Each year, just after Christmas, I have to dust off my crystal ball, clean my rose-tinted spectacles and unleash my forecast pencil! By New Year’s Eve I will have had to prepare a forecast of what wheat tonnage I will have to sell (after harvest in approx 8 months time!) to send to my wheat trader, Charles…
I put the drone up over the fields,
I asked her to forecast exactly the yields,
she flew around the crops unseen,
“They all look like grass, so very green!”
I asked my computer to calculate,
the wheat I’d have if harvest was late.
The cursor blinked, no numbers told,
I’d inputted no data of how much to be sold!
So I resorted to methods used down the ages,
previous yields put down on pages.
These I averaged using basic sums,
on my eight fingers and two thumbs!
Now I’ve a figure to call my own,
sent it in? I used the phone!
Modern methods play their part?
Nah! Just the guesses of a silly old fart!
The old men in the graveyard, are looking down on me,
“We didn’t have drone or computer – knew our fields yer see!”
With thanks to Charles Laughlin and all at Fengrain for their support during these difficult times in farming. It is always useful to have a strong ally working on your behalf. www.fengrain.co.uk
© Baldock Bard 2015
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk
Here we are standing at the gate that leads to a new year. Just about every media outlet is crammed with predictions: political, social and environmental. As none of them can possibly know with any degree of certainty, I wish they’d just zip it and let it happen…
