Great respect to farmers for always pulling through
Good day to my readers on Steemit. We've been blessed with a new week and today being a busy Monday, on my way to finish some errands, I passed by some fields. To me, they represent many things and today they showed me the hard work of farmers who grow our food.
We just see the plants and might even think of those fields as something peaceful and even inviting for a walk, but the men and women who work there are playing a game full of stress.
Just to start working a field, a farmer has to spend a lot of money. Then he hopes for a good amount of rain, and also that the market prices for the products he plans to sell will be high by the time the harvest comes.
There are a lot of people who have run farms in the past and they were definitely playing a very stressful game to try and make a living off the land. Of course today’s farmer is far smarter than their counterparts of the past. Rather than only planting a crop and then waiting to see what happens, a lot of farmers these days actually enter into contracts to sell their crops before they even put the seeds in the ground.
These contracts can promise a certain price per crop for the farmer, which helps to safeguard their profits in case the market experiences a crash later in the season. Of course, as with any form of business, there is always the possibility of failing and the smartest of farmers can purchase insurance that will protect them in the event of a natural disaster, such as a large drought.
They have some waysof looking after themselves in case something goes wrong. Like they won’t grow just one type of crop, as that would be too much of a risk, they’ll grow a few and have some animals too like cows and chickens. They can sell their produce and make some money that way. They can even try to make something better from what they grow or raise, like they make cheese from milk for example. Some even rent out part of their farm to others and there are farms that even have tourists visit to see how they work.
Some other things farmers do today is store a lot of the things they harvest. Usually when a farmer harvests something it is sold immediately at the market for the lowest price.
Today there are many ways to store the things that have been harvested for a few months before they are sold when the market price is higher. There are many ways that have been developed to apply water to the areas of the field that need it, in order to save money. Also, they take care of the dirt by planting cover crops in the off season to keep the dirt strong and healthy even when it is dry.
Even with the better methods of managing risk that are available today, you can never assure that there will not be any calamities. But by being smart about them, you can find ways to assure your survival and of making a living from the farm. I have serious respect for farmers.