The Third Relationship 11was much easier. I benefited from a stable of tractors, combines, and
specialized farm implements. But even with the machinery, there were
plenty of other manual chores waiting to be done, including irrigat-
ing fields, hauling hay, picking fruit, cleaning ditch banks, feeding
and dehorning cattle. The more sweat I expended, the more vested I
became in the results.
While there were years with bumper fruit crops, an extra cutting
of hay, or more corn silage than what the silo could hold, what I re-
member most were the late spring frosts that wiped out a winter of
pruning trees. Or the countless hours we spent planting, cultivating,
and irrigating alfalfa fields, only to battle an infestation of boll weevil.
Or tending cattle, only to find one that would weaken at the knees and
go down with disease. Or the time a milk cow choked to death on a
bolus of grain despite our efforts to save her. I learned that no matter
the number of long days covered in sweat with muscles aching, pro-
ducing food was always a partnership with forces beyond our control.
I also learned that our farm was steeped in the traditions of the
past rather than the trends of the future. When my father and uncles
worked the land, farms like ours filled the landscape. But as homes
and roads sprouted around us, taxes on farmland started to rival the
profits it produced. Cities wanted tax bases that came from urban
development, not growing food.
My father foresaw that farming as he had known it was no longer
the viable occupation it once was. He pushed me to go to college but
did not dissuade me when I chose agriculture as my major. I still had
plans to be part of producing food, even though I didn’t know where
and how I would do it.
In college, I took classes from well-meaning professors who drilled
into me the idea that the modern food system was the only way to
sustain a fast-growing population and rapidly changing society.
Farming was no longer a way of life, they emphasized, but a series of
smart business decisions that maximized profit.
Financial success came from consistently ratcheting up productivity
to boost revenue while scrubbing costs. Chemicals opened new doors
to planting massive fields in a single crop. Antibiotics and hormones
did the same for raising meat animals. Those farms poised for pros-
perity were growing bigger by leveraging debt and participating in