by Carie Moore
I spent the weekend at the annual Dale and Martha Hawk Museum celebration. Our family enjoys being a part of agriculture history. It truly is a place where young and old come together with mutual respect and learn about what farming through the generations truly is.
We talk about improving our carbon footprint on the land, air quality, soil health, production, labor, time, and safety. Take a step back in time and see how far agriculture has come to make food production so streamlined and better for rural and urban areas.
As I look at the large steam engines I wonder how many injuries occurred due to burns and moving parts. I wonder how much time it took to plant 40 acres. They couldn’t just jump on the tractor and go to the field. They had wood to cut beforehand, a lot of wood, and there were no chainsaws. The machines needed water and they didn’t have garden hoses or large water trucks to help haul the water. They needed time to get the fire going and build up the steam. They couldn’t leave it unattended and having two people to drive it was helpful. How did they get parts back then? There was no calling up a dealer and sending someone 30 miles in your truck to be back before noon with part in hand.
As you walk through the school, the church, the houses, the general store, the blacksmith shop, and the saw mill, you realize very quickly how much time tasks took and how physically tedious they were. To do one job, there was usually another job that was required before hand to accomplish it. To do dishes or cook a meal, they had to start a fire, which meant wood had to be cut. Food was either picked from the garden, canned, or if it was meat it had to be butchered and processed (and not at a drop off and pick up in a week place).
In the relatively short amount of time, we have advanced agriculture in ways two generations ago never could have imagined. But if they had not made the initial contributions where would we be today? I would like to say thank you to all the generations before me. Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for putting food on your family’s table. Your work contributed to today’s successes and because of you we can help families put food on their table.
We’ve come so far. I can’t even imagine what will happen two generations from me that will be the norm. Let’s appreciate ag for what it was, what it is, and what it will become.