The New Year has dawned and we are now in 2016. I don’t know about you, but it will take me weeks to remember to write “2016” on checks.
I stopped making New Years resolutions a long time ago, but I always hope to make better health choices, make contact with old friends and spend more time with family. Some years it has worked out well, but not always.
What does 2016 hold for agriculture and our family farms? Since I don’t have a magical crystal ball, I can’t say, but I’m sure it will have its ups and downs.
We will either have wet weather or a drought, or a combination of the two; we will have great cattle prices or they will bottom out (again); we’ll have bumper crops or lower-than-expected yields. Farming is a roll of the dice and all we can do is hope that we don’t shoot craps.
Unfortunately, the USDA is predicting that farm income will continue to decline in 2016, and production expenses are expected to increase. While it might appear that farmers are starting off the year with bad news, predictions are just that and predictions don’t always come true.
In 1916, Charlie Chaplin said “cinema is nothing more than a fad” and that people would prefer live theater over films. Tell that to Disney. The latest installment of the Star Wars trilogy raked in more than $528 million during its opening weekend. Sorry Charlie. However, I can predict that will be my first and last reference to anything Star Wars-related in Ozarks Farm & Neighbor.
Then there was the whole Y2K thing in 1999 when the world waited for the “Millennium Bug” to shut down life as we knew it at midnight on Jan. 1, 2000 when all of the computers would stop working because they would be unable to compute the year 2000. At 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000, a lot of people were disappointed that the lights didn’t go out and that there wasn’t anarchy in the streets.
Let’s also not forget that, according to the Mayan calendar, the world was set to end on Dec. 21, 2012. Last time I checked, the world is still turning.
My point is that there is no way to say what is going to happen as the days go by, but we have to remain optimistic and do the very best we can to keep agriculture alive and growing. After all, the world is depending on us to help provide not only food, but biofuels, plastics, cosmetics, tires and countless other products that have animal and grain components.
While I can’t predict the future, I do expect that agriculture will continue to come under fire by animal rights groups, as well as from those who believe that farmers are purposely contaminating the soil and water with harmful chemicals in order to cultivate genetically modified foods. I’m sure I’m not alone in my expectations.
I also expect that we will see more and more producers striving to provide products to specific markets in an effort to adapt to our world today. We might not like it, but the market for free-range chickens, grass-finished beef and grazing pigs is here to stay, and it is a very valuable market for producers right here in the Ozarks.
While we might think that the odds are against agriculture today, we can’t simply throw our hands up in the air and say we give up because of the predictions. If that were the case, no hay would ever get mowed when the weatherman predicted a slight chance of rain.
Farming, just like life, is a game of chance and it is very unpredictable, but just remember that we are a pretty resilient segment of the world’s population and it takes more than a few naysayers to get us down.
May the force be with you in 2016… OK, that is the last reference to Star Wars this year – maybe.
Julie
