Will’s World: Farm tech’s not what it used to be
© Richard Stanton It’s a rare occasion indeed when the Evans girls are stunned into confused silence, but it happened recently over dinner one night.
I casually mentioned that I didn’t have a mobile phone until I was 20 – and even then, it was a brick-like affair with a pull-out aerial and storage capacity for just 10 text messages.
Their collective horror on further discovering that Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok were, at that stage, still distant glints in a tech-nerd’s eye was something to behold.
“But what did you do with your time in the olden days, Daddy?!”
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This isn’t a new experience, and other parents will doubtless relate to the fact that when I talk to the girls of anything concerning my youth, they look at me as if I was born and raised in a Victorian workhouse.
Record years
I once spent a very long time trying to explain to them the concept of recording something known as “The Top 40” onto “a tape” while trying to avoid the DJ ruining the intro and outro to the various songs by talking over them.
I might as well have been speaking a foreign language as far as the Spotify generation were concerned.
I admit that it’s odd to think of a time before smartphones now, and I often wonder how we managed our social lives and businesses back then.
I’m not even going to tell the girls that we used to have a loud bell attached to the outside of the house and whenever it rang, family members would immediately sprint from wherever they were on the farm in an attempt to answer the phone before it cut out.
What would be the point, they wouldn’t believe me anyway.
How would I possibly explain that we not only memorised phone numbers, but would then put our finger into a mechanical dial on a plastic box and turn it several times to call someone?
And I certainly wouldn’t be able to find the words to explain the excruciating awkwardness of trying to speak to a girl in this way, only for her dad to answer the phone, and then having to timidly ask in a squeaky teenage voice if I could speak to his precious daughter.
Ask me in a few years, though, and I expect I’ll be wishing for a return to those more innocent times, and imagining all the fun I could have had being the inquisitor at the gate.
Appy daze
As for the job itself, for a start, what would we do without having umpteen weather apps to consult at all hours of the day for reassurance?
Imagine not having any instructional videos to follow. All that vital information about everything from liver fluke to leatherjackets, and filter sizes to fertiliser rates no longer at our fingertips.
Could we possibly conceive of spending a long day on a tractor without being able to share amusing messages with our friends on WhatsApp?
And I shudder to think what would happen to the industry, let alone world food supply, without all those heroic social media farming “influencers”.
On the flip side, between the numerous calls, messages, emails and online meetings that we all deal with, it can be hard to find any peace in the day or night. It can’t be good for our mental health to be so constantly connected.
In fact, I’m increasingly tempted to return to those early days and get myself a brick-phone with an aerial again. If nothing else I’d embarrass my daughters, and that always makes me happy.