TAPE #216 - Doing Business in Remote Areas

ANNOUNCER: The workshop this afternoon is entitled "Doing Business in Remote Areas." In this workshop you will get a synopsis of a model of how business in rural areas run differently than ones in urban areas. The presenter for today is Miss Theona Hashley McKenzie from Australia. She is a full time academic, currently working on several research projects, all of which are to do with rural economic and social capital policy. Theona has several undergraduate degrees. She has a Masters Degree in philosophy, and is currently finishing her Ph.D. in political geography. Theona was brought up on a farm, educated in Australia, the United States, and Switzerland, and she has a husband and three children. I ask you to join me in welcoming Miss Theona Hashley McKenzie ("THM").

THM: Thanks Sheila. Hello everyone. I just want to make it quite clear that when I heard from the U.S. three weeks ago, I understood that I was presenting this time slot with three other people. So, I actually have prepared probably enough for, well, I am a little verbose, so perhaps forty minutes. But I think it would probably be more useful if whatever I say is just a catalyst for a lot of other interaction, and as requested will use the microphone. I also, when I first sent in my synopsis, I wanted to talk about doing business in regional areas rather than remote areas. I don't have any experience in, well remote as in Australian terms, which is very remote. I have done quite a bit of work in the last 18 months looking at businesses in regional areas. So yes?

QUESTION: What do you mean by regional areas?

THM: Regional, non urban farming areas, but the farthest away is 500 kilometers. Remote is many more kilometers than that in Australia.

I'd like to start just by giving you a little bit of demographic background. I am a political geographer, so I work with maps and statistics. The particular area that I am working in at the moment is the central wheat belt, which appears to be on this map relatively small. But it's actually an area the size of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland. It has only 32,000 people, but those 32,000 people in the State of Western Australia, generate almost a quarter of the State of Western Australia's GDP.

The bulk of that GDP, that capital generation, is from cropping, mostly wheat, canola, and pulse grains, and wool.

If I can just give you a quick overview of the demographics. More than 95% of the farms in this area are family farms. Thirty two thousand people live in this particular region. They contribute 24% of the state's foreign exports, 44% of West Australian wheat, and 23% of West Australian wool. This is the lower half of Australia and this is the area about which I am speaking. And as I mentioned before, there are only three regional towns in that entire area the size of Ireland that has more than 1,000 people.

In the last 30 years, this region has depopulated dreadfully. What is interesting, though, is that the number of men leaving the region has far exceeded the number of women. There are still more men in the region than there are women, but the gap between men and women is closing.

Last year I was a part of a large state wide survey. We had a response of 1,000 women from a press survey. Questionnaires went out in the newspaper asking women about services, about their businesses, about what they wanted for their future. The trend we've identified in this study is that deregulation of finance and the banking industry has been significant, and the Australian government has pursued a liberalization of international trade coupled with state and federal economic rationalism and non interventionist policies. This has meant that Australian farmers and Australian businessmen, generally, have had to be lot more savvy.

One other thing that is particularly disturbing in the State of Western Australia is that the average age of the farm work force is 62 years of age. Sixty two years of age.

QUESTION: Is that just on farms or overall?

THM: No, this particular region that's right, 62 years of age is the average age of farmers.

Okay. I'd now like to look at the centralization of services, because this has been significant. There has really been no pressure on anyone to maintain smaller towns. There's no need to maintain to smaller towns. The larger towns attract business. Government will only push services into the larger towns. There is no point advertising. People will automatically go to the larger towns anyway. That has created both opportunities and difficulties. Banks are closing. Now, in one way banks closing is a very real difficulty. It means that people don't have easy access to cold hard cash.

But it also creates opportunities, and during this last year, I've come across several women who are particularly concerned about the lack of banking services and what they can do. One woman in particular in this area has decided that she will use the Internet to endeavor to find banking markets that will service her. We don't have cooperatives like you do in the United States. We do have some credit unions, but credit unions tend to be based in the capital city, Perth, which there's a population, a state population of 1.7 million; 1.28 million of that 1.7 million live in the capital city. So many of the services are capital city based, and many of the credit unions are capital city based. Nonetheless, this woman who lives 68 kilometers, which about 40 miles I think, from her nearest town, is using the Internet to basically market herself and her community as an opportunity for a credit union to come to their town and open a finance services center.

Thus far, she has two credit unions that are currently talking to her and talking to businesses around her. If they are able to attract a credit union to the town, they have been promised this small town of just 360 people if they are able to attract a banking agency or a credit union back into their town, they will be able to reopen the garage; a hairdresser will come back into the town; and, the baker has promised that he will service the town again. Previously, now that the bank has gone, the baker will not deliver bread to that town. The people have to drive to it. So, a very good example of a very creative lady who is using the technology and courage, I suppose, to talk to people who really don't know anything about farming areas on the other side of the Darling Scout, which is a just a narrow hill range, I suppose, outside the capital city.

And now I'd like to show you some statistics about farm succession, which was very sobering. In this research that I've been doing the last year, apart from the newspaper survey, I have also been involved in this government grant to look at infrastructure. We sent out 2,000 questionnaires, which was non gender specific. Of the 2,000, we had a 60% return rate, which was really pleasing. And of that return rate, half volunteered to be interviewed. And I couldn't possibly do that. But, in the last four months, I have interviewed 67 families, and one of the issues that we talked about was farm succession.

Fifty four percent (54%) of the next generation did not want to come back to the farm. Fourteen percent (14%) of the respondents have a succession plan. Seventy six percent (76%) have been through a traumatic succession experience, and all said it had been extremely expensive. And what was most upsetting was that 14 families are still unreconciled after a bad succession experience. That means that there are no Christmases, no birthdays between grandfather and grandchildren, grandmother and grandchildren.

I think before I open it up to the floor, I'd just like to make several other observations that I think need to be said. Women usually have a family. Women are very important for a community. If you can keep women in a community, you keep a family, you're likely to keep a teacher a teacher is a likely daughter in law for your son. And this actually, as laughable as that is, one of the questions I asked when I was sitting at kitchen tables was, your son who has now come back onto the farm, where do you think he will meet a partner.

And so many families said I don't know, or they would say, look, he spends so much time on the road going to meet girls in the capital city or far away, we often can't afford his time away from the farm. Sometimes they couldn't afford the petrol. But also, I think 5 families 5 of those 67 families had lost children on roads at that critical age of courting, meeting partners.

I also met, actually this is an interesting story also, a potter. A woman who had wanted to have an on farm income that had nothing to do with farming, and she developed a pottery. It's the third biggest commercial pottery in Western Australia. She runs it still from the farm, and she has many seconds. At the end of the year, she sells the seconds. This particular district has not had a hospital for five years, and each Christmas she has a seconds sale and all of the proceeds go to the sister's post, the nursing post. So one person, one woman, has actually helped finance that nursing post, which is absolutely vital for that particular community.

Farm succession if I could just finish on this note also. Farm succession does have a direct impact on the towns. When a family breaks up because of farm succession, very often one of the families will leave the district. And that, of course, means that the school will be impacted in some way, but the health agencies will be affected, that the general condition of the town will, I suppose, be lessened. Farm succession is something that many women in my interviews were very concerned about.

If I could just finish by saying that it's very important that the farm succession issues and all that goes with it open communication, a sharing, allowing younger women and older women to share the soap box with you, is very important. So I think perhaps now it would be really interesting to hear perhaps there are women here who do live in remote areas that perhaps would like to share their experiences and perhaps give some case studies of interesting ways of communicating, operating in remote areas.

Are there any questions perhaps?

QUESTION: I relate very closely to this story of survival in the bush and succession. I grew up in Sydney, and when I was 18 years old and a nurse, I met an Northern Territory cattleman who was in a plaster cast in a hospital. And we wrote for five years. Fell in love through letters, and then I moved to the Northern Territory in Australia, and I now live on one of the most remote properties probably in the world.

My nearest town is 600 kilometers. My first years leaving home and leaving everything I was familiar with to live in a tent and to start a new station. There were no sign posts. There was no telephone for 13 years. And to love the man was not to love the land.

I had a lot to learn, and it took me a long time, and I'm still learning. I'm the mother of four young adult children, and so this is my passion now. I have a responsibility as a woman who survived. A mother. A wife. A cattlewoman. Hands on cattlewoman.

My third child is a 26-year-old son. The girl that he is seeing a lot of, and 600 kilometers to visit her, she comes and stays with us. They meet half way. And so, she has sign posts and she knows if their relationship and love continues, that she has to make a decision.

Is she going to be able to teach her children at home like did? I had 18 years in a home school room. Is she going to be able to cope with rearing her children without the extended family? So I say to we women who have fought, stumbled, struggled and survived, tell our stories, fly the flag and say to the next generation you can do it if you're not frightened of hard work. You can survive if you put the effort in, but it's all about faith and love and believing in yourselves. Thank you.

THM: That is remote, very remote. Anyone else got anything to add?

QUESTION: I would just like to ask the lady who just spoke, how does she shop, how does she do business from her remote area?

RESPONSE: I did talk more on a family side. We have 12,000 head of Brahman cattle on our 3,000 square kilometer property. And of course, they weren't there when I arrived. We had to develop the property and build up a herd.

We have to be a very informed, multi skilled workforce to survive. We have to market and we export our cattle. We are selling our cattle live on boats to Southeast Asia. So how do I do business? We have to have in our paddocks a product, a line of cattle. We have to have integrity in delivering a consistent product, and we have to meet the needs of the consumer. So we infuse Brahman over Shorthorn. The Brahman cattle is what has been in demand by Southeast Asia.

THM: I actually think that there will always be farming. But I think there has to be greater diversity. One of the interesting, I suppose, things that when I went to these towns and did the interviews, is that there are some really vigorous business people, both farming and non farming. But the shire workers, very often the people run the community infrastructure, are very often not rural people. They don't really understand the community. They are doing their time. And so often I came across examples of the shire thwarting really good business ideas. There are several towns, in fact many towns, these are small towns, where there is a severe housing shortage which just does not make sense. Huge spaces, tiny towns where people want to move to. They want to move there because there is seasonal work. There are opportunities for people to move there, but the shire will not allow them to build houses. The government will not support strategies to set up the infrastructure that would enable houses to be built. This does not make sense. There are so many examples, particularly on farm rather than off farm businesses, where mobile phones would be a real boost. It just makes so much sense to have a mobile phone when you have a huge farm. And you'd have to have someone manning the radio to take instructions from the paddock, so that supplies can be sent for; or you can be manning the phone because someone has to ring into the property to tell you something important. I mean, wasted labor, wasted time, wasted everything. And there just doesn't seem to be enough urgency about the need for mobile phones in the bush in Australia. I think there are opportunities for diversity. I think it's a great shame in Western Australia. We have only one rural university which has been a bit of a lame duck. It's too close to the city. There have been opportunities for rural universities right away from the city, and that would have been such a boost and great diversity for a town. It hasn't happened. There have been opportunities for industries away from the city that have not been taken out. I think there has to be diversity and I think farmers also have to be willing to accept diversity. And that hasn't always happened. One farming town that I went to has had a tannery set up, and the farmers are (INAUDIBLE) dreadfully about the added traffic on their roads. Well, the traffic is often their wives or their children working in the tannery. So, farmers do have to accept that, you know, diversity comes at a cost. Community growth comes at a cost. Or community maintenance rather than growth comes at a cost. So, there are things to be sorted out. But you really need someone like my friend Sally at this town, this potentially vigorous town, who is willing to stand up and be heard. And it takes an awful lot of courage, and I think she really has to be celebrated for doing that. When she herself admits that she doesn't have any children yet. She has the time and the commitment, and it was a way of getting involved in the town. And she, I think, probably has made some enemies in the process. But this is what I was saying earlier about being willing to share, and being willing to change. And change is difficult. And it's very easy for me, being academic looking in on farmers, rather than being part of a community. So I accept that it's very easy to be well I don't want to be critical but to have views that aren't as easy to put into play. One thing that does concern me, and this is not so much to do with all farm businesses, but where infrastructure there seems to be from the research that we have done, a really big division. There are the solid farmers who are going to be there for a long time. And then there are the built tashnas (PHONETIC) we call them, who have really had to pull their belts in who are living pretty much on the fringe. It is those farmers who are risking their land. They really overcrop. They use chemicals carelessly. Those farmers, they're a concern. They are really raping the land, and it was surprising how many there are that probably fit into that slot that was a concern. And it doesn't do the community a lot of good either. It was often those farmers, too, who would drive a long way to go to the capital city to get bargains, and will not shop locally, tend not to be committed to the community because they really do have to work so hard on their farms. So, there are those difficulties, too. So I don't know what the future will be, but farms will always be there. But I think there will probably have to be some diversity.

QUESTION: You mentioned a liberalization of the trade policies that the government has instituted. How do those farmers really feel? Like if they are going to talk to me, what are they going to say about what their government is doing relating to trade?

THM: Well, Australian farmers are very concerned that there has not been a level playing field. That Australian government has dropped subsidies, has encouraged farmers to work smarter, to work harder, and to be much more efficient. And farmers in Australia do get very antagonistic when some overseas governments do not facilitate equal trading opportunities. They do get angry. They feel that the European Union and America has made it difficult for them because they have subsidized their industries.

QUESTION: Those are probably the same comments you're going to hear from many, many American farmers, producers, I think. About our government (INAUDIBLE) they don't allow it. Playing on a level playing field, etc. etc.

THM: Oh, I see, right.

QUESTION: I'm just going to speak on a little bit of a different track that might be helpful with some of the succession planning. Within our state I'm from South Australia and within our state with recognized that there was real difficulty with succession planning, and our farmers federation felt there was this great need to encourage the younger generation to feel that they were part of farming and there was a future for them and there were assets that the could farm. So what we actually did was to lobby our government to ask them to take away the stamp duty on the transfer of land, because that stamp duty was huge impasse to the farmer. And that was actually discouraging the farmer from handing on his or her land to their next generation. So the lobbying went on, and we now have an exemption of stamp duty for the transfer of land to the next generation. Now that may be from grandfather and grandmother to granddaughter and grandson. So it doesn't matter, as long as its to a younger generation. Apart from that, people didn't know who to go about succession planning. So we recognized that as well, and we developed with assistance from a legal firm and accounting firm, a way in which we could deliver training on succession planning. And those groups of people actually went out to the country areas and delivered half day sessions on succession planning. They also, apart from that one company, we offered telephone contact numbers to other groups of people, independent people who would offer advice on succession planning. And some of those people will actually go out into the homes of individual farmers and talk about ways in which they can hand on their farm to their next generation. So, with some lobbying, it's possible to get your governments to change some of the ways in which the impasses are there to discourage people from handing on their farm. And we've got to get our younger people there. So it's actually handing on the asset to the next generation. Some of them have them set up in trusts so that if there's, for instance, a disagreement within the family, a divorce within the family, or some sort of disagreement within the family, the assets in the family trust so that they're secure. And the assets are secure, there's still a way in which a family can continue to farm. But I think with the lobbying to have this impasse removed, and also a way in which training can be delivered to the people in their own homes or in their own communities, as a way in which you can encourage this succession planning to go ahead. Thank you. And I'm about 15 minutes away from my little community of 400, and we think that we have no transport in or out except by our own car to anywhere.

QUESTION: I had a question, actually, for one of the ladies from the U.S. We always hear about these trade problems from our point of view. So, I was just wondering if maybe someone could elaborate a bit more from the American perspective on the trade issues.

RESPONSE: I can only speak with relative to I am a sheep producer from Pennsylvania. A small farm sheep producer, but I've been involved with the American Sheep Industry Association. So, I can only see how we have to compete in this world market with the European communities who subsidize their sheep producers to what, I think it's like 2.2, 2.4 billion I believe. I haven't looked at these figures for quite a while, so I'm not absolutely sure of that. And we lost our Wool Act a few years ago. So, we're losing producers and we're losing market share to New Zealand and Australia. So, in my own perspective, I feel like, you know, we're not being able to play on a level playing field. And I know that wheat producers, other commodity producers, feel the same way. So perhaps there is someone else of one of those type of producers that could speak more better to that.

THM: I know in 1995 the and this is U.S. dollars for every U.S. one dollar equivalent spent by a Swiss farmer, they were subsidized at 225 U.S. dollars. For every dollar U.S. equivalent spent by an American farmer in 1995, they were subsidized, I think, $78 U.S. equivalent. For every dollar spent by an Australia farmer, U.S. dollar equivalent, the Australian was subsidized $1.25. So sorry? I don't know about Canada. But, no this is overall. (INAUDIBLE question from audience) That's overall, yes.

And what happens in Australia is that you get say, the pork industry gets very upset because we have chief imports from Canada. But the national government says well that's too bad for you. We can't risk our wheat trade. And by upsetting Canada over the pork issue. And of course, on a personal level, if you happen to be a pork producer, you're sacrificed for the good of the wheat producers. And overall in the general scheme of things someone decides what's best for Australia. But, of course, on a personal level, it's very difficult. And obviously it's the same in the States. Some industries benefit from subsidies and others are being punished by free trade. I guess the answer is as individuals we have to seek out, go into the ones that are already not protected. That would be my view. Now, if I was looking for a new crop, to get into something that you can budget and plan for that you know ten years down the track they aren't going to suddenly reduce or change the tariffs. If it's free when you get in, then at least you can plan and budget around that. (INAUDIBLE question from audience) Well, you can't be sure of anything, I suppose.

THM: I'll have to meet you half way.

QUESTION: In relation to diversity in regional areas and more remote areas, one of the things that I find interesting is if there is some sort of an infrastructure there, businesswise, commercialwise or governmentwise. It's not set out to support any sort of diversity or emerging industry. If it's there it's an agronomist who knows all about cotton and what chemical you need to put on that crop, or businesses interested in supporting wool or shake (PHONETIC). But, if you start trying to introduce new things, you're really on your own out there. I mean, some of these people have done interesting things, but it takes a lot of energy and persistence and capital. What about some interesting schemes to get things started? Would that I mean, I'm not talking about loans or grants or subsidies, but something that helps you get that capital there is the first instance helps you become independent in the way that health services try you know, you generate independence by creating support groups and then back away from then when they know how to do it well. Why aren't we doing things like that and how can we do it?

THM: I'm so envious of the cooperatives that happen in North America, but we just don't have, I think, where we are, I don't think we have the numbers.

QUESTION: When I hear people talk about subsidies, it seems to me it's funny who counts. I've seen the '95 figures too, and they said that Australia was 12% and America was 28. But the Freedom to Farm Act is bringing down much more. That's one point. The other one is I would like to see some numbers on overall subsidization, i.e. social subsidization. Because American farmers have to pay property taxes to support schools and so on, and I don't believe that many other countries do.

THM: Well, yes, we have shire rates.

QUESTION: She was talking about becoming independent without subsidy. I'm a member of the Heifer Project International. And what we've got is like a little club going in our community that the Heifer Project come in, they give us this animal, they taught us how to take care of the animal, and then in return we pass on the gift by teaching other people how to take care of the animal, and they keep passing it on and passing on until eventually the whole community knows what to do. And because, like, they've taught me how to raise pasture chickens. And from where I'm raising them, I'm raising them different than anybody else in my community. I have taught several other farmers on how to do this. And it has made it worthwhile. We sale market our own chicken. We don't take it to the slaughter, you know, the chicken houses. And people are wanting to go back to the more farming, the more organic type of thing that they can get down at the grocery store. So there is ways of becoming independent and not having to rely on the chicken factories, because the chicken factories at one time were in Kentucky and in South Mississippi where I'm from, but they laughed because they could get a better market elsewhere, where you've got all these concrete buildings sitting there with nothing to do with them. So, we have become independent and can do it.

THM: That's by sharing isn't it?

RESPONSE: Yeah.

QUESTION: And I just wanted to make an overview, to give you an overview on the side of the African countries. Because we in the African countries, mostly we don't even have the proper infrastructure to have these business promotions. So, the only way we can really do business in these remote areas is to help our women to come together in groups and then produce something, sell it, then get the money. But this really takes some time. And because of the dependency syndrome on their husbands, sometimes it's more difficult. You find that even the money they get, they are going to have to give it their husbands. And we have this problem. And also, most of them don't own their own property. It's for their husbands. So, really making business in such circumstances can by really very hard. But, in my country we are trying to encourage them or educate them on small business management using the elementary or the basic ways. And this has helped in a way in some areas, some of them are getting adopted on it. But in other areas, they see it as a, you know, it's not in our culture. So even culture in Africa is more (INAUDIBLE) that sometimes it hinders the (INAUDIBLE) on making businesses with other people. Thank you very much.

THM: Does anyone else have anything to say?

QUESTION: I think I already used my time one time, but I'd like to make one comment. And it really has to do with this fine rancher from Australia. Because I have seen her success story in Alaska, and that is that she and her children and her husband may not have had money, but they invested a great deal of time and energy and have achieved success because they never gave up. And, in Alaska we have a large number of people like that. And we have achieved only you might say just above subsistence level in a lot of cases, and so we're at the stage of, for some of us are going cooperatively, and we certainly hope that's a success story. But we couldn't do, go beyond our level in some instances, alone.

THM: Thank you. Anyone else? Should we draw it to a close then. Oh, sorry.

QUESTION: This is probably a little bit more of a statement than a question, but if somebody can help me with it, it's personal. It's a woman's thing. It's a succession thing, and it's a tall poppy syndrome, although women being one of his worst enemy, what about the oldest child of the next generation whose a daughter, and there are two brothers who want the farm, and the daughter does as well. And the sons always get priority.

QUESTION: I can actually, probably encourage you to go through the succession planning that we have. Yeah, but it isn't just through Will. Most people think that if I Will my land or my assets to whoever, and if it's to your daughter, then the sons can take you to court and say why haven't I got it. With proper succession planning through these education days that they have, they show you how to divide it up equally so that everybody feels as if they are getting a part of it. There are ways. It's not hard if you all sit down, the whole family, with your independent succession planner who will help you make these decisions. But everybody has to be included in it, and I think you said that before. That if they're succession planning, it mustn't just be Mum and Dad or Granny and Grandpa talking about it, or the sons. It has to be all of them, and they all have to agree on what's going on. (INAUDIBLE) No, well, it is, that is very hard, but somehow or other if you can encourage them to come along and maybe you need to get your husband or your partner and your son to start talking, and with the mediator, or with the succession planner. And then they get the news and they are encouraged by some men. I mean maybe they need the encouragement through some men. But it you get some good men who are good their job, they will encourage them, that the whole family have to sit in there and talk about it. It is possible. We've had some really successful stories through this happening. So, if you want to hear about it I'll put you on to the people who can perhaps help you. Thank you. It's possible.

ANNOUNCER: Are there any more questions or comments? We have a few moments, so if you have something you want to say or any questions you'd like to ask, now is the time to do it.

QUESTION: I'd just like to reaffirm what Kay has just said. We've recently gone through a succession planning session with my husband and myself buying my mother and my sister out of it, out of family farm situation. It was difficult. We did have problems. We hired a very good solicitor who specialized in succession planning, and he probably saved us probably four times more than his account was. And when I say that, it wasn't cheap either but it was well and truly worth every penny paid for it. So, I just strongly suggest seek out the experts with this and it is possible. Even when you think that everything's fallen in a heap and you'll never get through it. Just keep on driving it and it will happen.

ANNOUNCER: Anyone else?

THM: I wanted to address the question to our African sister here about our governments starting to encourage cultural change so that women do have more equal rights in terms of property rights. Who is pushing that, is it just women pushing it or the U.N. or who's making the change. And I think that's also relevant in terms of women's ownership of land in developed countries too. We've just heard of a daughter who may not have a stake in the property, and also if a woman divorces, I think the story you were telling about that wonderful woman who ended up with nothing and she was part of that marriage. What are we doing to protect ourselves as women. So I'd like some comments from other people.

QUESTION: Our government is trying to push it, to see that the women are liberated from this. And, in Uganda, because I come from Uganda, our government is trying to change the law that women should really participate more in all sectors of the workmate. And this is why it has come up with this program of business management or business training of these remote women. That's one of the ways it can go through. And also our system of governors is really helping our people, or our women, in that women are being encouraged to be leaders, starting from the grassroots. So that they can, from their own leadership. Although they are not educated they don't know anything about civilization, but on that level they can hopefully (INAUDIBLE) for themselves.

THM: How are the men reacting to this?

RESPONSE: They are getting used to it. Because, we are really very grateful with our leader president. He is really very much involved with women programs and he really wants to see that women come up. Maybe I'll speak on this tomorrow in my speech in my presentation tomorrow. And it has really helped a lot because we have somebody who is up there who is helping us or is pulling us up.

ANNOUNCER: We have time for one more comment then we must bring this workshop to a close because the next one is scheduled for 3:45.

QUESTION: Thank you. FFA used to mean Future Farmers of America. It is still an excellent program. My daughter was an officer as a junior last year. It is up to us as mothers and dads to let our daughters know that just because there are only one or two females on boards and committees in this case, the officers, the girls do not need to do all the work. We have an excellent Vo Ag teacher, but this is what is happening. Right now in our rural areas. If the moms and the dads, and my daughter is fortunate. Her dad supports her. We have to be on top of it.