The social context of cattle farming
The most important point in a discussion of cattle farming has everything to do with people as the inhabitants and managers of a farm. It must never be ignored. It is a fact that it takes at least two years for a newcomer farmer to become accustomed to all the biological, physical and human social aspects of a cattle farm.
A farmer must remember that the occupants of each farm are part of a community (the farmer’s household and family, the farm workers and their families, as well as the surrounding neighbouring farmers and their families in the district) where certain ‘cultural’ and ‘thinking’ habits might have been established through the years. These habits will have a typical ‘outside-in’ effect on the specific social behaviour of the farmer, his household and labour occupants, as well as the challenges of the specific cattle production system, environmental challenges such as droughts, the sustainability of the farm product output, as well as the influence of the broader community in which all production functions are taking place.
Figure 22.1: A scenario of the social identity of farming communities
As a farm manager, you do not live in isolation on your farm and you are just as vulnerable as anyone else to the impact of the misunderstanding on how life really works.
Every farm owner has a responsibility to his community to uphold a positive spirit in his area. Besides being always available and ready to assist, for example, with technical issues such as helping to fight fires, security patrolling of fences at night, and being a member of the local agricultural-farming association that requires other social responsibilities, the farmer must also take on the social responsibility towards developing the community (Community as referred to in the context of the previous paragraph) and to lay a foundation towards a peaceful, productive and thriving community.
The objective of the teaching on the Nature of Thought was to assist you to get a better understanding of how the mind works, the power of thoughts, and the implications of experiencing life. This understanding will assist you to create an ‘inside-out’ paradigm in your farming community.
In this part, farmers will be guided to develop their own social responsibility plan based on their now better understanding of the Nature of Thought.
Farmers need to realize that the product of their social responsibility plan is part and parcel of the final farm management plan that needs to be presented, as the importance of the human factor in any farming business cannot be underestimated.
Guidelines for Planning
- Whatever your vision may be, you need to realize that you cannot give away something that you don’t own. In other words; if by now you do not have an insightful understanding of some aspects of the Nature of Thought (An insightful understanding, and not only an intellectual understanding) and start to ‘live it’, it will be very difficult to include this understanding in your plan. The fact of the matter is that you cannot fake this understanding!
- For things to change you need to know that all changes start with you. You need to create a deeper understanding of the subject by educating yourself more and more to ‘live it’ and then share whatever you think needs to be shared.
- Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail. Remember the fact that the future belongs to those farmers that start influencing their families and employees to understand how life really works and who realise that this understanding is the most important competitive discriminator that any farmer could ask for.
- The sooner you start to share the message with others, the greater the chances to build a strong and effective farming business.
- By now you are perfectly equipped to make the best decisions and plans that will fit best, taking one step at a time.
- To be effective, you must realise that the sharing of the message is an ongoing activity. The whole idea of Project Garcia’s for Africa is clearly explained in its vision (please read it again and again). As one of our newly educated ‘Garcia’s Messengers’, you could play a major role in creating such a generation on your own farm and in your own region.
- When trying to draft your own plan to share aspects of your understanding of the Nature of Thought with others, you are pointed in the following direction:
Determine with whom you would like to share your understanding. This could include:
- Members of your own family
- Your workers as well as their wives and their children
- What if you find people who could be trained and then start sharing the message in your area of influence?
Determine what specific aspects you would like to share with your audience
- You could go back to your books and from there plan your programme accordingly
- Initially start with subjects that you feel comfortable sharing
Determine when and where you would like to share your specific message with your audience
- It’s totally up to you when to schedule sessions to share your message
- When you really start to live the 3 Principles you will be sharing the message daily through your behaviour and attitude towards others
- In the beginning, you could consider scheduling educational sessions as part of your year planner. It could take place over weekends or once a month or whenever it can fit into your program
- Any place is good enough: in your home, under a tree, in the garage in the shed at the nearby school – it does not matter where it takes place as long as the message is somehow shared.
Determine exactly how you will share your message with your audience
- You will know better than anyone else how to share the message
- Sharing the message should be something you are looking forward to because you are giving away a gift
- Your audience should be looking forward to your sessions because they see the value
- You could but do not need to utilize fancy equipment to effectively share your message.
- Your presentations do not have to be formal like we presented at Garcia’s for Africa.
- Storytelling is a very effective way to share this beautiful understanding.
- Keep it simple and using metaphors and some tools (your bottle or whatever you can think of) may be very helpful for people to understand better.
- You could think of the possibility to share your message through songs that you have written
- You could develop your own support material (posters, pictures, statements etc) that you can place in strategic places for people to read
- 3 Principle slogans/sayings/quotes could be utilized to install a better understanding by people
- You could consider the development of some customs or traditions that will reflect your team’s understanding and ‘living’ of the 3 Principles in action
- You could utilise some of the 3 Principle books or the books you own and read parts thereof to your audience and then discuss the subject
Please refer to Appendix A for further assistance in drafting your own social responsibility plan:
Appendix A: Possible layo