Serving farming and farmers a real privilege

We’re into August and summer keeps slipping by but we’ve had some great summer days and early mornings and sunset evenings in southern Manitoba. While the yields aren’t quite what farmers had hopped at the time of this writing the fall harvest hashtag #harvest18 is underway. It seems there are uncertainties in the farming world just like in anyone else’s world.

We have carbon taxes coming from those who pretend to claim it in the name climate change and saving the planet, but it’s a tax grab. There is a president in the USA who feels there needs to be a reckoning when it comes to global trade, so he exposes unfair trade agreements from his perspective. And tariffs and non-monetary trade barriers are causing fear and angst amongst those who feign concern and those who it hurts, at least in the short term.

Having farmed for ten years before and now working and observing as a farm journalist and farmers’ advocate for 47 years, I have seen most of it come and go, but I don’t belittle for one moment the rolling clouds on the horizon. Whether hogs, cattle, grain and special crops, farming is a stressful and high-risk business, it’s also the most vital and primary industry this side of Heaven and privileged to serve it faithfully for so many years. You see my farmer father tilled the soil and taught me the basis of feeding the world started with a clean field at home. Yes, the 1,000-acre farm in 1960 was massive, but dad wasn’t content in the status quo. I remember him buying/renting one quarter section farms from neighbours on several different occasions, applying his learned farming skills, unheard of crop protection products including nutrients and chemicals that killed and controlled weeds. Bingo – the yields almost doubled in the first year he farmed that newly acquired soil. Now there must be something wrong or even further thinking produced unheard jealousies from lifelong neighbours. They soon understood, however, had dad not applied those practices he could not have paid them a right price for their farm allowing them to retire to town.

I also understand what people who lose loved have gone through because I lost my wife of nearly 50 years to cancer on May 18. Being a man of faith and Judith’s being even stronger, I’m coping reasonably well. Her faith kept her strong to the last second as she left her family, pain and temporary surroundings to meet her Jesus face to face. Her strength makes me strong, most days, and I’m saying the strength of our farming communities continues to keep us all strong too. Throw in a stable dose of faith in a living God who created the Universe and you and me, who doesn’t make mistakes, and we’re good to go. Happy farming my dear friends. •