What is a farmer?

By Denny Banister

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- In this day and age of political correctness, we have to be very careful what title we use when addressing someone. Some women are offended if they are addressed as Mrs. or Miss, although never call my wife Ms. to her face.

Garbage men are sanitation engineers. Salesmen are account executives, Indians are Native Americans. Short people are height challenged. Giants are height enhanced.

Political correctness seemingly has no end -- until you get to the farm. A friend where I work pointed out to me recently that, in spite of how politically correct people try to be today, a farmer still wants to be called a farmer.

We toyed briefly with coming up with a politically correct title for farmer, but nothing but farmer was adequate.

The reason for this is a farmer has so many different jobs combined into one. What got my friend thinking about this was something he read recently which we are sharing with you in this column. The author is anonymous. I am always surprised when no one takes credit for such excellent writing. I hope you enjoy "What is a Farmer?"

What Is a Farmer?

Farmers are found in fields -- plowing up, seeding down, returning from, planting to, fertilizing with, spraying for and harvesting in.

Wives help them.

Little boys follow them.

The Agriculture Department confuses them.

Salesmen detain them.

Meals wait for them.

Weather can delay them -- but it takes heaven to stop them.

When it's time to buy a new truck, a farmer can quote from memory every expense involved in operating the farm last year, plus the added expenses he is certain will crop up this year. He instinctively converts the price to the bushels of corn he must produce in order to pay for it at today's prices.

A farmer is a shirt-sleeved executive with his home his office, a scientist using fertilizer attachments, a purchasing agent wearing a cap, a personnel director with grease on his hands and a nutritionist with a concern for energy values, animals and antibiotics.

As a production expert, he's faced with a surplus. As a manager, he's always battling a price-cost squeeze handling more capital than most of the businessmen along Main Street.

Nobody else is so far from the telephone or so close to God.

His greatest fringe benefit is that his family shares his business life. He's himself -- you'll never find him trying to appear as he is not.

Who else can remove all those things from his pockets and on washday still have overlooked five washers, a rusty bolt, three feed pellets, the stub of a lead pencil and an old receipt?

A farmer is both faith and fatalist. He must have faith to continually meet the challenges of his capacities amid ever present possibilities that an act of God (a late spring, an early frost, blight, tornado, hail, flood or drought) can bring his business to a standstill.

He is privileged to see the sun rise through smog-free air and to walk under open sky. His closeness to nature strengthens his faith. By his hand alone he produces enough to feed so many it makes his production capacity the envy of the rest of the world.

You can reduce his acreage, but you can't restrain his ambition.

Even when his spirit is low and things seem bleak, he can be recharged anew when he hears, "The market is up."

Denny Banister is assistant director of information and public relations for the Missouri Farm Bureau.