“I built this drill.” That was one of the first things that Mark Brock said when he greeted a group of EU journalists in Ontario, Canada, last week.
From then on he had us enthralled. He’s a farmer who’s passionate about crops, technology and sustainability – economics, environment and people.
Key to sustainability is documenting the work being done on Shepherd’s Creek Farm, after all you can’t say something is sustainable if there is no proof and you can’t improve things if you don’t record – ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’.
Mark’s wife Sandi threw in that phrase as she came from the sheep unit on the farm. The pair run a grain and livestock operation across 1,800ac near Staffa in Ontario, Canada. Sandi manages a flock of 450 ewes, while Mark looks after the corn, soybeans and winter wheat, but forces join together at peak times for the given enterprises.
As Mark says himself, they have always been progressive on the farm. His father was one of the first to buy a no-till drill in the late 1980s. Later they planted no-till soybeans into corn stalks, despite crazy looks from his neighbours.
The motto on the farm is not centred around yield per acre, but the overall return as a farm. In recent years, technology has played an important role for the Brocks and they also hope it can help to face societal challenges which are becoming more and more common.
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