Summer 1995
Wheat Screenings:
Reaffirming the Good Things about Farming
By Tracy Sayler, Communications Specialist
Minnesota Wheat Council
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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
Then there's farming. Hard-to-budge commodity prices, the last two scabby growing seasons, uncertainty of farm programs, and this past spring's ugly planting weather might have some questioning their "ag is my bag" vows about now.
Which makes it an appropriate time to reaffirm some of the good things about farming:
INDEPENDENCE -- You're your own boss. You call the shots. No one looks over your shoulder, you can't be fired and the decision to expand or downsize is yours.
VARIETY -- You're not stuck to a desk, routine, or assembly-line task every day.
TIME -- Aside from timely dictations of the growing season, you otherwise may begin and complete tasks when you want to with no timeclock or set business hours (except, of course, those who endure a no-parole, life sentence with dairy cows). Also, your commuting time is limited by only how far away your fields are.
CHILDREN -- To teach responsibility, work ethic, business management, and about life, there indeed is no better place to raise kids. In fact, a few urban and rural problems might be solved if the government had a program to pay farmers for voluntarily hosting an inner city kid who qualifys to live and work on a farm over a certain period.
FREEDOMS - Sure there's regulations in farming, but you do have certain little freedoms that city people don't have. You generally can burn garbage and build stuff without worry of city zoning laws. If you want to shoot a shotgun off the porch at that one barn cat that's been getting into the pickup and peeing on the upholstery, you can.
PHILOSOPHIZE -- Want to know the best place to think, oh modern-day Henry David Thoreaus? Forget ponds and try fieldwork. In fact, manufacturers should build little notebook and pen holders into the cabs of tractors, trucks, and combines to capture all the ideas and world problem-solving that occurs in them.
ATTIRE -- No monkey suits, neckties, or dress shoes required.
FREEBIES -- Admit it -- You've got more caps and jackets than you know what to do with. In no other occupation, with the exception of politics, will you receive as many freebies from people trying to influence you.
NO URBAN STRIFE -- With the exception of meeting slow-moving machinery or cows on the road from time to time, there's generally few traffic jams in farm country. Parking isn't a problem, there's less crime and the only youth gang activity to speak of is 4-H.
RECREATION -- Many urbanites shell out a lot of greenbacks and travel a lot of miles to do things which many farmers can do in their own backyards, such as hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling.
PRIVACY -- You're not awakened by loud parties at midnight or at 6 a.m. by the lawnmower from next door. You can walk around in your skivvies without worrying about the neighbors laughing.
So why do you farm? I've asked people that question point blank. After a one-line ha ha such as "must enjoy the pain, I guess" or "to avoid the hassles of being stinking rich," the subsequent reply has something to do with the satisfaction of planting and tilling the earth; from watching a crop grow and harvesting it.
The common conclusion boils down to either "its in the blood" or "you can take the boy from the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy."
Hokey cliches, perhaps. But in those words lies the key which keeps people farming, and they help explain the itch that in time will draw members of the next generation back, regardless of policies, price and weather.