Life Force (1980s)

[Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] I knew that's where he'd be probably check the thermometer every hour all night other Farmers other parts of the country they can do something sprinklers smudges something when the weatherman says a freeze may be on the way but Daddy the things he grows well there's nothing to do except hope hope the forecast is off a degree or two maybe [Music] hope or wish or maybe just will things to come out right I think he does that just Wills things to survive the life force is tough he says made to resist setbacks maybe so but I notice he's always out there giving it everything he's got just the same [Music] seed time as soon as the days begin to lengthen as soon as America's soils begin to respond to the capricious ups and downs of spring the Harvest to come are set in motion [Music] thank you today Society seems to be trying to outgrow and leave behind its rural beginnings but it is forever sustained by its temperate in the soil [Music] while an urban population gathers by the hundreds by the thousands by the hundreds of thousands to work in the industrial plants to turn out the Staggering inventories of manufactured goods [Applause] to make all those products which require such mountains of raw materials in the rural areas workers in America's largest single industry agriculture are going it alone almost by ones sometimes by twos but rarely in groups of any great numbers Farm people go about the business of producing what it takes to feed and clothe themselves and all the people in the metropolitan areas as well and while many of the things City people make diminish the Earth's supply of resources the production output from our rural areas is almost entirely renewable Q is Mark's 4-H project Mark knows of course that the idea is to be able to raise better beef but no Farm kid and especially not my brother Mark ever lets himself think of something as sweet and beautiful as curlicue it's just a piece of beef not while he's raising it I have a kidnappers crazy this for a while and I'll snap for a while all right foreign started in 4-H I could never remember what the fourth H was for and heart hands it always seemed to me like the other H should stand for home it's for health of course the process now for your project yes let's see Blanche cool and Sack it's a snap you're pretty clever so I got it from you Mom thank you I think we're going to but home just always seems more natural more the way it is on a farm how do you spell sufficient how am I supposed to get my homework done I guess I feel like there ought to be a fifth H for home because when you live in the country well that's where you are usually except for the time when you're in school I mean all of us in the family we work here together how's that oh that's great that looks good I've got a couple more what kind of crops are we going to plant this year corn I think mom runs tractors and clips the pig's needle teeth she's right in there beside dad anytime it's a two-person job and managing the farm takes both of them so what would it be about the curtains no I mean corn or beans I don't know it'll work out okay horizontal vertical vertical you don't mean very good horrible horizontal it is there you go okay you know you're prettier than a red heifer and a peanut butter cups [Music] of course they have things to do by themselves too mom likes making preserves dad likes working with machinery so to each his own I guess dividing up the chores is just not something country people get uptight about because there's plenty of work to go around how do you think it makes me feel to have a son that's 40 years old that shouldn't make you feel too bad at all of course it's not all work relatives and friends on both sides kind of like to gang up at our place especially those that live in town they claim it's so peaceful out here peaceful [Music] thank you okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the much-enbeat serenity of rural life is like the gold at the end of the rainbow a tantalizing myth for although farmers and ranchers are not usually rubbing shoulders with dozens of other people while they work the pressures on a grower are just as intense as any a city dweller knows a delay of as little as two or three days in getting a crop planted can make a difference of as much as three or four bushels to the acre at Harvest Time and nature throws plenty of Curves rain at the wrong time can make a field too wet to plow too soggy to seed for weeks cutting drastically into the yields a grower can expect from his labors which is one of the reasons incidentally why farmers have moved more and more toward big equipment toward the higher horsepower more expensive tractors wider planters the bigger combines [Music] size and power mean speed a way of buying time that all important critical time between when a job could be done and when it absolutely must be done if wet weather is bad dry may be even worse a farmer can sometimes replant a spring washout reseed with a crop that will be able to make even in an abbreviated growing season but few crops can survive a summer long drought month after month without rain [Music] Growers working with animals don't have it any easier Mother Nature has arranged it so that most babies start coming on as the seasons change when the weather is due to get warmer and forage for them is due to get more plentiful trouble is Nature's timing can be off the first lambs and the last blizzard may arrive at the same time as may have to be vaccinated when both man and Beast are numb with coal and pigs just about always come into the world trying to kill each other off [Music] the life force has two sides but it is only the animals that are saved but are snatched away from the Dark Side of the coin of life those are the ones that make the difference between profit and loss when the work is all done in the fall [Music] as spring flows northward across the continent the winter wheat greens up beside pastures still wearing Winter's drab baby animals and siliconer down coats snuggle up to their mothers the Sun bestows the life force and fortunately for us all there is one industry already able to make consistent and profitable use of our greatest renewable resource solar energy everything is in a state of becoming both blossoms and bees add their technology to the human Technologies which have revolutionized American agriculture for the ability to feed and clothe the nation whose population has steadily increased while the number engaged in agriculture has steadily decreased that achievement is not something that has been accomplished by country bumpkins the American Farmer is often a college trained businessman put Science and Technology to work for us [Music] Agronomy nutrition plant and animal genetics aquaculture it takes all of the life sciences the ultimate in knowledge and Technology to create the abundance we take for granted Americans eat and drink the fruits of Agricultural Science in every mouthful spending a smaller proportion of their income for food and eating better than any other Nation on Earth [Music] people like to say farming is a Gamble but that's not strictly true Mora calculated risk a good Farm manager knows that with all the variables he has to face not every year is going to be a Bonanza and he manages his Enterprises accordingly the only way he can stay in business year after year [Music] foreign [Music] last year was one of those calculated risk years for Daddy he was like getting into the fields in the first place and then when he thought it had dried out enough we got the tractor stack thank you neighbor sure that I could help but that wasn't the end of it the spring rains went into summer rain and then it rained some more [Music] and like sometimes happens a wet year and then an early freeze and nothing not a pod filled out a whole Year's work and nothing to show for it [Music] our neighbors farms and hours were all affected if you work in a manufacturing plant you get paid for it even if there's a layoff there's usually an unemployment check but in farming you never know you may get something you may not and even when you do it's not always on a scale with what you've put into it [Music] Eddie I think I found a tractor here unique to agriculture is a degree to which the farmer must personally underwrite the tremendous contribution he makes to the American economy Exxon or General Motors or Texas Instruments can turn to their stockholders to capitalize expansion or the replacement of production equipment but outside Equity capital is not available to our largest industry agriculture farmers and ranchers for the most part must turn to a three-part Source the Farm Credit system originally developed under enabling legislation from Congress but now totally owned by its borrowers in order to obtain the financial undergirding that all businesses require in today's economy short and intermediate credit for operating expenses seed fertilizer tractor fuel livestock living expenses a new piece of farm equipment such loans are available from production credit associations [Music] and Banks provide the funds to agricultural borrowers for land purchases buildings and building improvements [Music] irrigation systems and money for much of agriculture's marketing efforts increasingly handled on a Cooperative basis from finding buyers for farm products to handling them for export money for these farmer-owned businesses is available through the third arm of the Farm Credit system the banks for cooperatives [Music] funds are also available for those Cooperative businesses Farmers have established to refine or manufacture Goods primarily for their own use as a means to limit some of the costs of agricultural production but also sold to the public as a means to help stabilize farm incomes federal land Banks production credit associations thanks for cooperatives the financial backup the dollars and cents Lifeline for America's most efficient most productive industry agriculture the multiple product business that even in its Worst Years supplies an abundance of food and fiber [Music] thank you such abundance not only meets the needs of Americans provides our country with pluses in the balance of payments as well American agriculture the envy and the wonder of the world yet even in its abundance hardly a Surefire way for those who work at it to get rich to offset the risk which weather marketing conditions and other factors over which he has no control often place on him a farm manager sometimes turns to supplementary sources of income I was thinking maybe I should go back to teaching this year well let's not cross that bridge unless we have to in two out of three rural households more than half of the family income is derived from non-farm sources I mean you're as much as part of this organization as anybody else now you're sure you don't want me to try to line up a school who'd run this place I mean worse comes to worse I'll go get the job in town or or better yet we could have a big sale we could get rid of everything and put the money in a savings account and live happily ever after off the interest be money ahead ha you know you'd never do that I know while the Earth remaineth seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease these words from Genesis chapter 8 verse 22. remind us that we here in this agricultural community are a part of the Everlasting scheme of things although we may be sorely tried from time to time we must keep our roots I can't always remember everything the minister says vital life force only the way some of his words make me feel about how close people on a farm are to the life force to Nature and to what this country really is working people mostly doing the best they can no matter how rough the going gets a book I read somewhere said something I've always remembered democracy was forged on the land the land made America it said not so much what people took from it but what they had to put into it work and sweat and dreams the land made them tough and the toughness gave Americans what it takes to survive this morning when we woke up we didn't know if a freeze had wiped us out or not wiped us out for the second year in a row we didn't know whether all the money borrowed for seed and fertilizer and fuel and all the work the back-breaking work we didn't know if all that was going to go down the drain or not I think we're okay we didn't know what was gonna happen we just knew that some way or another this family like most Farm families was gonna do its best to stay on the land [Music]