Sean Dengler.

Our lexicon has lost the word farmer. During my farming career, I felt like myself as a farmer, but elsewhere, I was looked at as a grower. I was only growing corn, soybeans, and a few cover crops, but it still felt weird. The continuation of the siloing off of livestock and grain enterprises of farms is part of the reason. These farmers are cattle producers, these farmers are hog producers, these farmers are grain farmers.

Like a stock portfolio, farmers originally managed risk by having several different enterprises. A few pigs here, a few chickens there, and maybe a little bit of grain. At one point, hogs were called mortgage lifters. By diversifying risk, farmers could manage the ups and downs of various markets. Unfortunately, as farmers were siloed off into less income streams, they appear to be a grower or producer and less of a farmer. The push by industry groups ensures these labels continue to be used.

This push makes a farmer feel less important. It is a reduction in expertise and institutional knowledge which is passed on from generation to generation. With less income streams to manage, it consolidates farmers in the respective growing or producing arenas. The more automated agriculture becomes, the more human skill and intuition gets taken out of it. Leaving only a few, who live farther and farther away, controlling the important parts of the food system.

This current system forces farmers to play within its boundaries as the wealth leaves rural Iowa and farmers’ hands to out of state investors and landowners. Farmers are treated as a cog in the machine, instead of playing a vital role in the food supply chain. Back in the olden days, agriculture fed the nearby societal structures. It was not about helping large corporations improve their bottom line.

By being a cog in the machine, farmers get a tough deal while Big Ag wins out. Farmers take on all the risk of the weather, the machinery, and the infrastructure. In the meantime, large grain processors and meatpackers can dictate the market with their immense market power. They play chess while everyone else tries to find the one checker to get on the chess board.

This brings us to a specific point in time where change is coming for better or worse. Either the current system needs to change with the new Farm Bill coming up or kicking the can down the road will cause greater pain in the future. By reducing farmers to only growers and only producers and not treating them with self-dignity, these systems are taking advantage of the farmers and their fellow citizens. People, farmers or not, are starting to see this problem.

Bailouts for farmers are being seen as a problem with the system. These bailouts, while helping farmers, are also seen to bail out the lenders, input suppliers, and other agriculture related industries for making bad decisions. These bad decisions happen because the system bails them out. When taxpayer money is involved, the people deserve to have their voices heard.

A way to fix this is to empower farmers to serve their communities, not multinational corporations. This will build resilience in rural Iowa communities and America’s food systems. The time is now for farmers to be more than only growers. The time is now to enable farmers to diversify their operations and truly become a farmer again.

Sean Dengler is a writer, comedian, farmer, and host of the Pandaring Talk podcast who grew up on a farm between Traer and Dysart. You can reach him at sean.h.dengler@gmail.com.