If you think you are a farmer, you are old school. Farming is a passé occupation anymore. A valley girl would call you, like, ancient; and so, you know, way back in the 20^th century. Why would anyone want to have anything to do with you, you are just a farmer?

What we know as the gallant, dedicated, extroverted souls as farmers really seem to be something totally different in the 21^st century. They are mired today, literally, but figuratively speaking in a misnamed occupation that the forward thinkers are saying should be reclassified as biological manufacturing.

Wander through Caterpillar, or audit a business course at Millikin, or sit in on an engineering class at the University of Illinois and listen for the manufacturing vocabulary, and then see how it would apply to agricultural production, AKA, farming. Those folks with seed caps have probably completed most of their seed purchases for next year, and have been obtaining inputs for their "attribute-driven products." That might be high oil corn, non-genetically modified soybeans, or some other product highly desired by a buyer who wants a specific trait in a shipment of grain. Kraft may sell a healthy food product, and it can because it has a low linolenic soybean oil. The new biological manufacturer is selling the soybeans to Kraft with a specific trait so Kraft can sell a product to consumers looking for that trait.

Other manufacturing concepts that are common at ADM and Tate & Lyle are "systems approaches" and "operational procedures." Those terms may be top of mind to many farmers, but to a biological manufacturer that identifies many of the routine chores that occur in crop production. If you are routinely applying a fungicide to strike early at gray leaf spot on corn, that is an operational procedure within the system of corn production. Your "flow control" involves putting wet corn through the grain dryer into bin, and periodically checking moisture and temperature to ensure it remains in good condition. If it begins to heat, then your operational procedures require turning on the fans to cool it down, even though it may not be automated.

Your "raw material acquisition" falls on your shoulders as a purchasing agent, but involves contracting for "just in time" delivery of your fertilizer. Whether that occurs this fall, or next spring because of the weather and soil conditions, you don't want piles of fertilizer or tanks of ammonia sitting around waiting to be used sometime in the unknown future. Your management of that purchasing processing requires a business relationship, rather than a good buddy relationship, with contractual specifications ensuring the relationship does not go south.

Another critical element in the biological manufacturing process is monitoring and measuring with information technology. Those are what you are doing to determine how well your crop is growing, with diligent crop scouting. It may include GPS systems, aerial imagery, weather monitoring, soil testing and will guide livestock producers on herd health, feed conversion efficiency, and estrus determination for optimal breeding.

These concepts are not new to agriculture. They are integral to the management of some of the larger and most successful operations in the country. Purdue economists Mike Boehlje and Allan Gray identify an Indiana dairy farm with 70,000 head, a Dakota livestock operation with 2,500 head of cattle and 35,000 acres, and a South American crop enterprise spreading over 500,000 acres in four countries as all successfully employing those concepts of biological manufacturing. They say those operations will be here for years to come because of the principles being applied.

Are success, sustainability, and profitability passé?