Down on the Farm

May 15, 2002

I just love it! It makes me feels so good. No, I'm not talking about the farm bill -- although I want to review that next week. I am talking about the exciting, inspiring, beautiful experience of being down on the farm when the seed goes in the ground. I just returned from smelling the fresh spring air, the newly worked soil. It has a special smell to it. Watch the planter go back and forth, back and forth across the blanket of black land.

Maybe someone that doesn't appreciate the whole production cycle might not get the surge of adrenalin that I get. I know that that corn going in the ground will stand taller that I can reach in less than three months. And the golden kernels will be ready to harvest in less than six months.

Our corn is in the ground. Most of it is up. Soybean planting is all but finished. I know that prices are not good. I have sympathy for some farmers where the weather has worked against them this spring. Yet we all know that this business of farming is like rolling the dice.

I must give the pigs their proper respect. Those little guys are so cute. I'm afraid after they eat all that cheap corn and go to market that the price won't be very much better than it is today. Yet, there is always hope. Unfortunately it looks like the hog cycle, that has made it fun "to bring home the bacon" for the past two years, may be headed down for a while. I don't like down cycles. None of us do, but they have a way of cleansing the system of inefficiencies. That's capitalism for you. Winston Churchill said is best. He said, "Capitalism is the unequal distribution ofwealth, and socialism is the equal distribution of misery. In the real world there are winners and there are losers."

Anyhow, this crop is in God's hands now. We did our part. Until next week, I am John Block from Washington.