Don't Get Lost Chasing Marginal Gains

It’s been all hands on deck here lately. At the time of writing we are officially 3 weeks into calving and have already calved over half of our suckler cows. We have snuck a few out to grass but a lack of dry meadow land and the ever-persistent rain has meant we still have a lot of cows and calves inside. We had the same story last year and I’ve vowed that if we have to hold cattle back in 2025, we are having a serious rethink about our approach.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m not one for listening to the radio, sometimes opting for a podcast but often just happy with my own thoughts. I’m usually spending this time plotting scenarios in my head (or talking to myself) of what would happen if we changed ‘this’ or tweaked ‘that’. What would the consequences be? The Pros and Cons?

You’ve most likely heard of the concept of marginal gains. Made famous by Sir Dave Brailsford’s incredible success with cycling’s Team Sky winning the 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 Tour de France titles, turning the likes of Bradley Wiggins, Chris Frome and Geraint Thomas into household names. The success of the principal has led it to be coined by nearly every new method, practice, system or piece of tech to hit the market, even within agriculture.

As farmers we love to make improvements and adjustments to our systems and equipment in the name of ‘Efficiency’. It pulls you in because it’s exciting and often comes with all the promise of adding up to a noticeable difference, however I think that's rarely the case.

Most farmers are good farmers but very few are good at running a farming business. I think we all too often get lost in the weeds with all the little additions, that we fail to notice the glaring issues that would really make a substantial difference to our businesses.

Don’t get me wrong, those little changes are nice to make and no doubt we will all continue to make them, but from now on I am endeavouring to look beyond the melée of marginal gains in a bid to see the bigger picture more clearly. After all, Canadian rancher Don Campbell famously said “If you want to make small changes, change the way you do things; but if you want to make major changes, change the way you SEE things.”