10 Important life Lessons you will get from doing a farm project.
As a science and art of bringing up nurturing and maintaining animals and plants for the benefit of humanity Agriculture, a practice bearing a rich history in the evolution of civilization also holds in it important life qualities to award to its practitioners.
Have you ever heard about the terms “Farmer strength”? This is often used in many contexts referring to a combination of physical and mental strength and persistence exhibited by an individual .Farmers who toil the land do it out of necessity therefore by doing so all day their bodies and attitude will adapt accordingly.
However the invention of machines and mechanization of agricultural practices is saving farmers from long hours of extremely harsh and hard work. Below are some the qualities still guaranteed to be take aways from agricultural engagement.
Working in agriculture from any point is important for personal growth. This article is another reason why we should encourage and teach our children about farming .For ages Agriculture has been the Homeschooling in Africa. This is why .
1. Hard and smart working
Even with Mechanization, Hard work can never be eradicated from the equation. Someone has to be there to tend to the systems and mechanizations work to make sure farm operations proceed in a productive way.
Along side accomplishment of tasks, there farm processes and practices must be efficient in order to keep the farm healthy as a business. This calls for smart work in combination with the hardwork since both are beneficial.
2. Creativity & Problem solving
Farm practices have very many factors to them, no two farms can easily be identical in terms of geological and physical conditions. This calls for improvisation all the time to adapt a project into your farm. For example if you want to set up a chicken coup apart from the conventional rectangular design you could make any other shape to fit you triangular , or even circular shape of the space available to you in your space. Your Farm practices in detail are custom to you and this will activate your creativity.
3. Patience
Animals do not mature or produce overnight, If you are running a farm project you sure must have the ability to wait in you. Different types of projects will take different amount of time to start bringing in the expected returns. Some like Asparagus Farming will test you patience to the limit but always reward if you pass the test.
Started from seed asparagus will take about three years to become productive but after that they will stay productive for upto 30 years! Impressive right?
4. Research ability
At some point in high school, you must have heard of a man by the name Gregor Mendel, termed as the father of Genetics, The Monk whose inquisitive nature led to incredible discoveries in relation to genetic inheritance. He did this using garden Peas. Before this detailed observation he sure must have had good knowledge on cultivation of this plant for his findings to be reliable.
This shows that with good observation skills, creativity agriculture will offer you an infinite range of opportunities to consciously or subconsciously build your ability to research regardless of the subject of your interest.
Science is the attempt to understand nature and agriculture done right is one of the best ways to productively be in contact with mother nature.
5. Resilience
Due to its long history with rapid evolution with the changes in climates Agriculture will offer you a learning curve whose difficulty will vary with location, your prior knowledge and experience, market forces among many other influencers.
This generally means that at some projects may not go as planned. This kind of challenges will build your persistence and ability to recover from downfalls both as a business man and as a person.
6. Strategic planning
As mentioned above your projects may fail in some instances. However, without giving up if you take the lessons by carefully evaluating your failed project it will be the same as attending a strategic planning lecture. No matter what the failing point was. t will also teach you how to evaluate yourself for the next big big successful project.
7. Problem solving
Did you know that Evidence from 1650BC gives insights about Egyptians being able to calculate the area of a circle long before the calculation of π was done by Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212BC)?
This was inspired by the need to calculate the exact area of circular land shaped by the curvature of River Nile. They needed to know what area each farmer owned to calculate the rightful tax to be collected by the authorities.
Fast forward to our own century many times you will find yourself switching to problem solving mode, be it mathematical using your phones calculator or any other problem that may occur in the farm.
And this is a very valuable skill in life.
8. Financial Literacy
Apart from the basic knowledge you will need to run a successful business in agriculture before starting some of the financial skills will come from the experience itself. Since you will have to make decision on important matters like when to invest , what inputs to put in, what to sell and how to sell it, how to manage the money from the project among others you will be forced to understand How to handle both your personal and business finances, this is before you can hire someone to help you with the task.
9. Interpersonal skills
Needless to say you will not do any project completely alone , You will need to interact and express yourself to other people. This could be during sale, networking training and other social interactions. This will guarantee the improvement of you social intelligence.
Good Farmers have an overall impressive Personality.
10. Responsibilities
As soon as you engage in any agricultural project your performance is directly linked to your sense of discipline .You will have to do what needs to be done and not necessarily what you feel like doing . If chicken need to be vaccinated you will have to arrange for that whether or not you are in the a good mood. If vegetables need to be harvested you will have to facilitate the marketing regardless your drive to do so.
This guarantees cultivation of responsibility.
