I'll admit, I am protective of the interests of agriculture, and am often vocal about it. I was born on a farm, with my ancestors all being farmers. I married the daughter of a farmer, and her family still farms. I began farming in 1973, and farmed pretty much full time until 2001, working other jobs as well. In 2001, I started working at the post office full time, but still took care of the land I had that wasn't rented out. Today, I have cattle, and rent the cropland out to a neighbor. Even though I am drawing retirement money in the form of SS and USPS retirement, I still depend on my income from the farm. So, I am very much interested in the prices of grain and cattle, and anything else farm related.
Yes, we're screwed with our trade with China, and probably everybody else as well. We have shipped too much of our manufacturing overseas, and it's come back to haunt us. I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about trade deals, but I do know they can be very complicated. Farming never has been a steady way to make a living. It has too many ups and downs. The weather is either too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold. Prices are usually low if you have a good crop, and high if you don't have much of a crop to sell. Seed, chemical, and fertilizer costs keep rising, despite grain prices are going the other way. Cattle prices ride the roller coaster much like grain, and we farmers can't do a darn thing about it.
So, it does concern me when something the government does hurts the farm economy, and I don't think it would be any different if I were a steelworker, or in the auto industry, or anyplace else.......it hurts more if it's close to home. Maybe this will be a temporary thing, and something good will come out of it. Maybe Deere or Case-IH will lower the costs of the equipment, maybe the chemical companies will roll back their prices to 10 years ago. But, I wouldn't count on it, everybody knows that farmers will do what they've always done.......suck it up and go on about their business.
