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Little River, TX | Eighty industry booths, 700 or 800 in attendance. Subtract 150 or so exhibitors, and maybe 30 speakers and a few of their helpers, so maybe 200 in the quire 500 or more growers. No Forage meeting can match this. Even SRM with their large crowds are mostly academics and Government Field types.
I do like the New Mexico Hay meeting because they can have heavy equipment in the hall. They also always meet in the same location.
I do not know what the rational is for a tourist type tour, they may be interesting but have little to do with hay, or silage. If I attend a tour it should be to see how our products are used by the customers. What they are looking for and why. Bring clothes that can be dirty! Or better yet how others
As it is there was enough information to fill three days of sit down and listen stuff, but they condensed their information down to fit a constrained time schedule. Some of those 20 minute talks would have me on the edge of my seat for an hour or more. If nothing else all the little tid bits that were mentioned should have also been in the Proceedings. As it was we still needed a better memory than mine or better notes than I usually have.
The few sit around a table Bovine Scat sessions are also productive. I like to hear how folks do in the real world. The academic solution is helpful but sometimes they have some funny ideas about production agriculture. They are prone to measure with a micrometer and we are out there cutting with an axe.
I agree with some of the hall chatter. A few Industry speakers would have been useful. What is an academic truth in Wisconsin may work just fine in the Low Deserts or in the High Deserts but I would like to see validation by research and production in those areas.
I would like the speakers to qualify where their findings really work, in production. A number of years ago, maybe 20, in The Hay And Forage Grower there was a difference in findings between Michigan and New Mexico, for hay baling and storage. The problem was they did not qualify the conditions where their worked. Instead it was left up the reader to remember in NM the humidity seldom goes above 50% and in Michigan it seldom goes below 50%. Makes a big difference.
Something I have mentioned to the movers and shakers. I agree with them the Western Forage growers could use a regional organization as well as a national organization to be advocates for our needs. Not anything like a state forage organization with hundreds, or better yet thousands, of grower members but an assembly of deli gates. A small cohesive & like minded number of deligates.
Unless AFGC comes up with 2 propositions I would not consider affiliating. First to increase the size of their board of directors to allow for two or so additional members.
That is 2 or more growers and 2 or more Government workers, from Western Irrigated States. An affirmative action program to benefit Western States for decade.
That they would guarantee there will never have more than one annual conference in June, each 10 years. Probably would need a large bond to keep them honest.
Possibly add that during the first decade at least 2 annual conferences will be in the west. The real Irrigated West. West of the 99 th Meridian.
This from a long time AFGC member, Current Sustaining Member, and 2 tours as a Producer Director. Someone who hates affirmative action and political correctness. | |
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Western Forage and Alfalfa Conference
