Podcaster Vance Crow always asks his guests what beliefs they have that are not shared by their “tribes.” I’m available, but strangely enough, Mr. Crow has never asked me to be on his show. I do have beliefs that would get me kicked out of most coffee shops or convenience stores in rural America.
We farmers, well, all of them except me, are upset about the growth of the solar industry in farm fields. I’m not sure about the climate or economic reasons for subsidizing solar, but I am sure that there is plenty of room for both corn farms and solar farms in the corn belt. After all, we’ve got a record crop in the fields and prices so low that none of us are making any money. Heck, a bunch of guys on X are talking about the fact that corn prices are the same now as they were in the early 1970’s, when everything else was much cheaper.
The head of one of the biggest farm cooperatives is sounding the alarm in an essay making the rounds, arguing that we’re headed for a crisis in rural America. I’m afraid she’s right, and while there are lots of problems in agriculture, including our headlong rush to alienate our overseas customers, all of our problems revolve around one simple fact: We raise more corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice than our remaining customers are willing to buy at profitable prices.
So, as far as I’m concerned, we can cover central Illinois with solar panels. Maybe they only make sense because of misguided government policy, but we farmers have long since forfeited the right to complain about government incentives that benefit industry. I own stock in an ethanol plant, sell most of my corn to the ethanol industry and will be perfectly happy if we move toward year around E-15. Ethanol has been a boon to corn farmers because it increases demand. Can solar farms help reduce our price destroying oversupply?
Ok, so I’m being slightly tongue in cheek here, but the main point is valid. We are in no danger of running out of good farmland.
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Oh, and one other thing. We farmers spend a lot of time talking about property rights. Until our neighbor does something we don’t like. I often remind my wife (who has long since tuned me out) that ‘“foolish consistency is the hobogoblin of little minds.” We don’t need perfect consistency in our beliefs, we have to be willing to change with the times and all that, but either we believe that a person has the right to dispose of their property as they see fit or we don’t.
If anybody is still reading, here’s another eccentric idea I’ve been kicking around. I’m pretty sure that some 50 years ago I wrote an FFA speech complaining that “a loaf of bread that costs one dollar only has 16 cents of wheat.” I’ve heard the same formulation hundreds of times in the half century since. Those middlemen are getting all of our profits!
On further thought, it has occurred to me that being a small and inexpensive part of the supply chain has its advantages.
When markets turn, and they will, whether because of a widespread drought, a return to sensible trade policies, or the loss of thousands of acres of corn production to solar panels, the consumer may not even notice. After all, if the cost of the wheat in that loaf of bread goes up in price by 50%, the retail price will increase much less. When we are only responsible for a small part of what the consumer pays, our profits can increase by a great deal without raising consumer prices enough to decrease the quantity demanded. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, even if it won’t play well in speech contests.
I have more heretical opinions, but I’ll save them for any future podcast appearances.
Blake Hurst is a farmer and greenhouse grower in northwest Missouri.