Each year, just after Christmas, I have to dust off my crystal ball, clean my rose-tinted spectacles and unleash my forecast pencil! By New Year’s Eve I will have had to prepare a forecast of what wheat tonnage I will have to sell (after harvest in approx 8 months time!) to send to my wheat trader, Charles…

I put the drone up over the fields,
I asked her to forecast exactly the yields,
she flew around the crops unseen,
“They all look like grass, so very green!”
I asked my computer to calculate,
the wheat I’d have if harvest was late.
The cursor blinked, no numbers told,
I’d inputted no data of how much to be sold!

So I resorted to methods used down the ages,
previous yields put down on pages.
These I averaged using basic sums,
on my eight fingers and two thumbs!
Now I’ve a figure to call my own,
sent it in? I used the phone!
Modern methods play their part?
Nah! Just the guesses of a silly old fart!

The old men in the graveyard, are looking down on me,
“We didn’t have drone or computer – knew our fields yer see!”
With thanks to Charles Laughlin and all at Fengrain for their support during these difficult times in farming. It is always useful to have a strong ally working on your behalf. www.fengrain.co.uk

© Baldock Bard 2015
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