Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for August 30, 2012

there will always be farmers, and they will always be poor

They may be poor, but at least they eat!

My family were farmers and they were not poor. My paternal grandpa and grandma were farmers and they retired at 65 and lived a comfortable life until they passed away some 20 years later. They share-cropped 750 acres with a Quaker businessman. He owned the land and paid half the expenses and reaped half the profits. When we grandkids were older and gone, they stopped doing livestock and just raised crops for the last five years before retiring. In their younger days they raised hogs, cattle and sheep and had dairy cows as well as crops. Grandma had chickens and they always had fresh eggs and a chicken for the pot when wanted. They kept a couple pigs and a steer for themselves and had them slaughtered and frozen each year for their own consumption as well. They also had a nice garden and grandma canned everything that could not get out of her way. They did quite well.

My grandpa had a farm (still in the family). Never generated much money, but kept everybody fed. Then, the county offered to rent out a third of the farm as a landfill. Made much more money than the crops ever did.

Commodity prices and the population keep going up. A lot of farmers and their co-ops are determining their financial destiny now. Here in Indiana, 2 large wind farms are in operation. The farmers only lose about 1500 squre feet per turbine and get a hefty royalty. They continue to farm or pasture on the land.

With Gus owning the diner and it most likely going to his daughter when he passes, they have a built in customer to start with. All they need is a few more restaurants and they’ll have it made.

It is nice to know there are still farmers in this world.

The grass is always greener…

You are a born politician. They can take the smallest fact, twist it around, and then go off on a tangent with little evidence to go on. The facts have nothing to do with it.

@bawana—-I grew up on a farm years ago & I sure would have liked to have the farm life you describe. It was 24/7 & a lot of hard work. By the way it is not “SUBSITIES”, it is SUBSIDIES, & we sure never got any. Maybe times have changed. My dad had to often get loans until harvest time & then pay them off, providing we had a good year, which sometimes was not always the case.

Has anyone given any consideration to where the food would come from if there were no farmers or farms?

Don’t complain with your mouth full, farmers keep getting more and more regulations thrown at them every year and no money to comply with them. So it’s more subsidies and low interest loans. Heaven forbid some manure smell might get too close to some subdivision going up in what used to be a hay field.