I heard an old farmer say, “You aint gonna get rich farming.”  This was blunt advice to a new farmer stuck with me.  Go into this with your eyes open…this life close to nature is challenging at best.  The paradox is that the old timer was encouraging farming anyway and welcoming to anyone willing to take the challenge.  He finished his statement with a small smile of contentment as he looked up from his work worn hands, “So you had better like what you’re doing.”  This is the best farming advice I could give anyone. 

The paradox is that this vocation is not one of ease or monetary gain. The agricultural life is physically and emotionally grueling punctuated with pure joy and contentment.  Don’t be fooled by the pretty pictures and happy stories on social media.  It is day in day out hard work and takes deliberate planning and fortitude.  But if you accept the challenge, it will be one of the hardest things you will ever love.  It will seep into your soul, mold your character and grow you in ways you never dreamed of.

I have been blessed to have spent most of my life farming and through the profitable years and the years that bled red on the balance sheet I have always felt a sense of contentment and gratitude.  I did not get rich, sometimes struggled deciding which bills to pay, but I always had healthy homegrown food on our table and to share with our neighbors. I always knew we had met each challenge that nature and life threw at us with our best efforts.

So why do it?  I do it because of the thousands of hours I have been privileged to watch plants and animals grow, knowing my labor was helping to create something wholesome and good.  I do it because of the many nights I have laid down an exhausted body knowing that I had done my part in making my small piece of this planet, we all call home, flourish.  Always I have known what a privilege it was to nourish the land while it nourished us.

I am not here to discourage you – far from it. I am here to encourage as many as I can to jump into the adventure called agriculture.  That old timer’s smile of contentment held a secret.  The wealth that comes from nurturing the land as it nurtures you back.