Give Thanks for This Harvest

On Twitter:   #thankafarmer

Blake Hurst, the plain speaking and thought provoking farmer from Missouri, is back in The American today providing us all with ample reason to say thanks to farmers as we prepare to load on the turkey tomorrow.

Hurst pulls back the invisible curtain that separates today’s consumers from the real workings of a family farm in a fun and meaningful way that is worth a read and worth sharing with your friends.

“I had to laugh at a recent Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times, in which he had traveled back to his family’s farm in Oregon and was remembering how it was when he was a boy. But that idyllic time is lost, all lost, and Kristof concluded that farms have lost their soul. Or at least “industrial” farms operate at a soul deficit. I don’t know exactly what Kristof meant by the loss of soul. Reading what others write about agriculture, I sometimes think that what others see as “soul,” we farmers remember as grinding poverty and isolation. Does the fact that I follow the grain markets on my iPhone imply a loss of soul? If so, then this “soul” business is all cabbage, and the hell with it. Kristof and others constantly romanticize the life they imagine we live, or used to live, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. But it can be as sharp as a serpent’s tooth. But if he means a family, working together from dawn till dusk to bring the harvest in, a place where love and affection and forbearance bind the workers together, then soul still exists, and we’ve got plenty of it.”

Yes, the old scenic barns still dot the countryside.  But they often stand in the shadow of large metal buildings. They may lack the warm fuzzy-feelings of Americana but are far better adapted to house the large, technology-laden machines that still allow family farms to produce our food, feed and fuel that we rely on but often take for granted.

The aforementioned large equipment, satellite technology, computerized grain monitors, and modern grain dryers are all part of the tool box that allows family operations to survive and occasionally prosper. And make no mistake, American consumers recognize the value of these operations and plainly state this is a food production system worth valuing and protecting.

“If the movie “Food, Inc.” can be said to have a theme, it is that corn is too cheap. Cheap corn has led to industrial uses, cheap fast food, and, horror of horrors, corn fed to cows. This year’s harvest is bad news for documentary makers, because we’re bringing in a tremendous crop. Corn prices are at two-year lows. Author of Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser’s pain is palpable, but a big harvest should be a cause for celebration for everyone else. Farmers make the news when weather causes low yields and high prices, but plentiful and reasonably priced food is such a given that nobody but we farmers celebrates a great crop like this one. The rest of America should celebrate, and be grateful for the abundance that agriculture provides.”

So this Thanksgiving as you push you chair away from the table with a full belly be grateful for hard working American family farmers. And be careful about swallowing the load of bull that some agenda-driven elitists are trying to feed the public. Happy Thanksgiving!