Better Farming - November 2016

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Better Farming November 2016 FarmNews First > 33
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Hours you work per week?
VINCE: 100 hours (each) a week.
Howmany emails do you receive per day?
VINCE: 20.
Hours a day on a cell phone?
VINCE: Sometimes it’s two hours.
What about your smartphone?
HEATHER: It’s a great communication tool. I use mine
for everything. Emails and texting, etc.
VINCE: I probably use the flashlight more than I do
actually the phone for what it was designed to do (com-
munication). You can capture data; you can record data.
We used to always run with a calculator in our pockets;
now we have everything in one tool that allows us to do
multiple things in a very short period of time.
HEATHER: The only thing it doesn’t do is radio tags.
Any favourite apps?
VINCE: Weather Network.
HEATHER: Instagram.
Hours a day on the Internet?
VINCE: Probably no more than an hour to two hours at
the max. It all depends on if we’re trying to research a
project or whether or not we’re just quickly checking
emails or checking the weather or —
HEATHER: CBC, actually CBC is probably, just to keep
up to date on —
VINCE: On what’s going on nationally, locally. I think
we have a responsibility to keep ourselves up to speed with
what’s happening in the world somewhat.
How often do you travel?
HEATHER: Once every five years.
VINCE: We went to New Zealand this spring. And that
for us was a dream come true. Being in the sheep industry,
what better place to go to than the country that invented
sheep production on a large scale from an efficiency point
of view?
Number of hours in the office each day?
VINCE: Not enough.
HEATHER: It’s the same, not enough. I do the book-
keeping; don’t get in there very often.
What do you like best about farming?
VINCE: Being able to manage your own time.
What do you like least?
VINCE: Time is our enemy.
HEATHER: We don’t have enough time to get every-
thing done (as well as we’d like).
What is the single most important advice you’ve received or lesson
you’ve learned?
VINCE: Not to be afraid to admit that you’ve made a
mistake or that something just isn’t going to work out.
We’re good at that. Everything we’ve learned here is
through mistakes.
HEATHER: Trial and error.
What’s your observation about farm succession?
VINCE: We are in the early stages of that conversation. It
is agriculture’s biggest challenge. And we need to start this
conversation always sooner rather than later. There is a
time when it’s too soon, such as placing expectations on
the next generation that they don’t have the ability to
understand or the ability to be able to manage. There’s a
time when the conversation needs to happen but there’s
also a time when it shouldn’t happen —
HEATHER: Or to put the pressure on them that they
have to, have to farm.