55 Years And Counting From The Tractor Seat

By Bill Whitman 

The season of Covid-19 provided my wife and I the opportunity to spend more time together. As the virus became widespread, we resolved to spend our time on the farm in the clean fresh air and try to limit our exposure to the virus. What has happened as a result is that rather than my wife going to the grocery store to do our shopping, we started going together. This led me to experience the sticker shock of grocery shopping! When we ring up the total of what might be two or three grocery sacks and it adds up to a couple hundred dollars, it doesn’t take long to experience “sticker shock”. 

The problem I see revolves around the cost that we pay and the hands that get a cut between the producer and buyer. I can’t remember a time when I could comprehend spending $28 for a package of paper towels! Or how about $20 a pound for roast when fat cattle bring $1.78 a pound. No matter how you look at it, there’s a lot of money going somewhere when the producer is only getting a little over 10 percent of the cost of sale and bears most of the expense of production.  

Farmers and Ranchers represent a very small percentage of our population, but our responsibility is immeasurable. That said, shouldn’t our voice be heard and respected? I can’t remember which president said it, but I remember the essence of his words. He feared when Congress didn’t have farmers and ranchers as members, because at the very heart of agriculture are people with the ability to make practical and long serving direction for a Country dependent on sound decisions. 

So how do we in agriculture make our voices heard. Social media is one of the most effective right now. I encourage those who utilize social media to be responsible with their content. In the six states Farm World serves, I can find no less than 150 Farmtuber’s on Youtube with 6 or 7 major channels within an excess of 100,000 subscribers. Several of these channels transparently show the inside of agriculture. They demonstrate the struggles farms and ranches endure daily, whether financial or physical. 

Just today, I saw a very popular steakhouse is raising their prices for the third time in the last 12 months. Their explanation was that the price increase, this time, is due to the “inflationary pressures” they anticipate in the next few months. Personally, based on my wife’s and my most recent trip to the grocery this week, the next few months are here. 

Being active in agriculture and possessing a farmer’s rationale, I look for opportunities rather than lamenting things beyond our control. Hopefully, implementing some changes to the way we do things and decisions we make, we will eke by during these troubling times. It seems that every one of us needs to be aware of every perspective that affects our businesses. When we see the inequities, we need to ask questions and demand answers. We need these answers to survive.   

Finally, let’s be willing to investigate for ourselves and learn what is directly and indirectly affecting our businesses. Doing this will give us the opportunity to search for and find opportunities to save or create the dollars needed to live to fight another year. So, take the time to go to the grocery with your family to see the realities of inflation that agriculture, at least the producer is not benefiting from. Then you can plan accordingly. 

IndianaAg@Bluemarble.net