55 Years And Counting From The Tractor Seat

 By bill whitman

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of feeling helpless. I’m watching corn float around $4.25 when it should be at least $5. Think about it, with the problems in the Middle East, why isn’t ethanol driving corn? Soybeans, floating around $11.30 when they should be over $12. With a shortage of diesel fuel, why isn’t soy-diesel driving the market. Do you see my point? We are victimized in an environment where we should be flourishing. Oh, you say, but look at wheat prices. How much wheat have you planted in the last five years? If you did plant any because of a couple of years of fair prices a few years ago, you have cut back every year because it just doesn’t pay. If you can double crop soybeans, you’re dependent on the beans to provide any profit for two crops. 

Over the past several years, I’ve heard ideas presented where with little or no cost to us, we can put pressure on prices by every corn grower holding back planting 10 acres of corn. Wheat with double crop beans makes a pretty good case for this theory. Then reality comes around and we must admit that you can’t get all the farmers to agree to unite on this and actually do it. I get the reason why, innately, we are ingrained with the need to get everything we can out of the land and livestock entrusted to our care. Another idea is to cut back inputs and other costs, cutting yields but closing the margins between profit and loss. Again, innately, we’re ingrained with drive to produce the most crop yield possible. It’s a matter of pride, even though it negatively affects our profit and loss margins.

Several years ago, I was a bystander to the ag-banks forcing dairies to establish risk management. I saw both sides. Banks didn’t understand that the dairies were already using risk management without calling it risk management. The bank representatives often had people promoting this practice with no one with experience in agriculture. The dairies knew more about the practical application of risk management to dairies but that you can’t ask cows to fluctuate milk production rations beyond a certain point, at the markets whim without hurting the cows. I think the dairies ultimately got their point across. 

All this is to say that we need to find a way to generate a voice in the economy that will be respected. I applaud the efforts of USDA Secretary Rollins, who is without a doubt the most visible Secretary of Agriculture we’ve had in my lifetime. She is carrying our message and not allowing a fence to be built between the government and agriculture producers in this country. In my mind, we need to find a way to help her take the message to a deaf populace who cannot see how close this country is to losing its most vital industry. 

This week I happened upon a article talking about one of the mega farms selling thousands of acres to pay off a billion-dollar debt. Just like Russia trying to import our way of running a cow/calf operation, they just don’t get it. So much like clergy and priests, farmers are “called” to service. We can feed ourselves and our families but there is something inside us that makes us want to meet the needs of our fellow man. This is an attitude that makes up a very small part of our population. I listened to a podcast the other day that said 76 percent of farmers and ranchers consider themselves people of faith. What does this have to do with carrying our message to the people? 

One way to help get our position out there is to support Secretary Rollins efforts to speak up for our concerns. To promote agriculture to the communities that think their food comes from Kroger’s. Afterall, she’s promoting our farms and ranches. 

Horse Sense: What value is a horse with no rider? What value is a rider with no horse? But together….