I saw an ad in the local paper saying “we sell Farmland”. It struck me as such an over simplification. It should have read, “We sell the lifetime hopes and dreams of a farmer.” March is the month most farmland is sold. Land transactions are completed before the crop season starts. This last year has seen a 26% increase in the price of farmland over the previous year. Not sure the price of crops and cost of inputs makes that logical.
It may seem like a simple sale, just a business deal for the ever expanding and enlarging farms. But for a farmer, land is their lifeblood. They are intimately attached to it. They raise their crops, livestock, families and dreams in the land. They care for it and it rewards them with its bounty. It is planted in hope, cultivated in hard work and harvested in thankfulness. Some years the return is meager, some years plentiful.
When I grew up there were small farms everywhere across the county. Little family run businesses that provided a good living and a great lifestyle. No better place to raise a family. The kids went to the local school, the parents patronized the small-town businesses, dads and moms were active in the community in a myriad of ways.
I was blessed to grow up on a small farm and I was fortunate to raise my children on a small farm. My daughters played with barn cats, raised calves, operated machinery and even learned that the little pig they fed daily and named “Porker” went to the butcher shop in the livestock trailer and came back in freezer wrap.
My great grand-father broke this land with a horse and plow. I often thought about him listening to the birds sing as the horses pulled the steel wheeled implements across the field. I covered the same ground in a John Deere diesel powered tractor, while listening to the radio. I had it easier than he ever dreamed.
In the end, one gets old and decides to hang up his farm hat. You smell the dirt being worked in the spring and feel the draw of the land. You smell the fresh scent of corn at harvest and remember the pride of a good harvest. Each year farmland will be sold and change hands. The land is timeless. It will produce another crop. Someone else will farm the land. You doubt that they will take care of it like you did though.
