For the past few years, we have worked with a well-known European agricultural college that has sent us students in the final year of study to stay with us and work on a real farm. The school works with our farm for one reason and one reason alone; I went to university with the school's director. The students stay with us for six months and are fully integrated into our operations. They do everything (except for the butchering plant) and are exposed to all aspects of farming. From feeding to milking goats and cows to operating equipment and watching the management work my wife and I do daily.
Many will end up on large farms or agro-businesses, but the principles remain the same. The last one was from mainland China. He spoke decent English and obviously another European language. He was supposed to work on a European farm but was shifted to the UK at the last minute, for the past four years we have taken students from this particular school, so to get a last-minute call that instead of having one student we would have two was not a big deal. We have the space and we have the work. His apprenticeship ended a few weeks ago, and he is now back at school to finish his studies!
From the first day he was with us it was evident he was comfortable on a farm but had strange ways about him. First, when feeding animals he would just feed them, not look over the animals to see if there were any visible problems. As my GP often said, "The first tool of medicine are the eyes", the same is true for farming. When you see a cow not approaching the feeder as you deliver the feed, alarm bells should sound. Second, he was a maniac for cleaning and was shocked when we walked from animal shed to shed without walking in a boot bath, and that we were not wearing masks. That last one could be cultural...
These two things could have a common issue if the farm staff doesn't see it as their job to note that a cow is lame. How many times have I had an employee come to me in the morning, and tell me as he/she was driving in he thought he saw a lame animal... whereas my young Chinese trainee, didn't notice, we had to remind him to check. My reading is that in China lame and infected animals are ignored and left with the herd, which leads to all these procedures to reduce inflection between herds. In addition, he was aggressive and rough with the animals, I caught him twice kicking a chicken that was in his way. This was probably the worst aspect. My head picker had to remind him several times that he was only to pick vegetables that were ready to eat. He had a hard time with that concept, but I suspect that he knew little if anything about fruit and vegetable culture.
Considering, this young man spoke three languages, I have serious doubt that he was an average Chinese farmer, what he could find out from our farm in terms of intelligence has to be limited. He told me that in China his family was involved with pigs, chickens and duck farming. I saw some videos on youtube...
He was surprised to see that our biodigester processing equipment was Chinese. I told him that it was by far the best technology available. He had a big smile at that!
This smart, tall, lean and very well-spoken young man was exactly what we expected; like the other students we accepted, they were all bright and driven. But he was also incredibly well-read, and willing to learn (he really stood out).
At the end of his stay, I asked him, how much of what he saw here could be brought home to China, and he surprised me, he said of everything he saw it was the biodigester that impressed him the most, because power is always a problem on Chinese farms. That the best equipment was made in China surprised him (it surprised us too), and gave him hope that it could be added to his family's operations. He said he didn't see much application for the cattle side of the business, practices in China were too ingrained to change, but he thought our high tunnels and staggered production (and introduction of additional C02) were brilliant uses of our resources.
We never spoke about politics, but he was well aware that the ex-prime minister is one of the two MPs for Norfolk (not that we see much of her anyway). He understood how lucky he was to be able to study abroad, and it was evident that he came from a powerful family. He told me he grew up not too far from Wuhan, on the Yellow River (not exactly there but it is an obvious place marker for foreigners), and was looking forward to going home in the spring. As he had not been able to return home over the past three years (Covid restrictions).
To host, a bright young man is always a pleasure. It gives hope to see young people full of enthusiasm, forgetting for a minute all the negative news about China. He was surprised when I handed him a check for six months of work (it is actually the law in the UK), it was drawn on a bank in the country where his school is located (we had given him a little cash during his stay and lodged him and fed him).
Cannot wait for the next one!
Note: About 60% of the cost of biodigesters are the ponds and handling equipment. The rest (pumps, generators, compressors etc could come from many different sources. The Chinese units had the best rating when we purchased them, Obviously, we are a little concerned now because of China. But, and this is important, it's a plug-and-play system. The control & monitoring system is French, so we can easily replace the Chinese parts with European or American ones if necessary
Comments