This was printed today in my hometown paper. I think the author pretty much nailed it.Farmers of this country should be the highest-paid people on earth. They can make more and more produce come from the same acreage by using innovative techniques to improve harvests. They have learned to produce more food with less labor every year. Yet, they are some of the poorest-paid workers of America. Each year they plant, they are taking risks of losing everything because of too much rain, drought, insects, tornadoes, hurricanes, among others. We need to help them because they are vital to our existence.
We could live without lawyers, politicians, actors and so forth, but we cannot live without farmers.
They are the third link in our existence, after air and water. How much more important can that be? Too many middlemen take away the profits of the farmer and even make more money on his produce than the farmer himself. Everyone has their hand in his pocket — the tax man, the insurance man, the distributor, the fuel man, the trucker, the wholesaler and, finally, the retailer. He can hardly stay afloat. Try this little experiment at home. See if you can go a few days without television, radio or a car. Not too hard, is it? But can you go a few days without food? You won’t even think about those other luxuries when you are searching for your next bite of food. You would gladly pay whatever for your next meal. I would even think you might cancel those season tickets for some seasoning. The next time you see mud on the road coming out of a field, slow down and thank that farmer for working in the rain and mud. And quit complaining about your dirty car. Why, he’s even growing products to produce fuel for your car. The American farmer should have the highest respect of all the citizens in this country but is more often ridiculed as a country bumpkin, too slow to do any other kind of work. Instead, he knows he is doing the most important job there is, and he does it while getting no respect from the general public. There are no Academy Awards for farmers, no Emmys, no Tonys, no championships, no gold medals, no MVP awards, not even honorable mention — just plain old self-satisfaction is all that they get. So, next time you see a farmer, kiss him or her and say, “Thanks for keeping me alive.”
Phil Gremillion is a business owner, farmer, inventor and certified Cajun.
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