Looking forward
It’ just one of those things, you know what I mean, another year goes by, and a new one begins. Well, we are so blessed here in southern Manitoba, [where we live] and sometimes I think people take that for granted. I know I do.
On Christmas Day, I asked my brother Jack two things, will he farm another year, and after saying yes, I asked him what he would plant in 2017.
You see Jack has farmed for more than 60 years, closer to 65 I think. So, the question wasn’t totally irrelevant, but I also was pretty sure of what the answer would be.
I often talk about my 45 years in journalism, before that 10 years farming if I don’t count the days my father or my brother would pick me up in the old country school called Grossweide, especially during spring seeding time.
When I asked him what he will be seeding in 2017, his first quick response was not peas that’s for sure. The peas didn’t handle the wet very well, in fact I believe they had to burn them after the seed rotted in the pod. However, there won’t be to many changes on the Siemens Farm – basically back to the three-crop rotation, canola, wheat, and soybeans. I remember when we grew triple the numbers of varieties, and then varieties within varieties for seed grain purposes.
It appears that most farmers are making it much simpler and there is even proof I’m told that fewer crops makes it a little easier to make a profit. Input costs, carbon taxes, land prices, rotations, escalating land taxes because of escalating land prices, marketing, weather, soil conditions, moisture, and many more I can’t think of right now all affect the farmer’s’ profit and loss statements.
A huge crop in the United States, over 4 billion bushels of soybeans and over 14 billion bushels of corn. Not only does the U.S. have to market it, much of course remains at home, but logistics come into play and who with what hauls that bulk commodity from combine to storage, to processor, and end user.
Just days after the election in the United States I spoke to two of his agricultural advisors, a former secretary of ag under President Reagan, John R. Block and another one Gary Baise, senior counsel to the Trum team and both told me it would take much longer, in fact Baise said it would be in the third tier. Mr. Trump has two left to pick, Veteran Affairs, and the secretary of agriculture. Here’s hoping he picks the best to represent, and I’m biased of course, the most important department in the who U.S. government because we feed the world.
*** Just before president Donald J. Trump’s swearing in as the 45th president of the United States of America, he announced his long-awaited pic and nominee for the secretary of agriculture of the U.S. Mr. Trump’s pick is Sonny Perdue, a farmer, a businessman, former senator of the state of Georgia. He earned a Doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Georgia. As a successful business owner, he concentrated in agribusiness and transportation logistics a turnaround agent for multiple Fortune 500 companies. He served as Georgia’s 81st Governor from January 2003 to January 2011.
Like I said let’s keep looking forward, to do the best we can, help our neighbors, love our families, keep our promises, and look at that cup of coffee, and say wow it really is already half full. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator, and who gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus. Yes, and if the climate change rhetoric becomes a little much, think on this – the God who created the planet that we’re supposedly destroying also spoke into being the entire Universe will have something to say about His creation. •
