Farmer/researcher Dwayne Beck | Believers of Beck’s systems-wide approach to research refer to themselves as Beckies
There aren’t many speakers brave enough to tell a room of 250 farmers that they’re wasting their money when they buy a new half-ton truck.
However, Dwayne Beck, manager of Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, South Dakota, isn’t your typical agricultural conference speaker.
No one flinched when Beck told producers at the Manitoba North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmers Association workshop in Minot, North Dakota, last month that they would be wise to invest their money in a long-term strategy for their farm rather than spend it on a shiny vehicle.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
Almost everyone at the Minot meeting had probably heard Beck speak before and knew that he likes to make irreverent comments. As well, the producers knew Beck wasn’t mocking them because he is one of them.
“He’s a farmer. He’s doing research but he’s doing it as a farmer,” said Karl Kupers, a grain producer from Washington state, who also spoke at the workshop in Minot.
According to its website, the Dakota Lakes Research Farm is a joint effort between South Dakota State University and a non-profit corporation created by area farmers.
Check-off revenue and grants fund part of the research but a large chunk of the funding comes from the farm. Beck is expected to manage the farm’s 840 acres as a for-profit enterprise and re-investall returns back into the farm.
Kupers said producers take Beck and his research seriously because he has to operate the farm like a real farmer: trying to earn a profit.
Producers take Beck so seriously, in fact, that many farmers in the U.S. refer to themselves as Beckies, meaning they are true Dwayne Beck believers.
“Truly, he has the capacity to influence me. He’s my resource,” said Kupers, who was hesitant to use the term “Beckie” because it gives the impression that he belongs to a cult.
Cult or not, Kupers said Beck is more credible than university soil and plant scientists because they focus their attention on a tiny component of production agriculture, such as how a particular pesticide affects beneficial insects in a plot of soybeans.
“We can’t manage farms on components … (because) there are gaps or they can run counter to each other,” said Kupers.
“I might be able to improve that (specific) part of my farm (operation) through university research, but that doesn’t address the overall issues that I face, daily.”
In contrast, Kupers said Beck takes a systems approach that considers the entire farm operation, including profit.
“(Instead of) just focusing on a worm, for instance, he’s able to look at the farm and the farmer, because they interact.”
Beck said thousands of agricultural scientists in North America have spent decades studying specific aspects of crop production, such as winter wheat hardiness, but that doesn’t mean their life’s work is pointless. It’s just that a producer in North Dakota or Saskatchewan probably doesn’t care about the genetic differences of winter wheat varieties at the molecular level.
“It’s not easy and not really appropriate for farmers to be interested directly in that little aspect (of research), other than they want a winter wheat that will survive their conditions,” said Beck.
“Kind of like when you start a car. You don’t care why it starts. You just want it to start and go.”
Beck sees his role as a bridge between real world farmers and the specific and narrow science conducted at universities and agricultural research centres.
Operating in the space between science and practical agricultural production makes the research at Dakota Lakes unique, said Dave Franzen, a North Dakota State University extension soil specialist.
“What Dwayne does is kind of in the middle,” he said.
Beck said he relies on agricultural experts for guidance and then finds out if the recommendations in a research paper can be incorporated into the farm operation at Dakota Lakes.
“We take it from that small scale and put it into the real world. One of the statements I’ve made over the years is, ‘that’s a pretty dog, but does the S.O.B. hunt?’ ” he said.
“Because on a farm, eventually you’ve got to have the dog chase pheasants or chase sheep or whatever you do on a farm.”
Beck delivered a speech at the Minot workshop that contained two parts irreverent thoughts on agriculture, one part homespun anecdotes and one part research results.
For example, he mentioned the much repeated phrase that farmers will have soon have to feed nine billion people and asked if that really is a food production problem.
Maybe the core issue is that the world has too many people, he said.
Beck readily admits that he is opinionated and takes risks during his presentations. But when he talks to farmers, it’s clear he isn’t talking down to them.
“A good proportion of what I do, in this job, is manage the production enterprise of (Dakota Lakes). When I talk to farmers, I don’t talk to them as a researcher. I talk to them as a farmer,” said Beck, who is also a plant science professor at South Dakota State University.
“Farmers prefer to learn from other farmers. If you want to get a room of farmers quiet, get somebody who’s a farmer to talk.”
Franzen said it is important for agricultural researchers to treat farmers as equals. Otherwise, farmers can easily be put off by a high-horse message in which a researcher tells a producer how to farm.
“He (Beck) is a really, really good listener and I think that’s important. If you listen to what a farmer tells you and if you blow it off, they’re likely to blow you off.”
Of course, the bulk of soil scientists, plant scientists and agricultural economics professors in North America don’t operate farms, so they can’t talk to farmers as farmers.
But they can alter the delivery of their research and extension message to make it more relevant to producers, said Owen Roberts, who teaches agricultural communi-cations at the University of Guelph.
“If you (a scientist) address the two questions that reporters always ask, ‘so what’ and ‘who cares,’ I think any research can be applicable and understandable to a specific audience,” said Roberts, who is also director of research communi-cations at Guelph.
“Has the researcher honed in on the so what, as in what is the advantage here to profitability or sustainability? And the who cares would be, who could use this research to their advantage?”
Roberts said most agricultural researchers do treat farmers with respect and aren’t completely focused on impressing other scientists by publishing results in prestigious journals.
“I think ag researchers have always been good at reaching out to the farm community,” he said.
“I think now they’re getting better at reaching beyond the farm community … to help the public understand the big picture of agriculture and how it contributes to things like the environment and health and rural communities.”
As well, not every scientist is going to be an extrovert who loves to present before a crowd of 300 farmers, Roberts said.
But that doesn’t mean they have to stay silent in their lab because there are multiple ways to bridge the gap between ag research and farmers.
“There are about 10 different ways you can get a message (out),” he said.
“You can blog, you can tweet, there is social media … you can write a column in a farm paper.… So let’s not restrict ourselves to producer meetings.”
