Most days they are up before the sun breaks the eastern horizon and they don’t get off work until it has dropped below the western horizon.
They don’t protest, riot or burn the local businesses if their candidate isn’t elected. There is little likelihood they will walk off their job in any attempt to show how the country would move on without them.
Though you will not find them striking, I would challenge you to go one day without being impacted by something they did, directly or indirectly.
Who are they?
They are the American farmers and ranchers.
“No problem,” you may say. “I can go a day without meat and grains in my diet.”
Not so fast.
To go a day without agricultural means no cotton briefs or boxers. You would not be able to shampoo your hair, put on finger nail polish or drive your car to work (Ag products are in the tires on your car and possibly in your gasoline). It means no leather shoes, no coffee, your kids can not use crayons and the list goes on and on.
The by-products off the farm and ranches across this great nation are found in every aspect of our lives. From our tables to our medicine cabinets to our work place, we have a long list of things that make our lives better thanks to the hard work of a farmer or rancher.
They are the backbone of this great country, the fuel that drives us forward. Over the years, our agricultural producers have feed this great nation and been the breadbasket for the world.
As a result of their hard work, Americans spend less of our income on food than any other country. In 2014, according to the USDA, 6.5 percent of our household income went toward food. Germans saw 10.6 percent of their income go toward food, while people living in Mexico saw 23.3 percent and those in Nigeria watched 56.6 percent of their income go toward putting food on their table.
Overall, we Americans spent more, an average of $151 a week, according to Gallup, but we are a richer nation, thanks in large part to our agricultural producers than other countries.
Our ability to spend a smaller percent of our income on food opens the economic door for us to spend elsewhere. With the money we didn’t spend on food, we can buy new clothes, computers and other items that help drive our overall economy.
The old saying, “If the farmers (ranchers) are smiling everybody is smiling,” is so true. The health and financial success of our farmers are a key element to our local economy.
Right now, farm prices are low and our farmers are not smiling. This means we as a community are not in a good place economically. But, as the farmer says after watching the white combine come through his field, hailing out the crop days before harvest, “There is always next year.”
They do their job and even though their pay is terrible, they still get up every morning. They work from before the sun rises until long after it sets. They don’t demand attention or throw a fit when things don’t do their way.
So the next time you find yourself behind a slow moving tractor or are disgusted by the smell of livestock, think about how your life would be if farmers and ranchers stopped their hard work.
Imagine what your daily life would be like without them doing all that they do with very little recognition.
If we actually had a day without agriculture, more than 20 million people, those working on the farms and those in agriculture related jobs, would be out of work.
To those of you who have already put in a few hours of work before I crawl out of bed so that I can enjoy my morning routine, to the farmers and ranchers in our coverage area and beyond, “Thank you.”
Brad Staman 