Farmers and ranchers are faced with a perpetual dilemma — how to decipher the agricultural markets in ways that hopefully will provide enuf profit from their enterprises to keep them in bizness year after year into future generations.
Alas, deciphering the ag markets is easier said than done and I’ve never known a farmer or rancher who thought he or she had a perfect insight into the markets.
And, to help farmers decipher the ag markets is an entire phalanx of self-declared marketing gurus who, eagerly, for a healthy sum of money, will provide a farmer with marketing advice of all types — personal visits, phone calls, newsletters, podcasts, social media connections, charts, graphs, historic data, brokerage services, etc.
And, yet, after availing themselves of all the offered marketing advice, farmers and ranchers too often still find themselves on the short-end of the assured profit margin.
All the above brings me to this ag marketing story, the nugget of which wuz provided by my height-challenged friend, ol’ Bob Doff. Here’s the story.
A beleaguered, cash-strapped farmer wuz mending a washed-out water gap in a pasture fence when he saw a piece of glass shining through the surface of the mud and muck. When he pulled it out, it wuz a bottle made out of glass so dark he couldn’t see through it to see its contents.
So, to his great surprise he found that the metal bottle top would unscrew easily. Now, imagine his greater surprise when he opened the bottle and before his eyes a magic, smiling genie appeared out of a smoky cloud.
The tiny genie surprised him further when it spoke these words. “Thanks you, kind Sir, for releasing me from my bottle prison. I’ve been washing downstream for months and finally ended up buried in the mud. I thought I was a goner. As thanks for releasing me, I have the power to grant you any one wish. What will your wish be?”
The astounded farmer replied without much thought, “My fondest wish would be to always make a nice profit from any technique I use in the agricultural commodity markets!”
The genie’s smile evaporated into a frown and wrinkled brow. He replied to the farmer, “Do you, Sir, realize how difficult it will be for me to grant you that particular wish? The ag markets are infinitely puzzling from the infinite number of constantly moving parts and factors such as global production, droughts, floods, storms, monopolistic corporations, insider trading, incompetent regulatory agencies, universal greed, ineffective farm bills, government environmental policies, global trade relationships, transportation problems, energy supply and cost, input inflationary prices, constantly changing consumer preferences, and population trends. Those are just starters. Do you see the problem for me? Would you even consider making a simpler wish that I could grant you?”
That put the poor farmer in the horns of a dilemma. Now, he felt sorry for the genie. So, he pursed his lips and said, “Well, I’d settle if you could tell me how to understand women.”
At those words, the genie almost burst into tears, and he replied: “You, Sir, are a tough one. After considering your second wish, I’ll grant you your first wish. From this day forward, I guarantee that any way you use the ag markets will assure you of a commodity price equal to the government’s monthly published 100% parity price. That way every acre of your farm will produce disposable income for you.”
I call that a wishful thinking story with a serious moral to it.
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I’m finishing this column on Wednesday, May 15, and the previous few days have been eventful. First, all the local Yield family members, including the two great grandsons, met Saturday for an early Mother’s Day meal at the Cupalahunert Restaurant & Brewery. That wuz good eatin’ and a lot of fun.
Then Sunday afternoon Nevah and I drove to Yates Center, Kan., and overnighted with her twin sister and brother-in-law, who stuffed us with steak and trimmings. We spent the evening playing cards and laughing a lot.
Monday, after breakfast, we continued our trip down to Parsons to attend the memorial service for our son-in-law’s mother. She lived a long and productive 89 years.
While in the Parsons area, we met a number of treasured friends and even squeezed in time for a short visit with my old friend and compatriot Markus Parkus and his wife.
Our drive through the Flint Hills coming and going wuz simply beautiful and inspiring. The Flint Hills are now at their most appealing. Thanks to an abundance of rain this spring, the tallgrass prairie is verdant and from the road looks like a million acre golf course with plenty of rocky hazards. After the severe drought the past few years, it was refreshing to see all the ponds brimming full.
And, the wheat fields we saw are headed out and look very promising for a good harvest. Sadly, a few fields we saw had been inundated and ruined by recent flood waters.
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Seldom a day goes by that I don’t receive by regular mail or email several solicitations to make a political donation. To me, it seems any donations made at this time are wasted. Name me a voter who doesn’t already know everything there is to know about Biden, Trump, and even Kennedy? I don’t think any amount of money, or any method of persuasion, will change the mind of any voter. That’s why I shred all the donation mail and, appropriately, make garden compost out of it.
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I’ve finally got all my garden planted. Now, I’ve got to put my effort into maintaining what I’ve got planted. My gardening words of wisdom for the week are: “When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.” Have a good ‘un.
