On the farm we have started irrigating cotton. Things went from the cool 70's to the high 90's in little more than a week. That was quick.
Timing the first irrigation is a challenge. If we water too soon the plants will go to stalk. If I dawdle too much, I will get behind and we will stress the cotton. Just another reason I don't need to go to Vegas.
The almonds are developing fast. We should have hull split in a few weeks.
The wheat is drying down quickly and will be cut soon.
The onions are growing quickly too.
Spring is nearly over and summer is upon us.
Farmers As An Endangered Species Part II
by Paul H. Betancourt
May 30, 2015
A few weeks ago I wrote about farmers as an endangered species. Since then I had an interesting conversation with Dr. Matthew Jendian of Fresno State. Dr. Matt told me that 10% of the US work force works for non-profits. Really? You could have knocked me over with a feather. [Insert joke about farming also being non-profit. ;-D )
Think about it- less than 2% of our workforce lives and works on our farms producing our food. Meanwhile over 10% of our workforce works for various non-profit organizations. That is amazing. What does that say about our economy? I think it is an amazing expression of our nation's wealth when that many people are freed up and not needed to produce products or provide services.
That got me thinking about other professions. There are an estimated 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. That is almost 5% of the US workforce. [I think I was behind most of them this past week, but that's another story.] Bless those men and women, they get our stuff moved around the country.
Our active duty military is around 1.4 million, even with the post conflict draw downs.
According to the government itself, 4.1 million people work for the federal government alone. That does not include state and local government employees.
OK, I think you get the point. Farming is our primary occupation. Without farmers, the rest of a modern civilization cannot exist. Our economy has matured to the point where less than 2% of our people live and work on farms. That has freed up millions of people from the drudgery of subsistence farming I have shared this quote before, but I think former Washington Governor Dixie Lee Ray sums it up best,
Sometime in the future, when all the accomplishments
of the 20th century are recorded for posterity, it will finally be
acknowledged that our greatest achievement by far has been the introduction of
high-tech, high-yield agriculture. Measured in terms of benefit to human
society, an adequate diet of nutritious, abundant and affordable food eclipses
all other developments of this most remarkable century. Neither computer
technology nor transistors, robotics, advances in communication and
transportation, life saving antibiotics and modern medicine, nuclear energy,
synthetics, plastics and the entire petrochemical industry rank as high in
importance as the advances in food production. And all these other wonderful
breakthroughs probably would not have happened without a well fed population (Ray 67).
You're welcome.
Now I will get back to work.
Hope you have a great week.
P
Non-profits:http://grantspace.org/tools/knowledge-base/Funding-Research/Statistics/Number-of-people-employed-in-the-nonprofit-sector
Trucking:http://www.truckinfo.net/trucking/stats.htm
Military: http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=united-states-of-america
Lawyershttp://www.wisegeek.org/what-percent-of-the-us-population-do-lawyers-comprise.htm#didyouknowout
Federal government:http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/
Ray, Dixie Lee, Environmental Overkill, Regnery Gateway, 1993.
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