Agri-Trade

Last year about this time, I wrote about my adventures at Farm Fair in Edmonton.  Today for the first time ever, I attended Agri-Trade in Red Deer.  The experiences were similar in some ways and very different in others.

I have attended Farm Fair many times in my life and so was familiar with how it worked and how the booths are typically set up.  As usual, I attended Farm Fair with my parents last year.  I had an assignment to do last year.  I had to talk to at least five people at the booths and collect their business cards to prove I had done it.  It was a bonus assignment, not really worth any important marks.

This year I found myself on a bus at 8:00 this morning, surrounded by class mates and heading to an agricultural fair that I had never seen before.  I had an assignment to complete again, this one worth 10% of my final mark.  Agri-Trade is huge.  I think I must have walked a few miles today.  I am generally reluctant to strike out on my own in strange situations, so I stuck quite closely to my classmates until we crossed paths with some other students.  Those other students are from a different program, but one of them is a friend of mine, so I switched groups and followed them about as they worked on completing their assignments.  Finally, after we had lunch, I decided it was time to really strike out on my own.  When I am surrounded by people it is incredibly hard for me to do my own talking.  My assignment this time was to talk to a bunch of different people.  I had to get answers to specific questions about precision cropping systems, about which I understand very little.  For some of the questions, I didn't even know what companies to approach.  Eventually, I got up the courage to approach some vendors and ask my questions.  I was rather frustrated to find that many of the vendors seemed surprised to find me asking questions about their products.  They seemed to give me the minimal answers (which was not helpful in completing my assignment) and since I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be learning, I couldn't ask good questions.  It seemed to me that the vendors took one look at me and assumed me to be just a girl who didn't know much and wasn't very important.  That's certainly how I felt; I was a just a girl who didn't know much.  It was incredibly frustrating.  So, whenever I could I would find a woman salesperson to talk to, because the women never made me feel that way.

I don't usually have much of an issue with being both a woman and a farmer.  The salespeople and technicians at the parts places and machinery dealers back home know who I am and they help me out just like they would do for my dad.  I know there are people who think I shouldn't be a farmer, that I don't know my place as a woman.  They don't make much of a fuss anymore though, and I typically ignore them because I know I can't change their minds.  The teachers and other students at school are used to seeing girls come and plan to return to the farm, just like I do.  They treat us just like the men at school.  But those salespeople at Agri-Trade, they don't know what to do when this shy, scared girl tiptoes up to their booths and starts asking question about technology she knows nothing about.

I wish I was more sociable.   The friend that I was hanging out with at Agri-Trade is far more sociable than me, and so are her classmates.  They are reasonably comfortable talking to people.  They even dragged me over to one of the salesmen at the John Deere booth and got me started with my questions for him.  That was a bit embarrassing, but it sure made my job easier.  I often think that if I was more sociable it would be easier for people to treat me like a farmer.  They would see my confidence and understand that I am well within my rights to be asking questions about steering guides, combine yield monitors, and prescription mapping services.  But with me as myself, all those salespeople see is a scared little girl who doesn't know anything and doesn't have any right to be wasting their time.  And I know that they think that.  That's why I was so frustrated by the end of the day, even though I eventually got all of the answers to my questions.