YOU may not remember Harry's brother Norm. Norm worked on the place for Ted for a few years before Harry came home.

Norm argued with Ted almost every hour and left shortly after his first wife left him.

For the past few years he has been contracting with spray, hay and grain-harvesting equipment.

He did his shirt in the 2010-11 harvest.

So Harry was not surprised when Norm showed up, bold as brass, and presented his new business card - Norm McNabb, "farmeopathist".

Harry and Norm's agricultural consultant sister Jill happened to be visiting and asked Norm what it meant.

Simple, he said.

"I work with clients using natural methods to increase productivity. It is a biological system and it works by increasing root-zone activity."

Jill's next question was: "How?"

"Well," he replied, "we spray very small applications of a product - I can't disclose its name yet - on the paddocks, and that gives an almost immediate increase in root-zone activity."

As Jill and Norm discussed the merits of his product, she became concerned that though he believed passionately in the worth of the product, there seemed to be very little evidence that there was an increase in productivity that justified the cost.

Though the product wasn't cheap, it was cheaper than super. Where it was recommended, it was recommended as an alternative to conventional fertiliser, and Norm had a conflict of interest in that his payment was directly linked to sales of product.

These factors concerned Jill, but she was more concerned by the lack of independent trial data supporting the product.

Norm had a draft of a glossy coloured pamphlet with some impressive growth curves and graphs that appeared to show that the new product was a superior product.

The draft brochure had some glowing testimonials from farmers who had used the product. But the other products were not named, the "trials" were conducted in one paddock in one year, and there was no proper control or comparison with conventional products.

To cap it off, there was no real financial analysis.

Jill also suspected a lot of these products appeared in the market following significant increases in the costs of conventional fertiliser.

She suggested that Norm should let her and Harry put out test strips in several paddocks.

If the results were encouraging, they should conduct some properly designed, replicated trials on the farm.

Norm did a lot of huffing and puffing, said it was all unnecessary, he wouldn't be selling the product if it didn't work, Jill had a closed mind, and Harry would do better if he listened to Norm rather than Jill.

Then he got into his car and drove away.

Jill sighed. "That's a pity. The product might be really good, but we need some hard data before I could consider using it."