Here in beautiful East Texas, we were barely touched by Tropical Storm Beryl. It wasn’t nearly as bad as they predicted, and I am very grateful.
Others, however, like the melon farms further south, were not so lucky. Ahead of the storm, farmers were scrambling to harvest and save what they could before it possibly all went away with the wind or under water. Either way, not the season they envisioned.
Despite the Setbacks, Farmers Make It Work
Farmers are the most optimistic people on Earth. They’re also the most persistent.
And the most skeptical, because you see, they have to “make it work,” to coin a Project Runway phrase. If what they are doing is successful, they are not going to jump at the newest idea. They’ve seen too many so-called revolutionary products come and go. Some of these products – after years of hype – have fallen flat right out of the gate. Farmers are also very careful about who they take advice from and can take apart performance data from the get-go.
Being a Farmer Has Not Been Easy
It’s not been easy being a row crop Midwest farmer the past 44 years, except for that really great time from 2008 to 2014. Heady days, that. But farmers know the good times don’t last, so they prepare for when the pendulum swings the other way. I read the other day that farmers were holding on to corn because the price was so low (down 34% since last year). As if farmers have a duty to lose money!
Maybe they had read the USDA forecast; maybe they watched the weather; maybe they thought it has to get better. Corn in the bin is better than a loss on the books. Right?
I tell you, I’m tired of watching the USDA forecast go up and down, and the headlines talking about late planting, spring flooding, summer droughts, and how too much humidity is affecting pollination. And farmers are, too.
Farmers Stick to What They Know
So, farmers stick to what they know, experimenting with new things until they are proven on their own farms. They look to control the things they can and not worry about the things they can’t.
But you know what farmers can always use? A friend. Someone who cares about them, their successes, their problems. Someone who helps when they can, lends an ear, and a cold bottle of water when they can’t.
Now, I’ve got to go pick up the small branches off my lawn, ever thankful that it’s not the tall oaks in my front yard.
