Recently, the old farm problem has reared its ugly head again. The farm problem, if you have forgotten, is the fact that farmers can’t afford to farm. This is an old problem that dates back to the beginnings of civilization, when in Mesopotamia, in 5342 B.C., the price of water buffalo dung spiked to all time highs and the flax seed market bottomed out, mostly because ancient Egypt decided to stop buying flax seed from Mesopotamia and instead started importing it from Brazil, which at the time was a burgeoning flax seed producer.
From its infancy in the cradle of civilization, the farm problem grew and spread to other cultures and civilizations. The Hebrew culture, for instance, took a run at solving the problem by forgoing crop production and relying on manna from a distant trading partner. But after forty years, the supply of manna dried up and they had to go back to growing their own crops, so manna was only a temporary solution for the farm problem.
Eventually, the ancient Greeks took a crack at solving the farm problem. They put their best and brightest marble bust models to the conundrum. For instance, Aristotle started out by writing about agriculture, but then he soon gave up and transitioned to easier topics like metaphysics. Then the ancient Romans came along and tried to solve the farm problem by building lots of cobblestone roads, only to realize they built their roads too small for their mammoth wheat carts and potholes led to the fall of their civilization.
Fast forward many centuries to America where, to solve the farm problem, the citizenry enslaved others to do their farming for them, but this did very little to solve the farm problem and, in fact, led to many tangential problems. That more or less brings us to modern times when the farm problem is reawakening with a new sense of urgency. Due to rising input costs and low commodity prices, some farmers will likely be forced to sell their farms. Unless manna falls from heaven or the federal government, this will be a very bad year for the farm problem.
Truly, I wish I knew the solution. Federal manna will likely fall, but that will not solve the farm problem. And I doubt it is as simple as eschewing all modern farming in favor of old agrarian ways, as the farm problem is as old as time. Many farmers are keeping the faith and hoping that newly installed policies will pay dividends and lead to a revival in the bread basket of America. That’s what they’ve been told at least. However, I believe, if I remember my history right, that once ancient Egypt started buying flax seed from Brazil, Mesopotamia was left holding the bag.
I wonder how my history teachers got it so wrong?!?
Yep, history teachers are pretty useless these days 😉
Great post! Unless you grew up, lived or are living on a farm; you have no mentality of what it truly takes to make and keep it running. I still think that all kids should be required to do some time on farms in their lives. I think it may give them a better perspective on how things really work.
Yeah, farming is not for the faint of heart, for sure. I wish it was more profitable, but at this point, if I break even I feel like I’m doing pretty good. Seems like we, as humans beings, would have figured out a solution for the farm problem by now but it still seems as problematic as ever, especially this year
Doesn’t help that major crop markets went away or had to rot in some fields thanks to the actions of a false orange tinted deity.
Yeah, and I doubt the crop markets are coming back this time