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AS GOES THE FARM
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SOGOESTHE
T
HE
WIZ–
E NED
old
gentleman
brushed the sweat
off hi s tanned
for e head and
looked hard at his
friend.
" Y o u
know ,
by
Michael A. Snyder
fuel-guzzling power
tractors would ever
have shortage prob–
lems with the thou–
sands of gallons they
need-every year.
Dean K leckner ,
president of the Iowa
Farm Bureau, com–
mented on the prob–
lem this way: "AII
these economic prob–
lems have culminated
'
.;¡
to make this the most
-:1
serious crisis on the
~
~
farm since the Great
2 Depression."
~
I n the United
Flavius, 1 just can't
make it anymore.
Evc rytime 1 take
my s tock to mar–
ket , one of the big
boys undersells me
a nd 1 take a loss."
Flavi us nodded
and said, " Yes, I
~
S
tates, the typical
.________________________
_.~
view of the farmer is
know." Swallowing hard, he added,
"That new property tax pushed me
back in the red-just when 1
thought 1 was going to break even!
My broker is coming out this after–
noon to look ovcr my Jand . 1 guess
it 's
j
ust a matter of ti me befare that
big cong lomerate down the road
swallows me up."
Sound Jike farmers today? Well ,
consider. The sett ing is actually in
the late stages of the Roman
Empire!
History reveals, not surprisingly,
that taxes, big business and foreign
competition eventually forced small
Roman farmers out of business. And
as internal corruption and other
restraints
~hackled
Roman agr icul–
ture, other national problems ground
the country down until ... of course,
you know the story.
Hlstory Repeating ltself
Today, a popular bumper sticker
seen widely in the midwestern
October / November 1981
United States reads: "Farming is
everybody's
bread and butter."
And in this mechanized, mate–
r ial-oriented Western world, there
is no truer statement! Many have
heard the joke about the little girl,
who upon visiting a farm for the
first time, asked her mother why
these people didn't just buy all
their food at the grocery store.
Few realize today that the
Western agricultural world is
gripped in a prophetic crisis near–
ly parallel to the Great Depression
of the 1930s! Look at the situation
in t he United S tatcs- a nation
widely considered to be the bread–
basket of the world.
Chemical fer tilizers were hailed as
the miracle of the century in the
1950s and 1960s. Farm production
doubled and tripled from the artificial
stimulants. The only problem was
that nobody thought the world would
ever run short of oil- the main ele–
ment of chemical fertilizers. Or that
of an old sage pecring
out from a tattered straw hat. But
in reality, the individual American
farmer must be a sophisticated
businessman armed with multiplc
tens of thousands of dollars in
equi pment that may include com–
puters and complex testing gear.
Thc da llar value of the eq uip–
ment nceded to
s tart
a farm would
boggle most minds. Buyi ng two
tractors, a combine to harvest the
crops and related equipment costs
more than a
good-sized farm
did 15
years ago. And can you imagine
paying the interest at today's rates
on thc loans to purchase all that
equipmcnt?
Now you can begin to see what
farmers face when drought strikes,
or when grairi líes unsold because of
an international grain embargo. And
on top of all this, urbanizat ion of the
United States now claims territory
roughly the size of Connecticu t
every year!
A former U.S. Secretary
of Agricul ture observed that an area
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