Together separately ...

In Flakkebjerg, most technicians work in smaller teams, each with their own focus area. They do so, not because daily work is so much different than usual, but more because of the crops and the large area we primarily work with within crop health. It is a major concept that deals with both the use of pesticides, but also various methods such as weeding instead of spraying, as well as drones and robots and more. The division into small teams is something we have been working on reducing. Many technicians work in areas, where they do everything within the individual experiments - and that makes us vulnerable. Partly because it requires many people to work at the same time and use the same machines, and secondly it hits hard when there are staff who resign. It requires a lot of training, and it takes time, sometimes several years, before a new employee gets fully into it. 

During this lockdown, the task is not only to get the job done but also by whom and of how many. How do we get our wishes communicated to the right people, does everybody get all the information they need? In Agroecology, for a large part of the employees, it is a habit - of course - to be online 24/7 no matter whether you are in China, Viborg or Slagelse. But this is not the case for all employees. Skype meetings and such are not part of the day-to-day work of all staff of the department. Getting everyone involved is a big challenge in this situation. It is difficult to adjust to something new, and here I will refer to what I wrote earlier. What if we suddenly have not 4 people who are sick? We may find that an entire area that will suffer from this and no one will be able to take over. This is something we need to work on when at some point - hopefully soon - we come back from this crisis.

In Flakkebjerg and our other research stations, spring has arrived. We will be busy in the field. Sowing, fertilising and spraying are all work that needs to be done, and fortunately, it is primarily one man's tasks. The challenge is the tasks that lie before going to the field: balancing and settings that need to be done. Until now, we can make it work, people give requests for tasks to be done. The different teams arrange several weekly Skype meetings where all the tasks are reviewed. Some are working on shifts, some working in the field, others in a laboratory and again some at home. The challenge is, for how long?

I believe that everybody finds everything a bit surreal and we don’t quite know what to say. Do we open up to a new world when all this is over and how do we deal with it? Corporation issues are no longer just something you deal with at work, but maybe also within your family.  I think those of us working in the fields should appreciate working in nature and not in front of the computer while 2 kids are running on the walls because they cannot attend school and would like some much-needed attention.