Test Tube Farmer Essay

The American Farmer, Test Tube Farmer, and Economy I am what some people might consider the dying breed of the Great American Farmer. This statement may or may not be true. I have been a farm boy all of my life. I consider the style of farming we do, as the “John Deere” method. I have recently been introduced to a new method where people in a lab make crops more rapidly under a black-light. To most people in western Kansas, we do not prefer this method of farming, and the way they want things to be grown. I believe in the John Deere method because, here in western Kansas this is the backbone of everything, especially here in small town Scott City. Picture what our town would look like if there were no farming. Even though the “John

So much so, that I am planning on majoring in agronomy or agricultural science, then minoring in mechanics. “John Deere” farming, therefore, is a large part of my life, and I would be unemployed if it died. I recently heard in my math class that farming was declining, and is continually declining. This statement frustrated me, and to a degree, scared me. Farming is the only job that I want in life. I know that new ways to farm such as in a lab or other strange, and unnatural methods are continually on the rise. Things may grow in a test tube in a lab, but you cannot beat the way of old-fashioned farming. In my opinion, rising at six in the morning, fueling, greasing up, and climbing in the tractor until eleven o’clock at night, fixing things when they break down, stopping when it rains, or to refill with seed or fuel. Working with my hands, out in the elements, or in an air conditioned tractor cab with auto-steer, my lunch box, and the radio. All of which being what gives me peace, calms me down and releases my stress. Hearing those methods of farming are dying makes me sad. Therefore, for the past five years that I have been a farmer, this is the knowledge that I have