Dirt, Seeds, Weeds and Farming

The smell of dirt turning over, getting the ground ready for planting in the spring, nothing compares to the feeling of anticipation before you put that first seed in the ground.  It’s called farming. With only about 1% of the population of our country actively engaged in farming, that feeling is becoming much less well known. For the first time, we are raising a generation that has never seen a farm field at their grandparents.  Before, nearly everyone knew someone who had been raised on a farm, but in the ’80s, when farming went ‘broke’ entire families moved away from the lives they had loved, many shaking the dust of generations away. Some moved away to cities to find work, some just sent their children to college, rented their land and told their kids to find a job that would pay something.  Unfortunately the dividends we are reaping mean that many people have no idea what goes into farming.

The 1% of Americans who are farming are feeding an average of 165 people per farmer, according to the American Farm Bureau.  That’s up from 26 people in the 1960’s. Only 8% of what we farm is sold by farmers directly to actual consumers. 92% is moved into production to help feed the world.  Our farmers have expanded their production, becoming more and more efficient in what they do, and how they do it. Thanks to technology, one farmer can do what it used to take five or six people to do in the ’80s, and what it took 40 people to do in the ‘40s and ‘50s.  Farmers have been using GPS to direct fertilizer and chemicals on their fields since the 1990s when microchips were implanted on the bottom of the fertilizer buggies to ‘read’ a field’s nutrition needs. With the cost of crop inputs, seed, fertilizer, etc., going up and up and up to pay for all of the innovation that has been developed, it has forced farmers to increasingly cut their bottom line.  According to the Farm Bureau, a farmer’s gross share of every dollar you spend on food is less than 15 cents, down from 31 cents in 1980, before the ‘bust’. To be more specific the farmer’s slice of a loaf of bread is less than a dime per loaf, 6 - 10 cents, depending on the price of wheat for that year. Farmers are going to have to produce upwards of 70% more by 2050 to continue to feed the world if the global population continues to expand at its current rate.

Farmers are ready to take on the challenge.  With the introduction of drones, driverless tractors that are managed by computer and GPS, a single farmer in the near future can do what it now takes 3 people to do, from the comfort of his pickup or tractor cab, with a tablet in hand.  And new farmers are going into the business, not at any great rate, but they are. With the new technology, why aren’t more people starting a career in farming? If you don’t own the land, equipment is extremely expensive to buy and farming is the ultimate game of risk.  A new combine is $350 - 400,000, a brand new 6-row John Deere cotton picker can set you back up to $900,000 or more with options. A good used one was listed on Tractor House’s website for $725,000. Their pickup truck is the least expensive piece of equipment that they own.  We checked out John Deere’s website that details the farming of the future - ‘FarmSight’ services that “support customers by providing integrated solutions to help drive improvements in productivity and profitability”. From a John Deere UK press release detailing the future: “The Operations Centre in MyJohnDeere.com serves as the central online location for farmers and contractors to connect to their machines and their fields. It also allows a wide range of partners to support customers in running a successful, sustainable and competitive business. These include implement manufacturers, agricultural input suppliers, software companies and agricultural service providers such as crop advisors and other specialist consultants.  Connected to satellites with AutoTrac and iTEC Pro, they benefit from automatic guidance and fully hands-free steering systems; connected to implements with Tractor Implement Automation, through the mobile phone network to John Deere FarmSight telematics solutions. With the JDLink telematics system, remote display access (RDA), wireless data transfer (WDT) and mobile data transfer (MDT) are available to connect all-makes machines and ISOBUS implements to the customer’s personalized Operations Centre through MyJohnDeere.com.”  With the customer’s approval, dealers can remotely connect to machines to update software, access diagnostic codes and perform troubleshooting.

Case-IH has AFS or Advanced Farming Systems software that basically does the same things. “To meet the remote operation management and technology needs of farmers in North America, Case IH has enhanced the Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) Connect™ farm management system, putting operators in control of their farm from anywhere. Through integrated solutions that link farm, fleet, and data, AFS Connect helps optimize time by delivering information to make informed agronomic decisions. Case IH worked with over 220 producers to develop AFS Connect, determining their data management needs and addressing them with cutting-edge technology.” per the Case-IH site.

“We created AFS Connect in collaboration with producers because we’re passionate about developing the technology our farmers need most,” says Kirk Wesley, Case IH Advanced Farming Systems marketing manager. “AFS Connect is an advanced data system that allows easy operation management and helps producers make informed decisions.”   

Of course, each manufacturer touts its brand's innovations, but both are connecting farmers with even better precision ag tools than ever before. Other manufacturers are working with this technology as well.  For example, Lindsay’s Zimmatic irrigation systems have been able to use a cell phone signal to ‘call you from the field’ if something went wrong with the system since the 1990s. Farming isn’t pulling a plow with a mule anymore - by a long shot.

You can control your inputs, your timing, even add water with irrigation, but you can’t control mother nature and the real amount of rainfall and weather temperatures.  You also can’t control the prices you get for your crops, and the way government regulation affects you. AND the younger generation of politicians is a part of the generation who have never been on the farm.  Kind of scary, that people making the regulations only see the final products in their refrigerators and have never gotten their hands into good old gumbo or a nice sandy loam soil. For those non-farmers, that’s not food or a type of beach, those are two very different types of highly productive dirt.

Another big bone of contention is the genetically modified seed.  Yes, farmers can go back to planting the original seeds that were in production in the 1970s. We still have those seeds. However, the weeds that have modified themselves will still be in 2020 mode.  Neither Farmer’s nor seed companies can change that. The processes that worked in the last generation to control weeds simply don’t work now. The weeds have genetically modified themselves. All on their own, outside of labs, they did it, completely without government regulation, too.  How dare they? It’s called survival of the fittest, and it is as old as time. The weeds that can’t survive against the American Farmer die, and those that do carry on those genes to the next generation. It’s the same reason people change, get shorter, taller, prettier, uglier, it’s all due to the genes we carry forward to the next generation.  Some genes are lost throughout the years, some mutate to fit the times. It’s how nature works. Yes, seed companies are changing seeds to withstand warmer temperatures, less moisture in the ground, all the things that are happening in nature, they are rushing the seeds to make sure the world won’t be without food. They are also cheating and trying to guess what the weeds will do to make sure the farmer has an advantage.

One of the newest cotton seeds for 2019 “has a good fiber package, root-knot nematode resistance, two-gene worm protection, and herbicide tolerance”, another is engineered for west Texas dryland and limited irrigation production.  It’s this work that allows the American Farmer to feed the world, and closer to home, feed our Tennessee economy. Across the country, while farming itself represents 1%, one in 12 of the jobs in America are created by using the products grown or produced on a farm - roughly about 13 million jobs.  From milk to soy, from diesel to ethanol, the American farmer fuels this country.

Photo Credit to Case IH