Grumble 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇬🇱 on Nostr: So... 110 years ago or so, the US needed wheat for export to Europe - they were ...

So... 110 years ago or so, the US needed wheat for export to Europe - they were having a war and needed food since their workers were at the front. Wheat prices went up, and markets did what they do and farmers started growing wheat. And for a few years, prices kept going up, and more farmers kept growing wheat.

Then the war ended, exports slowed, and wheat prices dropped. And market did what markets do, and farmers stopped growing wheat. Haha - just kidding! Farmers bought *more *land to grow *more *wheat, because if you make less money per bushel, you have to grow more bushels! That's just science.

And for most of the 1920s, wheat prices kept falling. And farmers kept borrowing more money and buying more land (which was less and less productive, because the good land was already growing wheat, etc.) By 1930, most of these farmers were in serious debt, the crop yields were shitty because you grow one crop for a decade you wear out the soil, and because of some idiocy on the stock market, the banks really needed some cash and they foreclosed on the farmers.

And then farmers, people who should always have enough food for themselves, were kicked off the land and headed out to California to find work picking crops.

Farmers - "the common clay of the new west" Haha!

Also - the people who farm 3500 acres aren't "farmers" like there were farmers 100 years ago. A married couple could homestead 80 acres, and that was a *lot *of work for two people. Modern "farmers" are doing the work of 40 families. You might as well compare a WalMart to a mom & pop convenience store.

So... do I feel bad for farmers? No, I do not. They (via the Farm Board, their lobbying organization) has blocked immigration reform for over two decades, enabling this administration's destructive ICE behavior.

Disclosure: My great grandfather was the last full-time farmer in my family. He moved from Iowa to homestead in Idaho (Teakean, Idaho - near Orofino - it's too small for maps) around the first world war. His daughter married the boy next door (Kendrick, Idaho), they homesteaded some nearby land, and during the Depression lived off hunting, the chickens, the cow, their garden, and whatever summer work grandpa could get - mostly fire tower watch duty. When WW2 broke out, they and their three kids moved near town (Post Falls, Idaho) where they could keep their garden (no livestock) and grandpa could do war work. His wages bought land, because he meant to get back to farming. The last chunk of farmland they owned was sold off when the town grew around it in the 70s and changed the zoning and hiked the taxes, and the hay crops wouldn't cover what the county demanded every year.

The family back in Iowa? The cousins of my mom's generation were the last to farm, and their kids and grandkids all have city jobs.

https://youtu.be/hYTQ7__NNDI