When the local dairy expo advertised it would have a “Women’s Pavilion”, I pondered the possibilities. Striptease? Baby change tables and comfy armchairs for breastfeeding mothers? A new pseudonym for toilets? Surely not!
No, the Women’s Pavilion was chock-full of arts and crafts. Crochet, quilts, preserves. Delightful yet patronising to this farmer who happens to be female and is just as interested in cattle crushes as the next man.
Now I’ve heard on the grapevine that a very high profile ag event plans a nude calendar featuring hunky farming fellas while the women’s contribution will be…recipes. If it is true and I am asked to share my favourite recipe, let’s hope they catch me on a good day.
Speaking of recipes, I was stopped on the side of the road by a salesperson just the other day who had the “solution” for all my farming woes. His special mix will lift our milk solids (fat and protein for the uninitiated), get every single one of our cows in calf, halt mastitis in 48 hours and even cure any mistletoe in neighbouring trees. All I have to do is put 2.5kg of the magic powder in the water trough each day. Nothing else, he was keen to stress.
I asked what was in the magic powder. He would only say that it was humic and fulvic acids, probiotics trace elements and minerals and it was devised by a man in Holland. “It’s a secret recipe,” he explained when I questioned him further. When I quizzed him on the science, he got himself confused and pulled out an abstract of a “study” that I was welcome to read there on the roadside. Said I could Google it. Thanks.
He has no literature, no website and no farmer referees either but a lot of people around here are trying it, he says. What’s more, if it doesn’t cure all my woes, he will give me my money back.
Farm consultant John Mulvany often warns dairy farmers to be wary of spending money on “herbs and spices” for their feed but this takes the whole feed additive bandwagon to new lows.
Dairy farming is highly professional these days. Labs test the soils that grow our grass, the feed that sustains our cows and the milk that they produce for optimum environmental, animal and human wellbeing. So where does snake oil like this fit into that equation? I reckon it’s the agricultural equivalent of the Tattslotto ticket. We all want to dream.
The Milk Maid Marian 
Go girlfriend thanks for the chuckle
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‘I was stopped on the side of the road’
That sounds like the first line of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Charlatan’
`God save thee, ancient charlatan,
From the fiends that plague thy toil! –
Why look’st thou thus?’ -“Without a fuss
I sold my pure snakeoil.”
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Thanks John. I love it! I wish I’d known that little poem when he arrived. I will try to memorise it just in case he comes back!
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Great article! When oh when will our very own ‘industry organisations’ get that the term farmer does not refer solely to the one wearing Y-Fronts??
And, I’m with you, I have absolutely no desire to have a nudie calendar, men or women. I’d love to know exactly how this promotes our industry and/or helps to reduce the city versus country divide.
I’m guessing they won’t ask me for a recipe now either!!
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Yes, Belle. I’m afraid these stereotypes only widen the divide. I hope it’s some city PR firm that’s to blame for this blunder, not rural people.
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