A24-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 20,1986
Editor’s Note:
As reported last week, the
Mennonite church held a special
seminar in interest of the current
agricultural, financial and farm
family displacement problem.
Held at the Laorelvllle Mennonite
Church Center in western Penn
sylvania, the seminar was titled
Faith and Farming HI. Howard
Brelineman, former President of
die Heaston Corporation, was a
keynote speaker.
In part one of the two-part series,
Brenneman outlined his thoughts
on where agriculture has come
from and why die present crisis
exists. This week in part two we
report Brenneman’s ideas on
where agriculture is going and his
answer to some of the needs of the
inevitable displacement of
families off the farm.
Here’s Part II of “The
Renaissance of North American
Agriculture.” Keynote address by
Howard Brenneman.
There is a whole lot of land out
there to lease. I tell the people
coming out of ag college now is the
best time to go into agriculture. I
know. You couldn’t possibly come
out of college unless you had a rich
father or a rich father in law or
whatever in the ’7os and get into
agriculture. The premium was too
high. But the premium is pretty
low right now. One man’s
misfortune may be another guy’s
fortune. That’s just the way life is.
It’s creel. It’s terrible. We have to
deal with it as a church. By the
way we’re starting to deal with
that as a church. I know the Aveys
and other people are dealing with
it, but we still got a long way to
come in terms of how we deal with
that and the whole thing of making
it acceptable for people to do deal
with it.
We’re seeing export markets
come back slightly. They are going
to improve a little bit, not very
much. Don’t depend on exporting
our way out of this thing. We’re
going to have to get quality im
provement in our grain that we’re
shipping. We’re going to have to
ship more quality grain.
Consolidation is inevitable. I
didn’t say that every farm is going
to be big. I didn’t say every farm is
going to be small. There are going
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Faith And Farming
to be two kinds of fanners. One
that’s very big, and one that may
be is very small. There are not
going to be very many in between.
Twelve percent of the farmers now
produce 67 percent of the cash
receipts. Five percent of the
farmers by 1990 or 1991 are going to
produce 85 percent of it. You’re
going to see very large people.
You’re going to see very small
people. Either way you’re going to
make money. But you’re going to
have a terrible time in between.
The time a farmer putting out his
com crop and harvesting it and
going to south Texas or Ids wheat
crop and doing that probably if you
have all your land paid for and all
that, you’re going to be able to do
it.
You’re going to see emergence
specialized farming. I saw it in the
room tonight, different specialized
crops. I can tell you for sure
beyond the shadow of a doubt that
not everybody is going to be able to
raise all the com, soybean and
wheat they want to. No way. And
the quicker we break that system,
the better off we’re going to be
because the government has no
where to go with these crops.
We’re only fooling ourselves. All
over western Europe they’re doing
the same thing. There is no where
to go with all this milk, cheese,
com and wheat. We’re going to
have to figure out other crops to
grow. We’re going to have to beat
other people in specialty crops that
we’re bringing in to where our
imports exceeded our exports in
agriculture. The reason that is all
the specialty crops coming into
this country that we need to
produce in this country. They’re
going to be more labor'intensive.
You’re going to have to do different
things with your labor.
There are going to be fewer
dealers. I know in your town
you’ve seen it happen. It’s going to
continue to happen. They’re going
to go down to be where there are
only 4,000 or 5,000 dealers in the
United States. That’s all that you
can possibly support. There will be
fewer manufacturers. You haven’t
seen all the consolidation yet. I
know you’ve seen Ford join New
Holland or New Holland join Ford.
I know you’ve seen Case and IH. I
know you’ve seen Versatile trying
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to join Deere. Stieger just joined
Case and IH. You’re going to see
more yet. There is not room for
that many big manufacturers. I’m
not going to predict who is going to
be the next one. The next one and
some combination are going to go
tegether very quickly. That’s all I
can tell you. It won’t be long until
you read more.
Something intriquing for people
who are excited about agriculture
and the young engineers coming
out of school and the en
trepreneurs, and particularly
people who love to work with their
hands either with the soil or
equipment. There is going to be a
re-emergence of a lot of small
nitch companies. You’re seeing it.
You’re going to see more of it. You
know people are getting laid off in
the city. General Motors doesn’t
need as many people. Deere
doesn’t need as many people.
Hess ton doesn’t need as many
people. A lot of those people are
excited about agriculture. They’re
going to figure out in their head if
we go to work and we form a
venture here and we produce the
specialized product for a
specialized geographical part of
the United States and we take out
some of the middle men in this
thing, we can produce a product
again and have a nice little factory
of 100 or 50 people or whatever.
You’re going to see that springing
up. You’re seeing spring up right
now. You’re going to have either
the big or the small. You’re going
to have a lot of opportunities for
young people to go into service and
dealerships. Not dealerships the
way we think of them today
because the dealerships are going
to be large. A lot of those dealers
aren’t handling service properly.
There is going to be specialized
service opportunities for your
children and mine if they want to
stay in agriculture. They want lo
really be innovative and go back to
work.
But I see in a nutshell that all of
the seeds are being sewed in the
’Bos to make the ’9os very
productive in agriculture. I didn’t
say they’d be very profitable. I
didn’t say you’d get rich over night
in land. That may only happen
once in a lifetime. If you sold right,
you’re rich. If you didn’t, you
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didn’t have it in the first place. I
didn’t say any of those things. But
what I did say is that there is going
to be a re-emergence of a highly
productive North American
agriculture. Fewer people, yes.
1936 we probably peaked in
agriculture. Employment today
we down to less than probably two
percent of the national population
very quickly.
If we once get through, and we
get into our system the idea that
we’re going through a renaissance.
When you go through a
renaissance, you go through a dark
age. I sure hate to see rural
America and a lot of towns in
western Kansas fold and all those
things. But it’s inevitable. Believe
me, people, a lot of that was built
on irrigation, on high price land
and all those kind of things in
western Nebraska. It’s not
economical. Those towns were
wonderful. Those school systems
were wonderful. It was a fantastic
way to raise children. Tomorrow is
different than yesterday. The
people that set out there and hope
that tomorrow is coming is back or
yesterday is coming back
tomorrow will die on the vine.
What we as a church need to do is
have a great deal of empathy.
Maybe not a great deal of sym
pathy. Those words are very
tricky. Sympathy will not bring the
situation around for people to
realize what they have to deal with
and all of that. In other words, for
you and I to sit with them and say,
“Isn’t it too bad. It’s terrible.” You
can do that for a little while when
you have to do that to get through
that. The next thing is empathy.
Empathy is to take that person by
the hand and help them readjust
themselves into a future life. That
is the tough part. That might even
cost you out of your pocket book.
Sympathy is cheap. You can go the
corner coffee shop and sympathize
all you want to. You need to do
that. Don’t get that wrong. But
empathy comes with an expensive
price tag. If you really empathize
with the people that have been
forced into this transition, many
times, not of their own doing but of
world circumstances, and sure
some of it was by their own
decisions but those decisions
looked good. If you really em
pathize with them, then that means
you have to dig into your pocket
book. Or you have to dig into your
personal life. You have to dig into
your emotional life. You have to
begin to live with them and help
them get repotted. Help them face
life in the future.
I am not near as positive yet
about how we’re working through
the problems of those that are
going to get displaced. I know
we’re doing all the right things. I
know the Aveys, the Comelsons
and these kind of people are doing
all the right things. But somehow
we have a philosophy in the church
that we built in. It was a great
philosophy. But at these kind of
times it doesn’t serve us very well
that “if you’re good, you’ll
prosper”. The reverse side of that
philosophy is that if you’re not
good, you’re not going to prosper.
That isn’t said, but that’s felt. We
have to somehow be able to get our
empathy out and to quit pointing
fingers and saying well if you
hadn’t made that decision and that
decision, you wouldn’t be where
you’re at today. If Hesston Cor
poration hadn’t made this decision
and this decision I might not be
standing up here today either.
That’s beside the point. What we
have to do is deal with reality.
Somehow we as a church are going
to have to make people feel im
portant and good and worth
something even if they had a
failure. Their farm failed. They
didn’t fail.
They have made a decision here
and there that helped cause their
farm to fail. Who hasn’t done that.
Some of us who didn’t make those
decisions were lucky. Some of us
were prudent business people. But
there is no where in the scriptures I
find anywhere that says that if you
do everything good, you’ll prosper.
And likewise your failure.
Somehow we need to deal with
that.
So what has to happen. Prices
have to drop. Corn is the same
way. Soybeans are becoming the
same way. Some of that inflation
that went into the land has to come
out. When they told you there is
only so much land so you better
buy it today it’s going to be higher
tomorrow, somebody didn’t know
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