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Published on 11/24/02

Farmers allow us all to choose

By Mike Isbell
University of Georgia

If you're a "Baby Boomer" or younger, you weren't around in the "old days" when people's lives were structured around putting food on the table.

But my father was.

Even though his father had a small general store in mountains of north Georgia, if they were going to have food on the table, they still had to raise it or grow it.

My father always enjoyed telling the story of the day my grandfather called on Mr. Ewing to slaughter their hog. Mr. Ewing might not have enjoyed telling the story as much as my dad did.

Mr. Ewing and the hog

The hog was kept in a slightly slanting-floored pen with a sloping tin roof. Mr. Ewing carefully centered the sights of his 22-caliber rifle on the center of the hog's forehead to kill it quickly.

And he fired.

But the bullet ricocheted off the hog's head, hit the sloping metal roof, ricocheted off it, and hit Mr. Ewing in the center of his forehead, knocking him to the ground!

The hog wasn't bothered very much, but Mr. Ewing wound up with a very big knot on his head.

Hey, it wasn't you

Now just think for a moment. If it weren't for our farmers, just about all of us would have stories to tell our kids about hog killing and having to work in the fields. And we might be telling them that when we weren't working in the fields, we were preparing the next meal or preserving food for the winter.

As modern technology changed agriculture, farmers became more efficient. A hundred years ago, one farmer could feed only five other people. So folks had to grow their own food. That's the reason my grandfather did.

Today's farmer feeds about 128 people. That allows the rest of us to choose the lifestyle we live without worrying about having to grow food to put on our table.

We can be anything

We can be doctors and lawyers, teachers and ballplayers, factory workers and carpenters -- even county agents. We can be those things because our farmers feed us.

About 98 percent of us are liberated from working the soil, and that makes it easy to forget how dependent we are on our farmers for food.

It's important for every American to know how very lucky we are to have the best farmers in the world working hard to grow and deliver the best food in the world to us every day.

So this Thanksgiving Week, enjoy your food. And appreciate all those who made it possible: our farmers.

Mike Isbell is the Heard County extension coordinator with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Experts/Sources:
Mike Isbell
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