Harvest heroes

Jana Mathia, Gazette Editor | Jul 23, 20200

Harvest has begun in the southwestern portion of the county and is rolling along. To all the farmers out there, just in case no one has told you lately, thank you. Thank you for what you do, for the food and commodities you provide and for what that in turn does for our communities.

Farmers (which heretoafter shall mean all people busting their rears to put food on our tables; farmers and livestock producers alike) have been greatly disrespected in the last year or so. Politicians and actors have made disparaging comments in very public settings. The irony is, the response has been only to increase the awareness and support of what our farmers are doing every day. These hardworking men and women across the country have stood up, with class, to take that unfriendly spotlight and shine it on all they do, raising awareness and understanding to a public mostly disconnected with their food sources.

It would take some study to figure out how the term “farmer” went from one of renown to rebuke. In the Middle Ages the landowners were the wealthy ones; they decided what crops to plant and when and plotted the agricultural future of their lands to sustain them into the future. “The Good Earth” by Pearl Buck is–in brief–about a man who owns a little land and works to attain more to bring his family into posterity, ending with the irony that his sons plan to sell the land for quick profit despite his insistence to keep it. In “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the main character’s mother is distraught at the suggestion he not be a farmer, distressed he won’t be able to be his own man and would be at the whim of others for his support. When did it become anything other than a nobel profession to be a farmer? What makes people who have likely never planted a garden feel confident enough to degrade framers?

I’m not saying farmers are saints and there aren’t things wrong with the agricultural system. I do feel that, when it comes to the wellbeing of the land and livestock they oversee, no one knows better than the farmer. There will be exceptions, yes, but for the most part, the farmers wants to assure they and their successors are still growing the crops on that ground for decades or centuries to come. A corporation or ag business many not be concerned for the well being of the animals or soil, but our farmers are. Our farmers are the heroes of harvest, year after year, regardless whether Hollywood or D.C. approve or not.

So, again, thank you farmers.

And thanks also to the farm families, to the wives that drive for an hour each way to fetch a part from town to fix busted equipment. Thank you to those who work alongside the farmers, driving harvest trucks or combines or sitting at obscure elevators to weigh their cargo. Thank you to anyone who has made or delivered a meal to those working harvest–you’re feeding the people who feed the world and that is no small thing.

Harvest on the Palouse is no less than a symphony with the sound of machinery whirling, wheels turning on dirt and asphalt, grain auger groaning, grain falling, lunches made and eaten and trains and barges moving. It takes many hands to play all these instruments and much appreciation is due. What our farmers do is worthy of our respect and gratitude more so than popular culture deems to grant them.

Jana Mathia,

Gazette Editor