Your passing this month was very hard.  I knew you had a bad heart, but things seemed pretty good lately.  It was a little surprising you left us so soon, though, at nearly 89, I guess they would say you had a good run.

Of course, it wasn’t long enough for me, and lately, I’ve had a rush of memories of you on the farm.  We could be on the back side of the quarter section when you would let out your special ‘woohoo!’ from the house at a decibel level and tone that would reach across the acres to bring us home to dinner.  You and Dad would sit at the dining room table and work on all the fertilizer bills, farm planning, etc. together, to make the best out of 800 acres of Kansas farmland.

You were also ahead of your time.  There weren’t a lot of  ’working mom’s’ in those days, but your work at the nearby town bank gave us the ‘extras’ we all had as kids, while the farm provided the basics.  It didn’t seem we were rich, but it always seemed we had what we needed.  You made sure of that, and I’m grateful.

Working never stopped those Sunday fried chicken dinners for the family, or the pies, oh the pies you would make for the local church suppers, while you always had an extra one or two for home.

There’s so much more.  The games and the plays you always attended with Dad during school, the regrets of dropping piano lessons to play football, when I probably could have done both.  You were always proud of me and I knew that, and you loved family, especially when a huge group could gather on the farm.  I remember you crying when Dad broke his knee after being thrown from a horse, and the neighbors brought in twenty or so tractors and drills to get the wheat planted.  You loved that farm community and the people.  They were real, they were caring, and that has never changed.

I was glad you and Dad were able to travel in later years.  After being on the farm most of your life, places like China, Hong Kong, Russia, Europe, Hawaii and all over the continental U.S. were great adventures for you.  Thankfully you did it when you were both young enough and healthy.  I remember you told us you were spending our inheritance, but we didn’t care.  You sacrificed a lot, and it was wonderful to see some reward.

The sunset I described to Mom

It almost seemed fitting I was in Hawaii when we got the call you had taken a downward turn.  Of all your travels, Hawaii was your favorite.  I was wishing you were there as I described to you on the phone where we were, with the sunset, the ocean waves lapping the shore, beautiful flowers and the palm trees swaying.  It was your thing.

You never wanted me to play football, and I completely trashed my knees doing it.  It’s why I wonder.  We had arrived at the beach for stand-up surfing lessons when we got another call that you weren’t doing well.  It was clear we needed to come home early.  Any kind of surfing at my age may not be such a great idea.  Did you, just one final time, bring me home before I did something stupid?  I’ll always think so.

There are so many people that are missing you, and you can count me at the top of the list.  Thank you for being such a great farm lady.  Thanks for the love of the country and its people you helped instill in me.   Thanks for being my Mom.

Love,

Your son

Getting ready to unload on the go

Harvest is a tremendous time of year.  Growing up on a farm, and now working in town, harvest is an annual event I so look forward to.  It gets my mind clear.  I love the open air and space, I love reconnecting to a unique and wonderful group of people who grow food for all of us.  These people are the salt of the earth.  Their values, their caring for each other,are a tremendous boost whenever I’m there.

So, when our tenant called last Friday morning and said the corn dried out earlier than predicted, and they’d be in our field in the afternoon, I called my wife, we loaded up, and headed to the farm.

As we happily drove, with excited anticipation of being on the combines, tractors and trucks, watching the culmination of the miracle of growth of a crop, we saw some sobering sites.  As we passed many fields on the way to our own, we saw that this year would be different.  Farming in SC Kansas, we were on the edge of the severe drought that hit the Midwest this year.  We saw dryland and irrigated crops that didn’t look like year’s past.  We knew what that meant.  Many farmers would struggle this year.

Making room for more

What we also knew was ours was far from the worst.  Further west in Kansas, and into Oklahoma and Texas, many farmers had nothing.  The further we went, the more we reflected on our fortune.  No, we wouldn’t have the crop of past years, but we were blessed to have what we did.

We made it to the farm, rode the combines, tractors and trucks, and watched the corn flow.  It was still a wonderful harvest, but we did take time to talk about and ponder what could have been, and what was reality just a few miles west and south of our farm, as well as some who were not as fortunate right in our area.

Farming can be a teacher for all aspects of life.  When we think we don’t have what we want or all we’d like, we should consider others, who would be ecstatic just to have what we have.  We always try to count our blessings.  This year some of those blessings came in small yellow kernels a lot of good people didn’t have.  Take some time to count your blessings.  I’m betting you have more than you think.

Before I continue, I must say that I believe one of the greatest words in the English language is ‘balance.’ So understand that I believe there is room for all kinds of agriculture.  I just don’t like it when one group misleads the public about another to boost a self-serving agenda.  Yes, I realize not all do, but some with large pocketbooks certainly are.

Just today, I learned of a new video from Chipotle, the burrito-making bunch.  It has some great music (though it’s sad Willie Nelson is drinking the cool-aid) with a well-done animation of a farmer, who is putting animals in fences and buildings, then sees the ‘error of his ways’ and releases them all, into this nirvana of open pasture, much to the delight of Chipotle.  The purpose and message behind the video and the Chipotle website is what they call ‘Food with Integrity.’  Well, to make their claim, they say, or imply, you must never use hormones or antibiotics, fencing or housing animals is not caring for them, and a host of other agenda-driven hype.

I can spend a lot of time talking about science-based and practical reasons why housing animals save many of their lives annually, especially this year during the heat and drought.  I can talk about predators, prudent use of antibiotics, the ‘natural’ presence of hormones, and a lot more about animal welfare and food safety.  But my real concern goes beyond all this.

I am concerned that the consumer is getting inaccurate and misleading information on purpose.  If  ’modern’ or ‘traditional’ agriculture isn’t torn down, then other forms cannot be nearly as successful.  So, at whatever the cost, the public is being misled by some to believe that if a hog is housed, the farmer doesn’t care about its welfare, when actually just the opposite is likely true.  Hey Chipotle (and others this applies to), lying about food production hardly sounds like ‘Food with Integrity.’   It seems before we blindly accept ‘marketing to the consumer,’ we must continue and improve our effort to provide the consumer the truth.

Our family has a farm in SC Kansas.  We grow corn, soybeans, wheat and milo.  About half of the farm is irrigated, the other half dryland.  It can boggle the mind of some not familiar with agriculture to grasp the investment, and risk, our tenant and others like him have made in equipment, seed, inputs, etc.  just to put in a crop.  Depending on the size of the operation, it could reach millions of dollars for tractors, combines, irrigation systems, planters, trucks, grain carts, etc. etc.  That does not include hired help, fuel, and the many other expenses included in operation of a farm.  If all is perfect, can he make some money?  Yes.  But take a look at the pictures here.  That’s far from perfect.

This year, many farmers in the areas mentioned above will lose a substantial amount of investment.  Not only that, their loss will translate into less for grain handlers, trucking companies, livestock operators, local groceries, local machinery dealers, local pickup and car dealers, local charities, and the list continues.

It’s been estimated by USDA and others that nearly 20% of the nation’s workforce through processing, packaging, transportation, retail, etc. is directly tied to agriculture.  That’s why urban residents can go to the nearest grocery store and have a bountiful supply of food ready to simply put in their cart.

It’s easy to take our food, and the people who grow it, for granted.  It’s worth taking a minute, especially this year, to understand many of those dedicated farmers will not have a successful year, that their investment has literally burned up before their eyes.  While much is already lost, much more could be if the rains don’t come soon.  You see, even irrigated crops need rain, and it’s so dry in some areas, even irrigation isn’t enough.  And high prices for crops don’t do much good if you don’t have the crop to sell.  So, remember these struggling farmers and ranchers this year, and say a prayer for some rain, they really need it.

But I had that all put aside as I read a story today about ‘real’ agri-culture.  It was the story of the kind of people I grew up with, the kind who have faith, who put their neighbors ahead of themselves, who believe in serving others in their community.  People who just have an embedded culture of  true ‘good’ that most can’t comprehend. Many others out there who grew up on farms in the Midwest and other places will know what I mean.

This story is from the Salina Journal newspaper in Kansas, and chronicles a day in the life of agri-culture.  Neighbors, friends and family coming together to bring in the harvest for a community member unable to do so.  It was a special site to a man and his family, to have multiple combines, trucks, and so many people bring in his harvest in a fraction of the time he could have, even if he wasn’t recovering from neck surgery.

Want to know what else?  Cargill, you know, those horrible ‘big ag’ people, helped supply semis, the co-op dove into their ‘big ag’ profits and supplied fuel, and the local ‘Papa John’s’ Pizza donated food.

Another reason this story ‘hit home’ so much.  It’s deja vu for me.  When I was 10, my dad was thrown from a horse, and broke his knee.  He ended up with bolts and screws in his joint to hold it together.  Some remained the rest of his life.  It was wheat planting season.  He couldn’t do it.  But when the neighbors learned of his accident, we had about 20 tractors, drills and food coming in from everywhere around the community.  Our crop was planted, we all had a huge community meal to celebrate, and it was a humbling and amazing experience I will never forget.

In all the hoopla of the present-day world, and all the ‘cheap shots’ taken at agriculture these days, it was so refreshing to know, decades after a special time in my life, that the real farmers and ranchers who feed this world haven’t changed.