17 ups and downs of working on the family farm
Like most of our readers, many of the journalists at Farmers Weekly are from farming families and have grown up working alongside their parents.
For the most part, we loved it (our parents certainly aren’t the reason we all decided to leave the farm to work in agri-journalism) but there are the odd niggles that we would like to share with you, as we suspect we are not alone in this.
A few years back we shared 10 pitfalls of farming with your dad, but we all know this isn’t an exhaustive list.
So here are some more pitfalls – as well as the plus points – to family farming. Because, if we’re honest, working with your parents really isn’t all bad.
The pitfalls
1. You suggest something and it gets ignored. Give it a couple of months – or maybe a year later – and sure enough they will suggest exactly the same idea and it will be the best thing ever.
2. You will always be the one moving sheep or cattle on foot in the pouring rain while they hoon around, bellowing commands from the comfort of the Land Rover.
3. You are expected to be a mind reader. Dad has some elaborate plan of how he sees a job working out, what needs to happen when, what you need to do and so on. Does he share this information with you? No. Does he shout at you when it all goes horribly wrong? Oh yes.
