JUST A FARMER

 

 

The other day I was talking with a farmer and he made the comment that “I’m just a farmer.”

I shook my head and told him there was no such thing. He looked at me with a puzzled look as I told him that a farmer is the only profession that I know of that has to wear so many different hats to get the job done because, if he hired everything done that he needed, he would no longer be a farmer because he would be too broke to even think about getting a crop out.

First and foremost, he is a meteorologist. Of all the farmers that I know, there is not a single one that doesn’t get up in the morning and immediately look out his window to see what the weather is like. After this, he turns on the local weather to see what the experts have to say.

I really think that checking the forecast is pretty redundant because they always disagree with them anyway. Spending so much time in nature, farmers can instinctively “smell rain” in the air, know when a dry spell has set in, “feel” when there is a big change in weather coming, etc. They pay heed to Mother Nature and her signs. So, why do they check the local weather every day? I think that is their laugh for the day!

Many of them are their own agronomist. Sure, they can have the local county extension agent come out and fine-tune what nutrients that their soil needs but, if they have been farming long, they know what kind of soil they have and what its strengths and weaknesses are. They pretty much know how to build their soil up to produce the best crops.

After knowing what nutrients their dirt needs, they have to be a savvy shopper, not only for fertilizer but also in buying seed. Consider that a few years ago, the average price per bag for seed corn was $280. If a farmer plants 26,000 kernels per acre, then one bag will plant 3.1 acres. If he plants 100 acres at that rate, he spends a little over $9000 just for the seed. This does not take into account fertilizer, equipment and all other expenses. Yep, he needs to be a smart shopper too.

So, once they get the seeds, herbicides and insecticides, they need to know how they all work together which requires them being their own chemist to some extent. They can save on costs by spraying their crops themselves for weeds and insects. However, they better know the correct time and amounts to spray or it could end up disastrous.

I know one farmer just last year who got in a hurry and forgot what he had in his sprayer and killed all the headlands of his soybeans and had to replant. That was a big oops in both time and money.

Going right along with this thought, he also needs to be a good businessman on the other end, when he is ready to sell his crop. I learned early on that when the market reports come on the radio every day at noon, there better not be a word spoken. A farmer watches these like a hawk. He can choose to sell his grain as he harvests it or he can store it and hope for a better price later on. He can even sell grain that he hasn’t planted yet for the following year.

Here is where he also needs to be a gambler. Selling a crop before it is planted depends on the weather; will there be a drought or a hail storm that takes out his crops or will he have a bumper crop? Remember, too, farmers only get paid when they sell their crop, so they are betting on their one and only paycheck per year. That is just a little bit of pressure!

Of course, the ideal scenario is to sell crops for high dollar while keeping expenses low. The farmer that is successful at this learns to do his own repairs, so you can add mechanic to the many hats that he wears. Much of the new farm equipment is computerized and so technical that only the technicians that are trained to work on them can which means when a piece of equipment breaks down, you are at the company’s mercy when they have time to send someone out to repair it. Of course, equipment doesn’t break unless you are using it, which is when it is time to be in the field. Every second counts for, as they say, time is money.

For this reason, many farmers choose to keep their older style equipment that they can repair themselves. Going this route though, the older machinery is, the more prone to breakdowns it is. It’s a toss-up for farmers.

If they do choose to be their own mechanic, they really need to be a jack of all trades. Usually, repairs involve some form of “heating and beating” so farmers need to be decent welders, fabricators and entrepreneurs. A general knowledge of how things work generally lets them “cobble up” something to get the job done and then they can get the proper part and fix it right. Remember, it’s all about time.

If they happen to be feeding out cattle, hogs or chickens besides being a row cropper, then they learn to be part veterinarian too. Like everything else, veterinarian bills are not cheap. When stock gets sick, it saves a bundle in time and money if they can diagnose it themselves.

Even routine procedures like de-horning and castration saves quite a few bucks when farmers do it on their own. Everything is as much about saving money as making money which is why a farmer has to be a jack of so many trades.

Everyday, from the moment when the farmer first checks the weather outside the window, it’s a toss-up what hat he will wear that day and what role he will play. One thing is for certain though, there is no such thing as “just a farmer!”