The world is revolving exactly as it should, so say the philosophers of days of old.
I have been writing about farmers and farm life for many years now, taking my first newspaper job at a volatile time for agriculture: the 1980s.
Although misconceptions of the American farming way of life certainly do exist, don’t you find it heartening to know that city dwellers ponder on and dream about something only farm folks have?
Dan Rather, in the mid-1980s, conducted a survey of the public, and it revealed that city folks desired the continuation of their image of the farmer. I envision this feeling as similar to the rest of us needing the World Series once a year to bring back memories of listening to the big game from a static-filled transistor radio in a dark bedroom.
At that time, farmers were struggling with insanely high interest rates, rising fuel costs along with steep costs of all inputs, every bit of which was pushing many well-established family farms very close to the brink of collapse.
A high percentage of Rather’s survey respondents at that moment in time felt sympathetic to the farming sector’s situation, and they indeed believed that farmers were harder working and considerably more moral than the rest of the nation.
That sympathy extended to political opinions, saying they believed Ronald Reagan’s policies hurt farmers. Most found it staggering that Reagan had proposed a $3.9 billion expense for an additional 216 jet fighters while single-handedly shooting down any measures to help struggling farmers.
A 1985 statistic from the state of Georgia showed that 2,000 farmers a month watched their farms sold to the highest bidder from the courthouse steps. Traveling newsman Charles Kuralt described the farmers of this nation as “one of the stubbornest breed of man alive,” and he was right.
The difference between then and now is this: the rate of return on the land farmers have relied on is now worth much more than ever. The sorrowful truth is that very vital commodity must be handed over forever to see its worth.
My dear aunt and uncle, both now gone, had a sturdy two-story home on land that most would have considered a nice hobby farm. My Uncle Howard was a highly respected homebuilder, considered a master craftsman.
We spent much of our childhood on that farm with our Steigerwalt cousins, where family gatherings at the pond hosted bonfires, volleyball games and sleepovers. My sister and I sat in disbelief at the auction of their 79-acre place last month, bringing just a shade under $2 million.
We watched as hopeful young people got up and left, seeing the starting bid way over their budget range. That is what saddens me. Hard-working couples today won’t ever realize the dream that people of my parents’ generation lived, not without generational wealth covering the gaping divide.
Is the world revolving just as it should? I pray every day that this country finds a way to protect our farmland so that one day we don’t wake up and wonder why it’s all one big concrete jungle.
