We asked the AGRIHUB IT team for some quick tips to ensure you’re on top of your tech at the farm! You should find this quick refresh helpful in keeping your tech online and your hardware safe. If you have any helpful tips, comment below!

Summer is here and it’s time to get together and enjoy some great BBQ. Your family and friends are going to love you for making this.

Farmers are a different breed of worker—they do what has to be done, when it needs to be done. There is no punching the time clock and going off duty when the cows have to be milked and animals need to be fed. I think this is a commendable work ethic that we need more of in the world today, but it can also come at heavy cost. Over the past few years, I’ve read way too many news articles about fatalities and serious incidents involving farmers. From grain entrapment to being overcome by toxic gases in manure pits, all these share a common thread; none of them were “freak accidents” and all were easily preventable.

The Summer 2022 Edition of the Modern Producer is here! 

Background and the Basics

Over the years, New Standard has constructed countless tunnel ventilated barns and has engineered the remodels of many others. Truthfully, ventilation for livestock housing is part of the DNA of the New Standard Group as that is what we focused on in our early years. Things have changed a lot since that time and the Group has expanded greatly, yet ventilation engineering is still something we love to do and love to discuss.

If you've been in animal husbandry for any length of time, you've maybe heard a story from someone who heard it from a friend whose uncle's brother-in-law... you get the idea of the fabled Barn Meltdown? But are these stories urban legend, a thing of the past or something to address? The topic recently came up in the office, and we decided to break it down and add our two cents to the worst-case scenario discussion.

We're involved in setting up more and more wireless systems in hog barns, new builds, and barn remodels alike. Now wifi is terrific with some planning and proper equipment. So how does it work? We spent some time with network pro Owen Gingerich who helped on our Honey Grove barn project, and New Standard's tech guru, Dwayne Morrow, to discuss the pros and cons and where wifi in barns stands in 2022. 

I was contacted a while ago by someone from the NCFAD, which if you are like me, you can be forgiven for not having a hot clue what that is. So I asked, and was told that The National Center for Foreign Animal Disease is part of CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) and is located in the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health which also houses the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, MB. That should be enough governmental alphabet soup to make anyone turn and run the other way, but I decided that I would at least hear them out on what they required from me. 

On a late Fall day, New Standard’s Ben Cochran and marketing staff, Jake Peterson and Celene Olson, were invited to Platte Colony in central South Dakota, about two hours west of Sioux Falls. The opportunity? To learn what the day in the life of a Hutterite looks like. New Standard has had the pleasure of working with many colonies around the US and Canada, and we wanted to highlight the way of the Hutterites. 

Success in farming is a matter of making smart choices and finding the right partners. When Darren Sloan and his family were preparing to expand their sow farm in Ontario, Canada, they spent three years assessing their options and fine-tuning plans for an updated feeding system.