Dear Editor,

Your story “Kindle hope this wintertide” [December 2019, The Farmer] was very appropriate. I have worn many hats in my agricultural career.

I am asked questions about what checkoff programs are accomplishing. People question why all our inputs are at a level higher than they were when corn was $7 per bushel.

Why are rents so high when the people collecting the rent do not even have to pick rocks? Do those people in the metro area eating at a fancy restaurant know what those farmers are going through this fall making sure they have good food to eat? Why are the weather people on radio and TV so excited when they report record cold, record rainfall, record snowfalls, etc.? Are those politicians arguing about impeachment really getting paid? Is anyone in St. Paul or Washington, D.C., doing anything?

In the quiet of the tractor cab or the truck cab, this is what is going through most farmers’ minds.

Your viewpoint was taken very seriously by me and I started making my own list of things I am thankful for. My list included family, especially grandsons, neighbors, college friends, the opportunity to farm, working with “Mother Nature,” my pets and animals, good health, good crops, the freedom to do what I want in a free country, memories of farmers that have gone before me, etc.

My list has gotten pretty long and the other continuously bad things that I encounter everyday do not seem so bad anymore.

Thank you for this story and for all the information The Farmer brings to many farmers every month. I know that The Farmer was good to my dad and my grandmother in good times and in not so good times.

We are still here and plan to plant the Anderson’s 150th crop again next spring.

Harlan Anderson,
Cokato, Minn.