If you asked me why I write this blog, it would be to share my passion of farming. As I age, my passion wanes. As I get more grand children, my focus wanders.
I do try to focus on hot farming topics and my dealings with them. My personal problems or family matters nver got many hits, but write something like the seed is worth more than the planter and you go from 50 hits to 1000 hits.
I am not here to produce numbers but I figure the more people who read a story get more encouragement from it. That may not be true at all.
What is commercial farming anyway? You have Parker Brothers across the street, a family farm around 2500 acres. You have Cochran Farms the other direction, dad and son. You have a lot of small farms around me, some rented out, some still farmed by the owner. What is commercial farming, anyway?
Farming is a very broad subject. I tend to focus on corn, soybeans, and wheat and the way I produce them, which is notill or non tillage production of these crops.
Commercial farming has gotten a bad name. I think people confuse it with corporate farming. Corporate farming to me is when the seed company I buy seed from competes with me for land to farm. Most people see them as people only interested in the money from the operation, not the feeling or esthetics of farming.
When I chose my career of agricultural education, at least I gave myself a chance at farming. I know many ag educators who have little to do with the land and others who seem like teaching is a second career to farming. Those are rare.
What do you think of when you here the words, commercial farming? Is that like commercial fishing?
Ed Winkle
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