KIRK: More reasons to thank America’s farmers, ranchers

• Amy Kirk

Amy Kirk

Talk about it

When our country needs its citizens to do their patriotic duty, farmers and ranchers can always be counted on. They regularly stimulate the U.S. economy with their generous contributions in equipment repairs and help secure the employment of mechanics and the employees in the equipment parts department.

Tractor and implement parts and repairs can get pricey. The business of fixing or replacing parts in farm and ranch equipment is similar to the funeral business. It’ll never die.

If it wasn’t for equipment that’s used regularly and periodically breaks down, there wouldn’t be expensive parts, extensive repairs, or extreme rebuilding to pay for in order to keep equipment going another 6,934 hours (if the meter even works).

Today’s farm and ranch machinery is expected to run fairly steady in order to keep up with the ever growing demand to produce high quality nourishing food to feed the world.

Unfortunately tractor and implement parts aren’t standard or readily available on Walmart shelves, so what’s considered a substantial amount of money to an average ag man is spent on parts and labor to restore equipment back to operating status.

As long as people and livestock need food, tractors and various implements will keep the parts man and mechanics employed. Such highly depended upon equipment is all part of enabling farmers and cattle producers to keep up with the world’s increasing appetite for food.

In addition to benefiting the economy to keep their equipment working, men in agriculture also spend a small fortune on pop and candy bars. Such purchases may seem meager but they add up for the economy’s sake and are not only a convenient, easy-to-eat on the fly, quick energy-boosting food choice, they further contribute to the fight against hunger by allowing other people to eat the healthier foods farmers and ranchers produce.

Pop and candy bars stave off a guy’s hunger a little longer; keeping these men awake and allowing their tractors to continue doing farm work, putting up hay, storing feed, etc., but more importantly, guys don’t have to waste time stopping to eat lunch when there’s a lot of work to get done.

Modern tractors are equipped with computers that rely on other computers’ expertise to find the problem and call for certified or specially trained mechanics to fix them.

In today’s technological world, instead of putting the farmer’s and rancher’s industrious nature to good use repairing their own equipment, they’re having to put it to use finding new ways to continue producing food for the world using fewer natural resources and in spite of the various vice grip-like restrictions that is currently putting the squeeze on their livelihood.

They may only account for 2 percent of the U.S. population but they still manage to crank out food that feeds the world.

Farmers and ranchers don’t like having their equipment break down, waiting for parts to come in or repairs to get done, the expense of having to get their machinery fixed, and holding up work that needs to get finished up, but they can enjoy eating a hot lunch.

Amy Kirk and her husband raise their two kids on a fourth-generation cow/calf operation near Pringle. She blogs at ranchwifeslant.areavoices.com

Tags: amy kirk, life, farmers, ranchers, columnists, updates