Editors' Notebook

People watching, and listening, are valuable activities for the journalist. So polishing those skills is something we more desk-bound reporters-turned-reporter-managers need to do whenever possible. You learn a lot by observing.

One of the most memorable events in my career was the farm auction I attended in the late '90s at which I suddenly realized there were more cell phones hanging from the hips of the farmers in attendance than leather pouches holding slip-joint pliers or Leatherman tools. I knew I was witnessing a seismic shift in what farming was all about, and would be about, in the future.

We're in the middle of field day and farm show season, prime time for such people watching. I offer some observances, not necessarily specific to this current summer but certainly reaching the level of "wonder what this will mean" in the future.

Shorts and sandals. For us guys, these have long been becoming accepted wear on hot field day afternoons, and the trend continues. My internal body temperature appreciates that, though somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain Merle Haggard is singing about leather boots, beads and Roman sandals.

Harley Davidson T-shirts. It's amazing how those have taken a slice out of the farm-show fashion ensemble, edging into the snap button plaids or tractor-company-related upper body wear. Ah, the spoils of $6 corn. I think that's just fine. While the anti-modern farm crowd would prefer us in ragged bib overalls driving rusted out pickups -- just watch those ridiculous Chipotle video manifestos for proof of that -- agriculture should not be that way. Farmers should enjoy life, and the joys of a little disposable income, just as anyone else who works hard.

Kids. How about this crop of little ones, towed in all manner of wagons and carriers by doting fathers who split time haggling over new equipment or seeds with making sure the kids get their share of kettle corn, hot dogs and farm toy trinkets. We may focus on the push for 300-bushel-corn and replenishing the cow herd, but there certainly are signs of other productivity, and reproductivity, out in farm country. What a wonderful thing!

Changes. The adults you see at these events are changing, and certainly a sign of the times and the times-to-be. As perhaps the poster-card example, I'll use the folks under the broad banner of Monsanto. The St. Louis-based company has made two major purchases in the past year or so, just under $200 million for Illinois-born Precision Planting, and just shy of a billion for San Francisco-birthed Climate Corporation.

At one end of a recent farm show event, there were the Precision Planting employees, down in soil pits in pressed white shirts and slacks, explaining the benefits of proper seed placement, planter speeds and uniform emergence in a very hands-on way.

Across the sea of tents, in polos and skinny jeans, were the mathematical wunderkinds of Climate Corporation, discussing how predictive computer models will soon tell farmers information about the crop long before they can see it in the plant or down in the soil. Some of these young folks have agronomy degrees, or at least coursework, woven into their emphasis on statistics and computer model creation. I suspect, however, that most of their shoes-in-the-dirt experience happened on the grass clumps in between the sidewalks of Stanford University or similar campuses, not in a root dig in central Illinois.

The power of the combination of these two groups -- and any company serious about thriving in the age of Big Data agriculture -- is palpable. If the Midwestern white-shirts can put enough real-world information into the skinny-jeans' models, interesting things are sure to bubble out.

Still haven't seen a lot of tattoos, though. I'm predicting more tattoos.

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