By Jay Scott
I couldn't use the home computer one recent evening because my daughter was busy combining soybeans-on the Internet.
Tending a virtual farm on Facebook is one of the latest rages in so-called social media outlets. Log onto Facebook on the web and you, too, can run a diversified agricultural operation. You won't make any real money, but you will earn points, dollars and coins.
The game is ongoing, and playing it requires planning and forethought. Buy some soybean seed to plant, and you better be available the next day because they'll be ripe. Miss out on a timely harvest and you lose the whole crop.
Add some friends into your community and they become your neighbors. Neighbors give you access to more resources with which to expand your farm and grow your operation.
The whole thing is fairly realistic, other than the greatly enhanced virtual growing season, of course. My hope is that it is teaching a wide range of people not connected to agriculture some of the theory involved in running a farm business.
If you now live, or grew up on, a farm, you already understand that raising crops and livestock is just not the same as caring for a house plant or keeping a pet. It's a sun-up to sun-down, and longer some days, work shift full of stress and worries. Buying the right seed, getting your livestock feed mix just right, applying pesticides at the right time, watching the weather and worrying, are a routine part of the farm. Staying on good terms with your neighbors is also important, and having good friends in your community certainly does unlock doors.
Like farming on Facebook, however, there are rewards. Monetary rewards would be part of the business goal. The rewards of which I am thinking can not be kept in your pocketbook or counted in your hand.
These are some of the rewards I cherish from my perspective of farm life: Living in open spaces with a view of the land on a damp, spring morning, watching the sun set from my chair on the front porch, an opportunity to see God's hand in the flourishing crops planted in rows across the field, the blessed solitude of hours in the seat of a tractor, and the grateful feeling of thanks-giving when the weather is favorable and the crops are good. Those are just a few.
Briefly looking over the shoulder of my daughter as she was combining made me think of Grandpa Scott, and how he planned, worried, toiled and perspired, all to improve the quality of life for his family. He bought some land, traded the horses for a John Deere B, and cared for his crops and livestock. He maintained good relationships with his neighbors, allowing him to eventually expand his farm when the neighbors retired.
Grandpa never saw a home computer, but he would probably get a good laugh out of Internet farming. I think he would be pleased that someone learned some of the same lessons he learned, but I am confident he would not have traded learning them the hard way for learning them from a seated position in the house.
Farming is a life I would wish anyone could experience, if only for a brief time. Thanks to the World Wide Web, now anyone can be a farmer, even if it is only in a virtual world.
Her farm is a diversified one, with multiple crops of fruits and grain, and many animals. The beans were completely free of weeds, and she never used any herbicides.
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Jay Scott is an advertising representative for the RFD News. He lives and works on his family's farm in Crawford County. Scott is available for speaking engagements. Contact him at scotty@wavelinc.com.
