The Rhyme of the Ancient Farmer
Inspiration — ‘Bligh’ by Rob Mundle, Words by Nic Kentish
Pure skill, incredible bravery, fierce self-belief and dogged determination laced with a dose of luck… the description of the pioneering Master Mariners who navigated by the stars, read the tides and currents as well as leading crews of tough men around the planet.

These men learned on the job, starting out as young cabin boys and seamen, intently observing their mentors and superiors who had the time to train their charges. They knew that a small error in a nautical bearing could make the difference between landing at, or completely missing, their destination.
Tides and currents could be powerful influences on the progress and direction of a sailing ship. Foul winds blew some of the most experienced Mariners onto rocks and ships would often be becalmed for weeks on end, drifting at the whim of currents.
Crews would become disenchanted with their Master. Some mutinied, some rebelled at their peril and some just simply reluctantly complied vowing to jump ship at the next port. They were also driven by their own fierce self-belief and probably a large dose of excitement. They probably seldom admitted their superstitions.
I can’t help but draw many similarities between these Mariners and Farmers, their skills, self-belief, determination, superstitions… I mean they all deal with the natural elements, live and die by the weather.
There are Masters and then there are the less observant who may need to pay more attention to the past and the future. Maybe there is a widening difference between some of the farmers of today and the farmers of a bygone era.
Farmers of a bygone era had less capacity to borrow large sums of money relative to their capacity to repay the debt. In Mariner terms, their ships had more free-board, were more buoyant.
Farmers of a bygone era had an apprenticeship to complete, starting at the bottom and waiting for knowledge and opportunity to light the career path. The young manager was often middle aged. They knew the importance of experience and repetitive years tasking and toiling since, as everybody knows, no two seasons are the same.
The Mariner knew what sails to furl (and unfurl) in a gale and what bearing to hold in high seas. He knew how to read his depth charts, especially when berthing for he had no tugs to assist. He had spent long enough up the mast to know the dangers of loose ropes and swinging spars. He knew to sail away from the boiling froth created by reef and rock, even if he was desperate to get ashore.
Whilst the modern-day Master Mariners still ascend to their career pinnacle with a structured apprenticeship and programming designed for critical thinking, the same cannot be said of many of today’s Farmers. Their farm debt levels drive precarious risk-taking decision-making, the likes that have not been encountered in history.
The climate in which they work is as acute and volatile as it ever was, even more so in recent years. Yet keen, astute observation of their environmental indicators such as the demise of native species, loss of biodiversity and compromised soil structure is now lost in their training.
When dry seasons cause a reduction in available grass, many highly geared farmers maintain their livestock numbers by doubling up on the risk and buying someone else’s grass. It often brings cost to a farm business that it can ill-afford.
These farmers operate on a superstition that no-one can breed the quality of animal as they. Often, as a result of this risk strategy, their animals eat someone else’s grass as well as the last vestiges of their own and still go looking for more. Ground cover disappears, soils first bake dry then blow away. And animals struggle to retail their condition or their value.
This in mariners’ terms is similar to raising a mainsail in the eye of a storm in the hope of blowing out of it sooner. It will likely be a costly alternative to battening down the hatches and riding it out with just a jib sail for guidance.
Yet alternatives abound. When maintenance is required in quiet periods, when fences need mending, sheets of iron need screwing down, juniors need upskilling, gates need swinging… often requires only time and a little money, along with the energy to see alternatives.
In mariners’ terms, the sails need mending, the hull needs caulking and the crew need some shore time. Ignore these critical needs and the ship may not sail or, at worst sink.
There is a master mariners’ superstition that leaving port without a full crew and a sound, well rigged ship is the beginning of the end.
This big dry run of seasons has becalmed an entire armada who are floating listlessly in the doldrums. Nothing can happen to lift their prospects of grass until it rains again. But they can use some old skills to mend their sails. They can at least clean the decks in preparation for action. They can at least drop anchor so that the currents don’t pull them into unfamiliar and dangerous waters. They could even do a spot of fishing off the bridge.
Farmers must look after, support, train and mentor their own.
They must collaborate, sail together yet not foul each other’s winds. Their destinations need to be defined and not just waypoints, waiting for something better on the horizon. They need to make a deal with themselves and their ecosystem that whilst this dry time will likely happen again one day soon, the result will be different next time because they set their sails differently.
It will be different next time because they will have a plan to sell down, to match stocking rate to carrying capacity. The health of the ecosystem, that their animals and plants and birds and insects and they, the farmers, are all a part of, will be their priority when making plans. They will change their debt structure to give themselves more freeboard, better buoyancy.

The depth of skill level in decision-making for the future is directly proportional to the recall of lessons learnt from the past.
Farmers cannot know what’s over the horizon but they can use history to know what to do when they get there.
