Why I Would Not Be a Farmer

Time was when most Americans were farmers. Today, about two percent of the population does an astonishing job of raising and harvesting all the crops that turn into an astonishing variety of foods that we take for granted. Our supermarkets are stuffed to overflowing and, given the abundance, so are a lot of us.

You know something is terribly wrong when the price of wheat at harvest time nets less than $3.00 per bushel, a price that is well below the cost of production. Many of us are paying about as much for a gallon of gasoline and therein lies the problem facing farmers today. Historically, it hasn

I was raised in the suburbs. My mom had a rose garden, but that, plus mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge was about as close as I ever got to grow anything. In the 1980s, though, I had the opportunity to travel widely throughout the nation, visiting farmers and getting to know what it was like to work long hours and still end up in debt because the price of wheat, soybeans, corn, and other products were tied to international competition and other factors beyond their control.

One of those factors today, affecting all of us and in particular our nation