I’m fairly certain that I learned some things in college. I must have, otherwise they wouldn’t have given me that diploma. Right? Well, for all the things I should have learned in 4 years at the university, I learned a hundred times that amount in my first year of teaching vocational agriculture in high school.
After graduation in 1974, I signed on to teach in Oregon County, Missouri, which was, at that time, the No. 1 feeder pig producing county in the entire U.S. In a school with more than 200 students, 160 of them were FFA members and almost every single one of them had hogs as a project. As you might expect, the curriculum was geared heavily to swine production; even the shop component of our program was an assembly line production of individual farrowing houses that would have impressed Henry Ford.
Fresh out of college and eager to impress, I taught the latest innovations in science and technology to motivate the students to aim higher and go farther with their production of hogs. I dared them to compare the production efficiency offered by the single-sow, A-framed farrowing huts that cost a couple hundred dollars to construct – to the multi-sow farrowing barns that cost a few thousand dollars. I even extolled the virtues of the climate controlled, slatted-floor deluxe confinement facility that cost several tens-of-thousands of dollars. We had drawings and plans and cost estimates for all, with projections of increased income from larger litters of pigs weaned. The kids seemed excited.
About three weeks into the instruction on the varying kinds of facilities, the grandfather of one of my best students came by the classroom one afternoon at the end of the school day. He introduced himself and I offered him a cup of coffee and invited him into my small office to visit. He was a quiet, but impressive man, with weathered skin and calloused hands. His voice was deep and gravelly as he stated, “I’ve got some concerns about what you’re teaching my grandson.” The new college graduate was more than a little nervous.
He was kind, but firm, as he began. “Sonny, I know you just got out of the university, and you probably know more than me about hogs, but I feel like I have to share something with you.”
I could feel knots growing in my stomach.
“My grandson really looks up to you and you’ve got him all excited about expanding his hog operation. You’ve been teaching about these fancy farrowing facilities and he’s convinced we can make money by converting to these buildings instead of the way we do it now.”
I was flattered, but even more nervous.
“I started out with nothing when I was younger than you, but I now own about 1,500 acres and I don’t owe a dime to anyone. I pig out about 300 sows a year and I do it out in the woods under the oak trees. Now, I know these fancy buildings would allow me to wean more pigs per litter, but, Sonny, what you need to remember is that those woods where my sows have pigs don’t cost me a dime. It ain’t necessarily how much income you rake in over a year’s time, but more about how much of that income you get to keep at the end of that year. How many of your college professors ever made a living farming?”
He arose, thanked me for my time and shook my hand. Over the next couple of years, I benefited from the old man’s wisdom many more times. Through the years I’ve used the education I received from successful farmers like that elderly gentleman more than I have referred to the textbooks and college notes of my academic career. As Dwight Eisenhower once said, “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from a cornfield.”
Jerry Crownover is a farmer and former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University. He is a native of Baxter County, Arkansas, and an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry about his books, or to arrange speaking engagements, you may contact him by calling 1-866-532-1960 or visiting www.ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us.’
