A couple of years ago, Indiana Prairie Farmer published an issue including several stories about bleak economic forecasts. A friend called to suggest we send out a bottle of anti-anxiety medicine with the next issue. The intent today isn’t to send you to the medicine cabinet, but it’s to address the elephant in the room. Margins are tight in agriculture, and tighter for some than others.

Two incidents a day apart shined light on the elephant. I chaperoned FFA students to a wildlife judging competition. We stopped for lunch, and a farmer, recognizing me from past meetings, approached.

“We must be the only business people around who would get ready to plant a crop knowing we were going to lose money before we ever put seed in the ground,” he commented. How do you react to that statement?   

There’s no denying margins are tight. Pay too much cash rent here, get a bad break with the weather, miss out on a marketing opportunity, and it could be another tough year.

I did recover enough to remind him I grew up in the 1960s, and I remember Dad selling corn for $1.20 per bushel. If he hadn’t made money milking, it would have been tough sledding.

Tough on dairies

That brings me to the other unsettling event. The Kelsay family, Whiteland, Ind., sold out their dairy equipment in a large auction held in April. The milk cows actually left late last year. Joe and Russ Kelsay are the sixth-generation farmers who made that tough decision.

There were dairy cows on that farm going back to the beginning. The farm was deeded to the family by President Martin Van Buren in the 1800s. Joe shared with me earlier that selling the cows was a tough decision, but that losses were mounting and would eat into equity. Besides chronic low prices, they lost their milk buyer when Dean Foods made changes a year ago. That move affected dozens of dairies in several states.

Joe and Russ’s grandfather, Joe, and my father, Robert, did business together. We had a small dairy, where we did make money in the ’60s and ’70s. I rode to Kansas City, Mo., with their father, Merrill, now deceased, when he won the Star Farmer of America Award. That’s a happy moment I’ll never forget.

My wife, Carla, and I were also 4-H leaders for Joe and Russ. So standing at their sale, watching the auctioneer introduce the family and begin the auction, was tough for me. I can only imagine what it was like for them.

They have a land base and will continue crop farming. Not all dairies that have faced tough times have been as lucky. For some, dairying was their primary, if not only, source of income.

Look ahead

So is the message “throw in the towel, the party is over for agriculture”? Not at all. The message is that agriculture is in a tough stretch, and everyone needs to work together to pull through it. The spirit of farmers is still strong. People need food, and they need milk. There will be brighter days.

The farmer from the restaurant will plant his crop, and hopefully he’ll figure out how to make a profit. For some dairy farmers, the changes will be more dramatic, but hopefully they will find ways to go forward. Agriculture is going forward collectively. Let’s hope it’s able to bring as many people as possible along with it. 

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