Let's all Point and Laugh..or maybe just Cry.....

Widely divergent

When I was a yearling a president was elected who said, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."

At that period in my life I thought that my paternal grandfather was the president, partly because his first and second names were Theodore and Roosevelt and partly because he looked a lot like the gentleman responsible for the above quote. (I guess the only resemblance was that they were both bald, but hey, I was a little kid.) Plus he was a pretty important man in my life, always willing to let me sit on his lap at the kitchen table while he drew stick horses for me. Oh, how I loved that guy.

Nowadays, however, the folks who feed the world....literally feed the world...plus grow fiber, care for land, livestock, families, and communities, are not quite as well considered by those in power.

Check out the contrast between the first quote and this one, from a surging candidate in the current presidential race.


"I could teach anybody, even people in this room no offense intended, to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.”


I could point out soil testing, seed varieties, weather, excess water, lack of water, fertilizers, weed control, and a daunting number of other factors involved in growing corn. Then there are the other myriad crops and animals raised by farmers and pests and plagues and problems that they face each day. Plus functioning in a global economy that places little value on their efforts.


We don't have land grant colleges for nothing. Farming is complicated and becoming ever more so.


For 20 points and a virtual Willkie button, who was responsible for these widely divergent statements about farming?

And here is a virtual Willkie button
sent to me by my mother.
Thanks, Mom!