My View from the Country...an essay by Tom Giessel

I believe in family farmers. For many, the definition of a family farm is elusive, at best. Through my eyes I see a family farm not so much a place, but an episode in time in which all mankind benefits. It is a unique alignment of human spirit and soul with Natures' gifts of land, water, air, plants and animals. From this natural union grows a responsibility for the bounty necessary to sustain life itself as well as a commitment to the future.

The term "family farmer" is singular, but in reality it is plural. A family farmer draws freely on the energies and spirit of a spouse, parent, grandparent, sibling, son or daughter, and, at times, friends, neighbors and a community. Just as freely, the farmer gives back without question. The same relationship is inherent in the farmers' bond with the intuitive accountability that is inherent to a sustainable agriculture. The family farmer also recognizes the limits of the physical, mental, social and spiritual commitment that can be made by the soul and is cognizant of stretching or ignoring these boundaries.

As I journey through life on the vast Kansas prairie, I am afforded continual opportunities to expand my very being. I experience the alpha and omega of life, the celebration of the abundant harvest as well as frustration in a crop lost to the weather. My spirit swells as I hold, and then let slide through my fingers, the kernels of grain the earth yields. The smell of fresh mowed hay or newly turned soil is like no other. Words cannot describe the sense of fulfillment in coaxing from the earth, the gifts that sustain life. The recurring silence of the countryside allows me to pause from time to time and ponder the very beauty of what binds me to the land. My eyes see the miracles of everyday life.

For me, farming is first and foremost, an "art." Family farmers around the world are indeed, artists. This is the fundamental principle which sets family farmers apart from Agribusiness, corporate and factory farms. Family farmers are the "culture" in agriculture. And this is why I believe in family farmers.