Teaching others to farm

[Skyline]

I got a cousin who suddenly asked me if I could teach her how to farm. Interestingly I can’t actually manage my thoughts on this. Like, I just do my own thing for my farm and my farming skills are mostly acquired from practices. So...I am quite confused when it comes to teaching my cousin, especially because she has zero experience. Though I am very happy to see more and more people enjoying a rural life!

 

[Urban Homestead]

Ask her why she wants to learn about it and which aspects she's most interested in. I know when I've been asked, my initial reaction was to start talking about the soil fertility and I'd watch as the other person's eyes slowly glazed over. Now, I ask what they're most interested in learning about. And someone who is just curious about it probably isn't concerned with market prices versus someone who wants to make a living at it and needs more details, so that's why I ask why they're interested.

 

[Henderson]

The exciting bits are usually about planting and harvesting crops and raising baby livestock. Once this pandemic passes, maybe you could invite her down and show her the ropes. That sounds like a good bonding experience, as my wife would say.

 

[jjp8182]

Sounds like potential help to me as learning by doing can be very beneficial. Though I'd agree it's probably worth finding out what aspects she's interested in, and then start there.

Thing I'd say though is no matter the age, if a person is new to it don't expect them to know or be much more of a help (initially) than you would expect from a young child.

I say that not to be harsh, but just as something to keep in mind since in a lot of ways if it's something they've never had experience doing then they are a lot like a child in that regard and expecting more out of them than you would from a young child will (sooner or later) cause frustration and problems all around. I've been down that road before, it's not fun.

So I've learned to treat them with the respect due an adult, but not to expect more out of them than they have demonstrated they know how to do. ...which is frequently easier to say than do (especially if/when the person is older than you are).

 

[Rosebud]

That makes sense. You get into your own routine, and you don't really think about how you do things anymore. Becoming aware of what you're doing might give you a chance to evaluate your own practices to see if there are different or new ways you'd like to approach farming.

 

[Chickadee]

This is definitely a great opportunity if you'd like to pursue it. Teaching someone else will not only help that person, but it helps you, too. It makes you examine what you are doing - what is working and what isn't.

If you find you enjoy teaching, you could probably put together some online classes on farming and charge for them. That might be a good way to go in light of all that is going on in the world right now.

 

[Skyline]

Thank you all for your comments! Now that you all say that, I start looking into my routine closely as well. I also recall back in the days how all these started. Though I would still be nervous to teach because I am not sure how to organise and how to make sure she can understand what I’m teaching or saying.

 

[jjp8182]

.... how to make sure she can understand what I’m teaching or saying.

That's just something to work through -- just like any normal conversation where there might be differences in definitions on what the words used actually mean. In some ways it's really not much different than talking to someone in a different part of the country about farming and what certain implements and tools are called - or what practices & methods work best for the area & type of activity given the environment (till/no till, row/plant spacing, density of animals per acre of pasture, etc.).

As for organizing it might just be easiest to look at the things you have to do in a day and why you're doing them, as it's sort of a self-organizing activity in a way as certain things just need to be done in order to reach the endpoint of being able to sell a product.