John Phipps: Why It's Important to be Grateful for the Good Times in Ag

I stumbled across a great graph from farmdocdaily recently. Gary Shnitkey and crew crank out these summaries for Illinois farmers with straightforward comments and explanations, but this particular edition deserves a Thanksgiving tie-in, I think.

This graph and the associated numbers are specific to Illinois farmers, but probably mirror similar trends for grain producers all over the Midwest. As the graph shows, 2021 was a blowout year for this average 1300-acre farm example. Those of us who thought 2012 was good times, had to pick our jaws up when as 21 unfolded. Even more amazing, the good times largely kept rolling through 2022, with good yields and prices, factors that normally repel each other.

The projection for 2023 is sobering to say the least. What interested me was my reaction to the 21 and 22 numbers. I began reciting a series of “yabbuts”. “Ya, 21 was a fantastic year, but then inputs and rents began to take off”, for example. Farmers tend to be sensitive to even clear evidence they are doing well, even very well, financially. Perhaps it’s our lifelong embrace of victimhood, which has served us well when we go to Washington for money. Perhaps it’s the gut-wrenching realization that our competition for acres has just ratcheted up a bunch – if a 1300-acre farm is seeing profits like this, the guy with 6000 will be paying astronomical rents and purchase prices for land next to me, or even under me.

Despite the tiresome hysteria in ag media about foreign and outside land buyers, we know who is forking out 30K per acre – people who look like us. These two years will entice children back to farms too, adding more competitive pressure. So maybe we have a few reasons to be uncomfortable appearing successful.

Veterans of farm booms know how painful the downward adjustment can be - the estimates for next year demonstrate that - and we don’t look forward to it. But all these mental denial gymnastics accomplish are to rob us of a chance to accept and express gratitude for prosperity, deserved or not.

Civil War general Lew Wallace famously wrote, “One is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune.” One way to acquit ourselves with grace and to cherish this moment, is to simply be grateful without reservation.