Denis Lehane: Launch of 2015 ‘Mediocre Farmer’
Nor, I fear, will you ever find a picture of me being hoisted aloft by fellow farmers, and I after taking the title in some farm-related competition.
It breaks my heart to announce today that I am not a leader in the field, I’m a man bringing up the rear.
Being a mediocre farmer wouldn’t be so bad if only I didn’t have to endure a weekly onslaught of seeing other farmers being championed in farming publications like this one.
Only last week, for instance, it was the turn of the Irish world champion ploughmen, mighty men it has to be said, returning home to Ireland from Denmark having won all round them.
Next week, no doubt, it will be all about the National Dairy Show in Millstreet, and again we will be looking at a host of winners. Brilliant farmers, once more showing up the likes of you and me, like you wouldn’t believe.
How disheartening it can be to read about the spectacular success of some in farming, and then to turn around to face your own personal purgatory on the land.
Your own farm, a place where mistakes, mishaps and misfortune are commonplace. Your own a farm, a place where problems occur with ever increasing frequency.
The other day, as I firmed up a falling gate with the assistance of baler twine, it suddenly dawned on me that Teagasc will never be pleading with me to swing open such a gate so that hundreds of farmers might get a glimpse at how I operate my business, to see me with microphone in hand, explaining to all how I did this or intended to do that.
Alas, I fear I will never be holding that magic microphone while being hailed as a great farmer.
Later in the day, as I freewheeled my old tractor down the slope in order to bring her to life, it saddened me to think that no awards in farming will ever brighten up my mantlepiece. I’m just not a winning kind of guy.
Of course, I don’t have the cattle to scoop a top award at a pedigree show in the first place, nor do I grow crops that encourage admiring glances.
Simply put, I’m not farming in a way that makes you moan with envy every time you pass the bottom of the lane.
But damn it all, I still feel that this is no reason to push me aside when the trophies and prizes are being handed out. In many ways, the likes of me are far more deserving of a prize than the best farmer in Ireland. For I have survived in farming without being particularly good at anything. Against all the odds, I’m still here.
Be it from a lack of intelligence, money, or downright bad luck, I’m the fellow who keeps stumbling along in spite of the many hurdles that seem to be in my way.
Surely that deserves an award of some description?
The ‘Keeping his Head Above Water’ title, the award for ‘Keeping the Wolf from the Door,’ the award for ‘Mediocre Farmer of the Year’.
The plain man, the average farmer, the fellow who keeps on going, even when he knows he shouldn’t.
Even when he knows that success, wealth and prominence will never come his way, on he ploughs.
He’s the kind of farmer who deserves the greatest award most of all, he’s the downright champion.
