Not everyone has a car, owns a home,
carries a cell phone, can swim, knows the 18th president and can hum
“Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain.”
But everyone in this country, rich or
homeless, conservative, liberal, gray, green, black, white, brown or
yellow eats what we in agriculture produce; everyone, no exceptions.
Do those of you who farm and ranch think
about the lives you touch? Steve Jobs invented Apple computers, Oprah
Winfrey had a talk show that reached 7.4 million people five days a
week, J.K. Rowling sold 450 million Harry Potter books, and 111 million
watched Superbowl XLV… talk about reaching out! But everyday, every
person eats something you produce. Your contribution to their well-being
exceeds Hollywood, the Nobel Prize or their psychiatrist. The public’s
dependence on your ability to keep them fed is deeper than their need to
text, jog, work, play golf, or go to school. You are more essential to
their lives than their bookie, their broker, their drug dealer, their
teacher, their boss, or even… their best friend!
...I don’t mean to be boastful. I don’t
even expect the average urban Thanksgiving diner to remember the
farmer’s contribution to their day. Many praises will fall upon the one
who cooked the meal. That is due, but without mentioning the farmers who
grow it is like praising the painter of the bridge while the man who
designed and constructed it, stands in the shadows.
It is common to hear that farming is a
“Noble Calling.” That is flattering but its importance is much more
profound. I agree that what we who work the land do, is noble, but more,
it is as vital to their lives as air and water.
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