A Good Article With a Bad Headline

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After reading THIS WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE that I want to share with you, I have several observations.  First and foremost, the article is loaded with some very, very interesting data, and I'll share that with you in a moment.  The article highlights results from the recently released 2017 Census of Agriculture from the Department of Agriculture.  I want to apologize for the next two paragraphs in advance.  The headline of the article really put a burr under my saddle.

The thing that is troubling to me is the headline of the article.  I'm not making this up.  The headline is: "Advocates hoped census would find diversity in agriculture. It found old white people."  Old white people?  Seriously.  First off, why would your foremost goal be hoping to find diversity in agriculture?  American farmers feed our country and export food to many other countries as well.  Why wouldn't advocates hope to find productivity in agriculture?  Or profitability?  Or yield increases?  Or efficiency?  Or land stewardship?  Or growth in the number of farmers that are tasked with feeding our families?  But no, the author of this article seeks to make sure that agriculture has the proper quota or allocation of people fitting every acceptable race and gender - since everyone can agree that this is what makes farming successful, right? 

I will go out on a limb and say that when most people are hungry and go to the grocery store to purchase food, they don't care about what color the farmer was that grew their rice or sweet potatoes.  I don't care what the race is of the fisherman who caught the crawfish I ate last week.  It is of no importance to me.  It is only important to the race merchants.  Why is segregating us into different people groups (rather than Americans) so very important to them?  I'm interested to hear when the Census of Basketball comes out.  I'm anxious to see if the author hopes to find diversity in the NBA.  I'm curious to see what they find.  End of rant.  Sorry.

So here are some very good insights that the census provided:

"All categories of midsize farms declined over the past five years. Farmer’s ages skewed older, leaving questions about what happens when they age out." 

"The number of farm operations dropped 3.2 percent to 2.04 million. Total acreage farmed nationwide dropped 1.6 percent, while the average farm size increased by the same percentage, to 441 acres."

"Industry consolidation continued. The number of dairy farms dropped 15 percent from 2012, but the number of milk cows rose."

"The number of farms 1 - 9.9 acres has grown 52.4% over the past 15 years from 2002 to 2017."

"The number of farmers and ranchers below the age of 35 is also up, rising 11 percent to about 285,000. They’re thoroughly outnumbered by the 396,000 producers age 75 and older, however."

"The average age of U.S. farm producers in 2017 was 57.5 years, creeping up from 56.3 years in 2012."

"About 3.2 million of 3.4 million farm producers are white."

"Regardless of race, only two out of every five American farm producers (1.42 million) list farming as their primary job. Almost as many, 1.37 million, spend 200 days or more each year working outside of the farm.  With labor and input costs up and the total market value of products sold down, this census offers many reasons American farmers are hedging their bets with a day job."

Now, excluding the offensive headline of the article, the quoted data points above were very interesting to me.  What I got out of it is that few people wake up in the morning and say, "I think I'll become a farmer today."  Farming is hard work.  Farmers work 6 days a week and on the seventh, they're at church.  Dairy farmers are at it seven days a week.  Most farmers, despite working so darn hard, rely on of-farm income to cash flow!  The input costs are high, thus making it prohibitive for new farmers to get into farming. 

Most people are not keen into getting into so much debt in seed, fertilizer, land, equipment, etc. to put in a crop that is at risk to the vagaries of the weather, fluctuating commodity prices, political winds, crop disease and pests, etc.  When I went to work for a large corporation right out of college, my Dad often told me that my only investment I had in receiving a steady paycheck was the suit on my back and my briefcase, while he had an insane amount invested and wasn't even guaranteed he would break even!  Farmers do it because it's in their blood and because they love the land.

American Farmers, I salute you!

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