it to decompose, and getting a good grass crop, and then pasture management.  If you protect and try to improve your soil, that will take care of your grass, which in turn will take care of your cattle."

Looking to the Future

Looking back at the foundation his father has built, Landon looks forward to continuing to improve pasture management.  Looking to the future, Landon told me that he would like to improve aspects of herd management and herd genetics.  Mainly, he spoke of keeping better records and bringing in better genetics to improve the herd.  If I had had time, I would have had Landon re-explain the model of genetic improvement he worked with on the ranch near Cochrane, but that conversation is a whole blog post on it's own.

In terms of ownership and management of the ranch, the future is still up in the air.  Landon figures his dad will be looking to retire in the next five to ten years.  The next generation would like to begin looking to take over, but they are also mindful of the need for their parents to retire comfortably after working hard for so many years to build up the farm to what it is today.  Because of that, the family is doing some work on succession planning to ensure fair treatment for all involved.  Landon, of course, would really like to take over the ranch, but he must also consider his three younger siblings.  His eldest sister is married and is not really interested in the farm.  The younger two still don't know, though Landon thinks his second sister is interested in coming back.  His brother, like many young boys, is currently only interested in hockey.  "We'll give him some years to decide," Landon says.

Challenges and Opportunities

When asked about challenges and opportunities related to being a young farmer, Landon spoke first of the opportunities he finds in technology, data collection, and education.  He looks forward to using these to "be more efficient and [improve] how the farm runs."

In terms of challenges, Landon talked about increased land prices and inflation, combined with the lack of readily available land.  These challenges are familiar to many young farmers, who know that "being young means you have to get creative on how you want to get in to farming."  This creativity may be applied to increasing cash flow to invest in the farm, perhaps through an off-farm job.  One of Landon's priorities is to be able to take over the ranch, while making sure that his parents have a decent retirement.  Additionally, Landon spoke of the difficulty of hiring help on the farm, since labour costs are so high on small farms.  Financial concerns such as those Landon spoke of are certainly a major challenge for many young farmers, which is a reason many get jobs off the farm.  Landon is one farmer with an off-farm income, which we discussed at length in the second part of our conversation.