Technological advancements are coming in huge waves and creating massive changes in agriculture. American farm families are being increasingly disrupted every day. I believe I have some insight and solutions that will not only make your farm more competitive today, but at the same time, help you build a better bridge to the future for your children and many generations to come after theirs.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize the reason most of us work so hard is so our children can have it a little bit better than we did. We get joy out of seeing them succeed and hoping we can help bring them nothing but the best.
Unfortunately, life’s not easy and often commands tough decisions. Our fathers and grandfathers that came before us had to make many of them. The tough decision to head West and leave everything behind in order to start a farming family was once made by someone in our family tree. Imagine how scared and uncertain they must have been. But they made that tough decision for their family, for their children, and for their grandchildren they envisioned ahead.
Well, here we are… the tough decisions of our forefathers and generations of hard work has gotten us to yet another fork in the road and moment in time where another tough decision must be made. Yes, we can simply choose to keep our blinders on, keep our head down, and keep working hard, ignoring the storm we see brewing out on the horizon because we are scared of the change. We can leave those extremely tough decisions for your kids and their kids. Or we can put a stake in the ground today and start taking small steps towards what we know in your heart is the right direction.
The choice and perhaps, more importantly, the responsibility is each of ours to own. What we elect to do is extremely important because we are exchanging our choices and actions for the future direction of our children and grandchildren. We want these choices and actions to be for good things and for future gains, not for losses, not for struggles, and not for hardships.
The road is not going to be easy, the path towards change never is. The decisions on the farm will be tough, but they will be right and what’s best for future generations that will watch their children grow up in your footsteps. If we don’t make the tough calls and tough decisions we will just be leaving more difficult problems for our children. This is our time, this is our responsibility, to make the right choices not the easy choices.
I was always told to keep my head down, keep doing what we’ve been doing, and just out work everyone else. For many of us, that’s been great advice for the past two or three generations. But “change” has now shown up on our doorstep and is starting to knock. Do we hide or do we answer the door and tackle it head-on? I choose the later.
I hope if you chose to tackle change head-on you will allow our family to be a small part of your team. I hope in some way we can help bring a more competitive advantage to your farm. Like you, I’ve come to understand it’s all about what we leave for our kids. Most of all, I hope we can help provide some light and guidance for building that bridge to the future!
Your friend in the battle,
The Van Trump Family
